I still think BLOOD SIMPLE is their best. FARGO is my runner up. In third, perhaps MILLER'S CROSSING. When the Coen's re-released BLOOD SIMPLE a few years back, having trimming a few minutes--what they called, "the boring parts"--it still held up for me. While I admire most of their films, I tend to like every other film they make. And I am NOT a BIG LEWBOWSKI fan. That said, I don't think I've ever missed any of their films, even if their recent output is more misses (BURN AFTER READING) than hits (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN).

I know that there are lots of folks out there that put Fargo or The Big Lebowski as their favorite Coen Brothers movie, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that while The Hudsucker Proxy may not be their "best" movie, it is my favorite. I love the highly stylized aspects of this movie, from the dialogue straight out of Hawks and Sturges movies (Jennifer Jason Leigh's character Amy Archer, a homage to Rosalind Russell's "fast-talking career girl" in His Girl Friday, is a hoot and spot-on) to the sleek production design--I particularly love the spookily mechanized characterization of the basement mailroom at Hudsucker. I also love how the Coens use the central image of a circle (like the big clock, and of course, the hula hoop) as a very malleable metaphor to explore topics as diverse as economic theory, philosophy, and even karma. Pretty wild and wooly stuff for something that might otherwise be more strictly characterized as a "genre film." And of course, therein lies the true talent of the Coens: their knowledge and appreciation of film is so vast that their films are always a homage of sorts to a certain genre or style of film; yet they are always able to put their own spin on things, making the end product unmistakably their own.

I think in their hearts they're very intelligent 15-year-old boys who rebel against authority by treating serious subjects unseriously. The classic teenage smart alecs, in other words. Occasionally, they'll achieve something more genuine than a horse laugh (Turtorro's two pleading-for-his-life scenes with Byrne in "Miller's Crossing," most of "Fargo," a few moments in "No Country For Old Men" - in each case, the credit goes at least as much to the actors as to the writer/directors), and in one case their sensibility was a perfect fit for their subject ("The Big Lebowski"). But, for me, the game was given away by the fact that the only murder in "No Country" where we saw neither the act nor its consequences was the last one: the Coens knew that if we witnessed Kelly MacDonald's sweet and decent character getting her face blown off, or lying in a pool of her own blood, then we would no longer be able to see Javier Bardem's character as kinda cool. Which is clearly how the Coens saw him. Having chosen to look into the Face of Evil, and having then tried to have it both ways ("He's evil! No, he's cool!"), they can't be considered serious artists, in my judgment.

Frankly, Carrie, I like/admire them all. One gets an amazing variety from the Coen ourve. Fascinating filmmography with (dare I say it?) not a misslip in the bunch.