Little too strange for Coens

'Something just went horribly wrong," he said.

The sound of hysterical laughter is heard.

That line could have plausibly been found in many of the 13 major movies created by the Coen brothers: black comedies such as "Blood Simple," "Barton Fink" or "Fargo" where invariably something does go horribly wrong.

Here, however, the speaker is Joel Coen, and the laughter is provided by Ethan, his younger brother. They were responding to the question of whether their big night at the Academy Awards in February -- four Oscars, including best picture, for "No Country for Old Men" -- changed their outlook on the film industry, or their place in it, or in any way represented an apotheosis of their 24-year career as darlings of art-house cinema.

Apparently not. According to the Coens, who spoke by phone from their hometown, Minneapolis, where they are shooting their next movie, the Oscars were barely an interruption.

"It was very amusing to us," Ethan said.

"Went right into the 'Life is strange' file," Joel said.

The Coens' "Life is strange" file must be overflowing by now. For more than two decades they have made popular movies -- some loved by critics, some loathed -- by following a simple formula: Typically, a slightly down-on-his luck protagonist driven by a single motivating belief ("The Dude abides," "I'm a writer") gets involved in a low-level criminal plot and sets off a chain reaction of complications and reversals. And more often than not, somebody gets shot in the face.

The Coens' steady progress as filmmakers contradicts the prescribed path for independent (or at least independent-minded) directors in Hollywood: Make a few small-budget movies, maybe in a genre such as film noir, then climb the Hollywood pay scale until you're given the big-budget summer extravaganza.

What keeps filmmakers on this path -- other than money -- is the ability to make the kind of films they want. The Coens have been able to navigate their way all along, without once setting foot on a "Batman" soundstage.

"We've never navigated anything," Ethan said. "We've been lucky."

It's not luck, however, that the two have been working in lock-step their whole Hollywood careers.

Sometimes Ethan, 50, is credited as the writer, and sometimes Joel, 53, as director. But in reality both conceive the film, write the screenplay and direct, and edit under the joint pseudonym Roderick Jaynes. You think your family is close? These guys finish each other's movies.

Their new movie, "Burn After Reading" (opening Friday), is set in Washington, or rather in the gray area between the old file-and-dagger Washington of Allen Dulles and the creeping suburbs that surround it.

Frances McDormand, Joel's wife, plays Linda Litzke, a wide-eyed employee of Hardbodies Fitness gym (signature line: "I'm trying to reinvent myself"), underscores her belief that four expensive plastic surgeries will help her meet a better class of man on Internet dating sites.

Through a series of strained coincidences, Linda receives a computer disk containing a draft of a memoir written by Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), an angry alcoholic relic of the CIA whose wife (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with a federal marshal and aging Lothario (George Clooney). Linda decides to trade the memoir for cash, aided by a dimwitted personal trainer played by Brad Pitt, showing again that he's a great character actor in a leading man's body.

With its coldly satirical tone, stylized dialogue and broadly drawn characters, "Burn" will feel like familiar territory for longtime fans.