100 Word Review – O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen Brothers (Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy), do it again.

Set in 1930s American Deep South, three escaped convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) attempt to avoid the authorities, tangling with a range of weird and wonderful characters, on their quest for hidden treasure.

Loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey and co-starring John Goodman and Holly Hunter, this film manages to be simultaneously charming, familiar and epic.

Nominated for Oscars in Screenplay and Cinematography, it is absolutely full of laughs, a soundtrack that will get your toes tapping and, above everything else, heart.

100 Word Review – The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

“You know, for kids!” – Norville Barnes

Early Coen Brothers (The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country For Old Men) films are always a delight and this is no exception.

Recent business graduate and enthusiastically eccentric inventor Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) is made president of a manufacturing company by Sydney J Mussburger (Paul Newman) as part of a stock scam.

Jennifer Jason Leigh and John Mahoney co-star in this weird, wonderful and wacky comedy about rare naivety in the business world and the joy of innocence.

It was the opening film at Cannes in 1994 and is still and absolute joy to watch,