Movies directed by Joel

Those wacky Coens are at it again. And those serious Coens. And those loquacious Coens. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a paean to pre-revisionist Westerns, allows the Oscar-winning brothers to try out nearly every weapon in their considerable ...

With Batman and Robin, the fourth entry in the recent Batman movie series, the profitable franchise appears poised to take a nosedive. This film, which places yet another actor in the batsuit, has all the necessary hallmarks of a sorry sequel...

It's lighter, brighter, funnier, faster-paced, and a whole lot more colorful than before. There's a new actor underneath the cape, a new girlfriend on his arm, and a new partner by his side. The director is different and the composer has changed....

In a word, The Big Lebowski is a mess. But what a glorious, wonderfully-entertaining mess it is. This film, the Coen Brothers' follow-up to the critically-lauded Fargo, isn't likely to generate the same degree of universal praise. In fact, those...

“Conversion Therapy.” It sounds benign, perhaps even welcoming. The truth, as exposed in the articles and memoirs written by Garrard Conley, is far different. The intention of this process, which has been vociferously denounced by nearly e...

After watching the Coen Brothers spend years mowing their way through genres and upending conventions, one question comes to mind: Is there anything these guys can't do. Common wisdom suggests "no" and, after winning Oscars early this year for No...

Animated films come in three flavors: childish cartoons that are designed primarily to appeal to the under-10 crowd, middle-of-the-road efforts that at least make an attempt to entertain parents while never threatening established envelopes, and ...

Bill (Michael Douglas) is having a bad morning. He's stuck in his car in a traffic jam, his air conditioner isn't putting out any cold air, his windows won't work, and there's a fly buzzing around his head. Taken as a whole, all of this is enough...

Fargo takes the usual "caper gone wrong" storyline and applies a new twist. Based on a supposed series of "true events" from 1987 (a tongue-in-cheek claim made by a screen caption), the film examines what can happen when the police and criminals a...

The Gift, a psychological thriller from writer/director/actor Joel Edgerton, subverts the Fatal Attraction genre by sprinkling it with a little Usual Suspects flavoring. Clever and atmospheric, the film has enough twists to keep the average viewer gu...