Blood Simple is the story of a man with serious doubts, and what happens when he attempts to discover what the "truth" is.

In Barton Fink, the title character, a successful New York playwright turned Hollywood screenwriter, mortgages his soul as he struggles with terminal writers block among the residents of, what may be, hell-fire, demons and all.

The Big Lebowski chronicles the misadventures of the Dude — stoner, pacifist, philosopher — as he attempts to right some wrongs and vanquish the powers of nihilism and moral turpitude.

O Brother Where Art Thou follows the odyssey (spiritual and otherwise) of three convicts, a skeptic searching for his way home and two seeking redemption from their sins.

No Country for Old Men is an epic, prophetic journey that tackles one of theology's most daunting conundrums, theodicy — if God is good, then why doesn't God intervene to stop unrelenting violence — and surmises that we don't really know what God is thinking.

Actually, we surmised a loooong time before No Country For Old Men that we may not know what God's thinking, and if there's so much as a hint of spiritual revelation in the plot of Blood Simple, we'll turn our cinephilia membership cards in on our way out of the office tonight. That said, we look forward to third-party confirmation that the woodchipper scene in Fargo is a modern metaphor for crucifixion. Or a modern revision of the story of Abraham and Isaac? Maybe we should just leave it to the scholars.

[Photo Credit: Erik Rose]

• Coen Brothers 'Gospel' Explored in New Book [Reuters]

No Country for Old Men was a great film. I'm not trying to say it was anything but spectacular. But I'm going to fucking take the Coen Brothers to task on something. Ready? WHY THE FUCK IS THERE JACK LINK'S BEEF JERKY SO PROMINENTLY PLACED IN SUCH A PIVOTAL SCENE?"

Aside from it being so fucking distracting, it's also a completely unnecessary anachronism. I hope it's just some attempt at sneaky product placement that they were forced into as a means of paying for the film. Otherwise, guess what. GIVE BACK THE FUCKING OSCARS. HAND THEM TO P.T. ANDERSON. YOU TOO, RUDIN. UNACCEPTABLE OVERSIGHT."

• I Eat Your Jack Link's, I Eat Them Up [I Know What It Is]

• Alan Pergament: Ch. 7 error enlivens Oscars [buffalonews.com]
• WKBW Statement
• OSCAR OOPS [YouTube]

His tantrums are the stuff of legend. Battered by screaming fits, tossed objects and abrupt firings, his assistants rarely last long — a 2005 Wall Street Journal piece estimated that Rudin went through 250 assistants in a five-year period (even Rudin admitted to 119, though his figure excluded assistants who didn't survive a two-week trial period). On the other hand, the industry is full of ex-Rudin assistants who've used the experience as a steppingstone to success.

Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal, who is releasing the Rudin-produced "The Other Boleyn Girl" this month, worked for Rudin as a young production executive. "He was tough," she recalls. "You'd give him script notes and get back his response, written with a big black pen, saying 'TERRIBLE IDEA!' But you'd always forgive him because he's so smart, cares so much and he gets movies made that no one else can."

Certainly, his brutal, call-roller cleansing regime is a matter of public record: Assistants' rights groups have been targeting Rudin ever since a mass grave was discovered behind his Paramount HQ by an after-hours security guard, who couldn't help but notice a human hand jutting out from a carefully tended flowerbed, still clasping a retrieved Diet Coke can whose lack of vanilla flavoring was what ultimately did them in. But for the elite few with the fortitude to survive the apprenticeship, great things are almost invariably in store: Pascal's time under the tyrannical mentor, for example, is widely credited with earning the Sony head the incongruous sex-parts that would ultimately win her titles like Showman of the Year.

