Considering it’s a boring, frustrating subject even (or especially) if it’s happening to you, there are a surprising number of films about writer’s block.

There’s “Adaptation,” which somehow becomes the story of the writing of its own story. And there’s “The Shining,” with Jack Nicholson desperately trying to write his novel over a long, cold winter in a big spooky hotel.

But as odd as those two are, the strangest focuses on another desperate writer in another creepy hotel — the Coen brothers’ 1991 intellectual horror film “Barton Fink.”

Barton (John Turturro, never better) follows highbrow success on Broadway with a stint in 1930s Hollywood. He’s put to work on a “Wallace Beery wrestling picture” but can’t get past the opening paragraph. Trapped in the sweltering Hotel Earl (a none-too-subtle substitute for hell), he befriends gregarious salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman, never better) who turns out to be more than he seems. A lot more.

Switching effortlessly from Hollywood satire to existential horror, “Barton Fink” may be the strangest movie on the Coen resume — and that’s saying something. But it’s so beautifully filmed and so mind-bogglingly weird that I could watch it a dozen times — and I have. Barton himself might have had a lack of ideas, but thankfully, this movie never suffers the same fate.

Rockford Register Star Movie Man Will Pfeifer writes about new DVDs on Tuesdays and older ones on Fridays. Contact him at wpfeifer@rrstar.com or 815-987-1244. Read his blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/movieman/. See video reviews at go.rrstar.com.