Barton Fink (1991)

My spouse is not known for bursts of film nostalgia, but he has been on a couple recently.  First spaghetti Westerns, now the Coen brothers.  Having a film minor in the family has started to rub off on him, I guess.  I watched this one because I had never seen it before, and well, it was odd.

Barton is just a painful character to watch.  He is awkward, friendless and a bit arrogant, so the chances of any of that changing soon are slim.  Worse yet, he is by far the most likable character in the movie.  He movies form a successful Broadway play to Hollywood screen play writing, something he is ill equipped to manage.  It is period in time when writers are under contract to studios and pumped out Grade B movies once a month.  Not Barton, though.  He just can't get the hang of it.

These guys do weird like nobody's business.  I would not watch this late at night or home alone.  It has a creepy quality to it that is hard to shake off.  But or anyone who has had trouble with writer's block, or had to deal with difficult people, or had a mass murderer next door, you know how hard all that can be.  This is the movie for you.