The Coen Brothers Collection Used DVD Box Set

A collection of four films directed by eccentric movie-making duo Ethan and Joel Coen. 'Blood Simple' (1983), a knowing homage to 40s film noir, is the Coen brothers' debut feature. A Texan bar owner (Dan Hedaya) hires a hitman (M. Emmet Walsh) to kill his wife (Frances McDormand) and her lover (John Getz). The plan backfires when the contract killer, having already collected his fee, executes a variation on the hit - and a series of nightmarish murders ensue. The comedy 'The Hudsucker Proxy' (1994) follows the unlikely adventures of Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), a college graduate who secures a job in the postroom at Hudsucker Industries just as its chairman is jumping fifty floors to his death. The chairman's scheming aide, Mussburger (Paul Newman), decides to hire Norville as chairman, presuming he is a dunce whose new position will frighten the stockholders into selling all their stock cheaply, thus allowing him to consolidate his hold on the company. A cynical journalist, Amy Archer (Jennifer Jason Leigh), masquerades as Norville's secretary in the hope of scooping a feature, but ends up falling for Norville, who in the meantime invents the hula-hoop, makes a fortune and revives the company's stock. 'The Big Lebowski' (1997), the Coen brothers' seventh film, is a typically bizarre mix of mistaken identity, hippy philosophy and ten-pin bowling. Jeff 'the Dude' Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is a bowling buff, laid-back to the point of horizontal, who gets mixed up in a blackmail plot involving a millionaire namesake. Roped into delivering the ransom to secure the release of the millionaire's kidnapped wife, the Dude's karmic balance is really put in a spin when his gun-toting buddy Walter (John Goodman) decides to help out. John Turturro stars in 'Barton Fink' (1991) as the eponymous anti-hero, a successful young playwright who goes to Hollywood to further his career. He immediately obtains a contract, only to develop writer's block when he discovers he is to write a wrestling movie for a faded 40s star. The Los Angeles heat, his dingy hotel and a noisy neighbour (John Goodman) combine to increase the pressure on him, and Barton begins to lose his grip on reality.