Miller's Crossing / Barton Fink

MILLER’S CROSSING, 1990, 20th Century Fox, 115 min. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen. Bitter Gabriel Byrne is adviser to gang boss, Albert Finney, in a small Northeastern town. But their complacently corrupt burg is about to erupt in violence when newcomer Jon Polito and his merciless, grim reaper of an enforcer (J. E. Freeman) make a play for the big time.

BARTON FINK, 1991, 20th Century Fox, 116 min. In the Depression Era, naïve and ridiculously idealistic New York playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) is brought out to tinseltown by an egocentric movie mogul (hilarious Michael Lerner) to write a "wrestling picture for Wallace Beery." Joel and Ethan Coen engineer an escalating case of existential dread for Fink in his quiet hotel room when he is afflicted with a terrifying case of writer’s block.