My Cultural Diet

24 years after its original release, the Coen Brothers’ take on Homer’s Odyssey — which they transplanted from ancient Greece to 1930s-era Mississippi — is as delightful as ever, thanks to the Coens’ offbeat script and a host of strong performances led by George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson. This around, though, I particularly enjoyed Charles Durning’s performance as Pappy O’Daniel, the governor of Mississippi who might be corrupt, but is still preferable to the alternative. His group of cronies and yes men are also delightful in their clueluessness and uselessness. We watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? with our kids, which immediately made me want to turn them onto some other Coen films, like Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy.

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