A Serious Man

To see the Coen Brothers' latest film, A Serious Man, last night. One of the brothers' best films, this is a dark comedy about a midwestern Jewish professor Larry Kopnik whose life is beginning to resemble the car crash that occurs during the movie. His wife is leaving him for the insufferable Sy, his students are bribing him, his racist neighbour is making life hell, his rabbis offer trite tales instead of the wisdom he seeks and he faces constant calls from Dick Dutton demanding payment for albums he didn't order from a music club. All this takes place as his son prepares for his Bar Mitzvah, and the film is not only laced with a wonderful sense of time - 1967 - and place, together with an affectionate portrait of the Jewish community with which the Brothers are so familiar. There is uniformly excellent acting, especially from the relatively unknown Michael Stuhlbarg as Kopnik, with great support from Richard Kind as his wayward brother and Fred Melamed as Sy. Not to be missed.

Burn after Reading

To see Burn after Reading, the latest offering from the Coen Brothers, at Bristol's indulgent new cinema complex at the city's Cabot Circus centre last night. I have long been a fan of the Coen Brothers, but aside from No Country for Old Men, have found some of their recent offerings to be distinctly below par. This is a cracking return to form. As ever, the plot is zany, inpenetrable and inconsequential, involving a forcibly retired CIA operative (with John Malkovich perfect in the role), his steely wife (Tilda Swinton), her affair with another government figure with a less clear role (George Clooney in best Cary Grant mode) who has a fling with a gym worker (the wonderful Frances McDormand) who discovers the CIA operative's memoirs on disc with her immature co-worker (Brad Pitt) and who then embarks on an attempt at extortion, to the bemusement of the CIA chief (the ubiquitous but underrated JK Simmons). What ensues is an hilarious, sometimes shocking, series of events in a film that is almost as good as O Brother Where Art Thou or Fargo. Do see it.

The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men

To see the latest Coen Brothers' violent epic No Country for Old Men last night. Javier Bardam is stunning as the amoral killer Anton Chigurh in pursuit of the Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin), who has stumbled across a lot of dead bodies and a briefcase stuffed with $2 million in $100 notes. With several sub-plots, a stellar cast (also numbering Tommy Lee Jones, Kelly McDonald and Woody Harrelson) and amazing photography, this is the Brothers on top form, as the western set in 1980 pans out near the Mexican-US border. I don't think it is as good as either Fargo or O Brother Where Art Thou?, but it is undoubtedly fine film-making, and even if the plot (not unusually for the Coens) lacks any sense of final resolution, it is a rewarding movie.