When a heat wave like the one currently clobbering the East Coast hits, herds of pop culture fans naturally migrate to the cool depths of movie theaters or their own living room, where food is plentiful, the air is conditioned and they're largely safe from their greatest predator: other people.

This is wise. Violence and heat are linked according to researchers. While it may be annoying to listen to people predict plot points in a voice that only counts as a whisper in comparison to a bellowing bull moose, it's better than running into a sun-addled psychopath who's here to kill people and drink Gatorade -- and he's all out of Gatorade.

Still, while violence in person is icky and often leads to unpleasantness, violence on the movie screen has long been considered primo entertainment, and much more wholesome for the young ones than a brief glimpse of a topless woman. So why not appreciate your chilly seat by watching one of these movies about how scorching heat turns people into vicious misanthropists?

Perhaps the most Coenish of Coen Brothers movies, Barton Fink is about a writer who comes to Los Angeles -- in a heat wave, natch -- and is unable to write a movie script, which is a tragedy because clearly Los Angeles doesn't have enough screenplays floating around. Weird things involving John Goodman and John Goodman's sweaty jowls occur, and eventually it ends, like every Coen brothers movie, in an equal blend of catharsis and confusion.