O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
I’m well aware that I promote this 2000 Coen Brothers comedy a lot – and I did it long before George Clooney optioned my book on the Smothers Brothers as a possible film, so I’m not brown-nosing here. Not completely. But I absolutely adore any movie audacious enough to connect The Odyssey to Sullivan’s Travels, with an old-timey country soundtrack and a Three Stooges vibe, and somehow make it all work. This is that movie – and Clooney is its Ulysses. Truly. And wait until you see the sirens who emerge from the river, where they’re washing laundry: One of them is played by Melinda Clarke. And all of them are bewitching – just as sirens are supposed to be.