[Maximum Blob]

I saw Barton Fink a couple of years ago. I'd have to rank it the "worst" of the Coen Brothers movies (you're right about the rest of the ouevre being stiff competition). I am all for idiosyncrasy and thwarting convention and so forth, but this was just so ... bizarre.

I suspected, after watching it, that there was some key I missed. Some subtle signal that said, "The real world stops, and the dream begins, right here." But I couldn't pinpoint it upon re-watching. Are there any theories about this? Any scholarship? I know of at least one university with a course in The Films of the Coens.

My most vivid memory of the movie: I was watching it on video with my brother, and at the very end, one of us said, "Wait -- what the fuck was that? Rewind it! Did a bird just fall into the ocean?!"