Hail, Caesar! (2016)

I skipped this for almost a decade because, even more than The Hudsucker Proxy, it seemed like it got absolutely scorched in every review and Coen Brothers ranking I'd ever read (maybe ahead of The Ladykillers but not much else). I finally decided on a whim to actually watch the thing, and maybe my rock-bottom expectations and affection for classic movies helped, but I thought this was hilarious. George Clooney plays a dimwitted 1950s movie star who gets kidnapped by a bunch of communists, Josh Brolin is doing his grim square-jawed Josh Brolin thing as a studio fixer, Alden Ehrenreich is charming and delightful as a singing cowboy, etc. etc. Is it Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski? No, of course not. But I liked more than, say, Burn After Reading (and I'm a sucker for just about anything involving bumbling criminals with poorly-thought-out schemes) or The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. If you're a fan of Coen Brothers comedies and haven’t watched this one, give it a fair shot. (If you're not yet a fan of Coen Brothers comedies, then by all means start with Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski.)