Mike Miley: The Coen Brothers' Mean Streak

Something's happened to the Coen Brothers. Maybe it's success going to their heads (they've got my vote for Smuggest Oscar Acceptance Speech), maybe they're losing their touch, or maybe they're just plain cruel. This decade has been mostly uneven for them. There's O Brother Where Art Thou? (fun but lightweight), The Man Who Wasn't There (an underrated return-to-form), Intolerable Cruelty (intolerable, natch) , The Ladykillers (forgettable) , No Country for Old Men (strong moments in an overrated whole), and now there's Burn After Reading , which is the darkest and least gracious film of the Coens' careers. After watching it and No Country for Old Men , one has to wonder whether or not the Coens are growing misanthropic, nihilistic, and ugly in their middle age. The Coens have almost always built their stories around idiots -- Raising Arizona , Barton Fink , The Hudsucker Proxy , Fargo , The Big Lebowski , Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men -- and Burn After Reading is no ... (link)