Wrapped in plain brown paper and no bigger than a typically swelled Hollywood head, the box looks ordinary. It's not, of course. This is a movie from the Coen brothers, and as you may have gleaned from their earlier work ("Blood Simple," "Raising Arizona" and "Miller's Crossing"), the Coens do not traffic in the mundane. The box figures prominently in the climax of "Barton Fink," the partly hilarious, partly horrific, totally mesmerizing new film from these Hardy Boys from hell.

Charlie Meadows…

Barton Fink (1991), with Turturro as a New York playwright selling out to Hollywood in 1941, is a comedy of shocking gravity highlighted by John Goodman's turn as a common man with the soul of Hitler.

The only blot is the bonus material: Pallid deleted scenes. Joel Coen, who writes and directs, and Ethan Coen, who writes and produces, don't participate in any way. What gives?

PETER TRAVERS
(April 22, 2003)