If anyone has the potential for perfection it’s Joel and Ethan Coen,
but Burn After Reading—their new comedy about infidelity
and delusion disguised as a thundering thriller—is not perfect.
The film is silly, odd, and distractingly oblique. But it’s not without
that fearless Coen brothers flair for using violence as elegant
punctuation; Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand will crack your ass up
as a pair of village idiots in possession of classified CIA
intelligence, and J. K. Simmons is sublimely incredulous as a CIA
higher-up who just can’t believe this shit. (See movie times,
www.thestranger.com, for
details.)

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....