"Director: Joel Coen"

• Burn After Reading | DVD | (14/03/2016) from £12.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (15.40%)   |  RRP £14.99

  After the dark brilliance of No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading may seem like a trifle, but few filmmakers elevate the trivial to art quite like Joel and Ethan Coen. Inspired by Stansfield Turner's Burn Before Reading, the comically convoluted plot clicks into gear when the CIA gives analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) the boot. Little does Cox know his wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton, riffing on her Michael Clayton character), is seeing married federal marshal Harry (George Clooney, Swinton's Clayton co-star, playing off his Syriana role). To get back at the Agency, Cox works on his memoirs. Through a twist of fate, fitness club workers Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt in a pompadour that recalls Johnny Suede) find the disc and try to wrangle a "Samaratin tax" out of the surly alcoholic. An avid Internet dater, Linda plans to use the money for plastic surgery, oblivious that her manager, Ted (The Visitor's Richard Jenkins), likes her just the way she is. Though it sounds like a Beltway remake of The Big Lebowski, the Coen entry it most closely resembles, this time the brothers concentrate their energies on the myriad insecurities endemic to the mid-life crisis--with the exception of Chad, who's too dense to share such concerns, leading to the funniest performance of Pitt's career. If Lebowski represented the Coen's unique approach to film noir, Burn sees them putting their irresistibly absurdist stamp on paranoid thrillers from Enemy of the State to The Bourne Identity. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

• A Serious Man | DVD | (14/03/2016) from £9.97   |  Saving you £5.02 (33.50%)   |  RRP £14.99

• Barton Fink | DVD | (14/03/2016) from £20.23   |  Saving you £-5.24 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  A darkly comic ride, this intense and original 1991 offering from the Coen brothers (Fargo, Blood Simple) gleefully attacks the Hollywood system and those who seek to sell out to it, portraying the writer's suffering as a loony vision of hell. John Turturro (Miller's Crossing, Jungle Fever) plays the title character, a pretentious left-wing writer from New York City who is brought to 1930s Hollywood to write a script for a wrestling movie for palooka actor Wallace Beery. Fink thinks the job is beneath him, but his desire for acceptance gets the better of him, and he suddenly finds himself holed up in a fleabag hotel in Los Angeles, where he is almost immediately afflicted with writer's block. Various distractions begin to enter his life, first in the form of a famous southern writer (John Mahoney) whom Fink idolises, and then his neighbour in the hotel, a seemingly amiable salesman played by John Goodman (Sea of Love, Raising Arizona). The writer turns out to be a self-loathing drunk whose secretary (Judy Davis) is the one actually doing the writing. And the neighbour, the working-class hero who Fink made his reputation writing about, may have a horrifying secret of his own. Equal parts social commentary and hilarious farce, and winner of the Best Picture, Actor, and Director prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, Barton Fink is a visionary and original comic masterpiece not to be missed. --Robert Lane

• The Moguls/The Big Lebowski | DVD | (18/09/2006) from £11.30   |  Saving you £13.69 (54.80%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The Big Lebowski (Dir. Joel Coen 1998): 'The Dude' Jeff Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is unemployed and as laid-back as they come. That is until he becomes a victim of mistaken identity when two thugs break into his apartment with the errant belief that they're strong-arming Jeff Lebowski - the Pasadena millionaire. In the hope of getting a replacement for his soiled carpet 'the Dude' pays a visit to his wealthy namesake... It's not long before 'The Dude' and his psychopathic buddy Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) are drawn into a labyrinthine plot of extortion embezzlement sex dope German Nihilists White Russians mysterious cowboys Shomer Shabbos bowling and severed toes... Envisaged as a homage to the musicals of Busby Berkley Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel) and the ritual of bowling The Big Lebowski has developed a massive cult-following with its hilarious dialogue and quirky characters. Apparently the script was written with Jeff Bridges John Goodman and Sam Elliott in mind... Jeff Bridges even went as far as to say he could have turned out like 'The Dude' had he not been born into the movie business... Sounds good to us man! The Moguls (Dir. Michael Traeger 2005): In a nothing bar in a small nowhere industrial town sits Andy - a nice guy down on his luck. Jobs have come and gone. Crazy moneymaking enterprises have crumbled to dust. His ex-wife has married a rich guy who can buy his only son all the things that Andy can't afford. All Andy's got is a bunch of loving loser friends and a desire to do something to change his destiny. Staring morosely at the small ads in the town paper it comes to him in a flash - he'll make a porno film - with his friends!

• No Country For Old Men | HD DVD | (12/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash.

• Fargo | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £8.74   |  Saving you £11.25 (128.72%)   |  RRP £19.99