• For Scott Rudin, there will be quality [LAT]

· Variety identifies the true villain of the writers strike: You! "Internet's supporting role in the strike is another reminder of the way the Web has inadvertently helped pollute society, coarsening the level of discourse and incubating online communities prone to wildly lash out at enemies real and imagined." [Variety]
· In the first major post-strike network purchase, one-hit wonders Max "I'm secretly Karen!" Mutchnick and Dave "My writing partner's secretly Karen!" Kohan have sold a sitcom pilot to ABC. The project, originally set up at CBS, follows "a gay writer and a straight writer, who are best friends, and their hot young assistants." Yes, yes, we know what you're going to say—but you didn't let us finish: The writers are cavemen!
· More below-the-line guild awards: Jess Gonchor took the top prize for a contemporary film for No Country for Old Men at the Art Directors Guild's 12th Annual Awards for Excellence in Production Design, while Jack Fisk took best period art direction for There Will Be Blood. The 44th annual Cinema Audio Society Awards, meanwhile, gave Country top honors. (And deservedly so: Anton Chigurh's footsteps alone deserved special recognition.)

· No, There Will Be Blood's potable does not involve a milkshake. Rather, it's Texas Tea: gin, vodka, rum, tequila, Cointreau. OJ, sour mix, and a splash of Coke, served on the rocks.
· For Michael Clayton, they offer Fixer: amaretto, cognac, cherry brandy and cream. Strained over ice and served in a martini glass.
· And finally, inspired by Atonement (and especially apropo today), try Bound by Love, containing sloe gin, Chambord, lemon juice and an egg white, shaken with ice and served up.

Of course, had the brilliant Diving Bell and the Butterfly snagged a nod, they could have added the Paralyzer to that list, a potent concoction that renders the drinker able to communicate only through a series of eye blinks.

• The Polo Lounger

Confirms Bardem: "You see yourself, you see the haircut. You don't realise that it's affecting you in a very delicate way, through your own psyche. What happened to me was that after a couple of weeks, I was a little bit - a little bit - strange to myself. There was something that was not familiar. It was like, 'What am I doing here?" Of course, even the most profound of these wounds will heal instantly upon receiving his Best Supporting Actor in two weeks, particularly that brief fear about an inability to get laid. [Entertainmentwise UK via Guanabee]

· The Daily Show host and noted sympathetic unibrowist Jon Stewart would like to reach a deal with his staff the way David Letterman did, but because the WGA will only negotiate with show owners (like Dave), they'll only deal with Comedy Central. [Variety]
· The 11th annual Online Film Critics Society Awards blows their internet-based-reviewer wads all over the old men of No Country. [Variety]
· Finally, some good news: The Two Coreys, A&E's bold foray into the loosely scripted cohabitating has-been reality TV format, has gotten a second season pickup. [THR]

Meanwhile, our city's shadowy society of film-nerd freemasons, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., met at their pentagram-shaped conference room 12 stories beneath the Grove American Girl store, where a slaughtered goat's entrails revealed for them the following winners: Best picture, director, and lead actor honors went to Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, Amy Ryan took supporting actress for her work in both Gone Baby Gone and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and best actress kudos went to Marion Cotillard for her Edith Piaftastic turn in La Vie en Rose.

UPDATE:

More returns: The New York Film Critics Online Awards 2007 has a tie for best picture: There Will Be Blood and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Day-Lewis and Bardem take top actor honors, and Julie Christie (Away From Her) and Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There) take actress honors. Boston Society of Film Critics give it to No Country, directing goes to Bell's Julian Schnabel, and in another sure sign that it is the year of the murderous psycho, Ben Foster wins best supporting actor for his roles from 3:10 To Yuma and Alpha Dog. The Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association, meanwhile, gives No Country best picture, the Coens best director, George Clooney best actor for Michael Clayton, and Julie Christie—clearly in the +60 hottie category previously occupied by Helen Mirren— best actress.

• 'No Country' tops with N.Y. critics [Variety]
• LAFCA 2007 winners list [LAT]

· Before the Devil Knows You're Dead—if you find No Country not a bleak enough view of human nature, check it out—director Sidney Lumet signs a deal with the Funky Buddha group to finance his next two films. [Variety]
· New Line is trying to stop the release of the documentary Beyond the Golden Compass: The Magic of Philip Pullman because the studio feels it will unfairly compete with its own efforts to profit from Pullman's armored polar bears. [THR]
· The ongoing Broadway stagehands strike will have unpleasant consequences for Macy's Thankgiving Parade, which may have to acknowledge the strife by half-deflating a planned Legally Blonde: The Musical balloon. [Variety]