Barton Fink

Loosely inspired by the adventures of playwright Clifford Odets, Joel and Ethan Coen’s darkly funny Barton Fink follows a New York writer corrupted by Hollywood, but also asks whether this self-proclaimed champion of the common man knows of what he speaks. John Turturro stars as the eponymous character, whose socially conscious plays about fishmongers and other salt-of-the-earth types earn him potentially lucrative work writing Hollywood screenplays. When the studio boss (a brilliant Michael Lerner) taps him to bring “that Barton Fink feeling” to a Wallace Beery wrestling picture, Turturro suffers a crippling case of writer’s block. In the meantime, he befriends an ostentatious salesman (John Goodman) who has plenty of stories to tell.

Updated 07/29/2009