UNLIKE MOST FLICKS, THIS IS NO CULTURAL WASTELAND.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

The Coen Brothers have always excelled at making movies that remind us of something else in the recesses of pop-culture consciousness - usually, other movies - but in a peculiar, not quite right way. Joel and Ethan invariably put their own absurdist spins on film noir (``Blood Simple,'' ``Miller's Crossing,'' ``Fargo''), Hollywood expose (``Barton Fink''), screwball comedy (``The Hudsucker Proxy'') or detective story (``The Big Lebowski'') conventions, often leaving audiences feeling like they've seen something both unique and familiar. And, often, feeling something close to bewildered.

All of which makes their latest offering, ``O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' a kind of meta-Coen experience. In this relentlessly goofy period piece, director Joel and writing partner Ethan don't just indulge their usual penchants for mutating old-fashioned movie and literary genres into offbeat new forms (the plot is, basically, Homer's ``The Odyssey'' reconstituted as a 1930s Mississippi chain gang musical comedy). They also yank pretty much the whole galaxy of country music and Western myth into the mix.

The result is a movie with much too much of everything going on ... but also going for it. Whether your favored frame of reference is classical, pop or folk, you'll find more kicky, kooky allusions here than you'll be able to bend your mind around. That will, inevitably, prove frustrating for some, but those who can get into the spirit of the thing are in for a singular intellectual treat.

The plot? Well, Ulysses has got to get home to Penelope. But it's a long, strange trip.

Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), a pop-eyed, pomade-abusing conflation of Clark Gable and George Brent's worst acting tics, has convinced fellow prisoners Pete (Coen regular John Turturro) and Delmar (actor-director Tim Blake Nelson) to jump the road crew and head home with him to retrieve a stash of stolen cash - before the Tennessee Valley Authority floods over the hiding place.

As they traipse across the rural Depression South, our heroes encounter the usual Homeric obstacles. Sort of. The Sirens sing with the entrancing voices of Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch (and, possibly, turn Pete into a frog); the Cyclops is a crooked, eyepatch-wearing Bible salesman played by John Goodman; McGill's Penny (Holly Hunter), it turns out, is about as hard to please as a woman with seven singing daughters can be.

As you've doubtless figured by now, song plays a crucial part in the proceedings. T-Bone Burnett composed the soundtrack and arranged its sheerly gorgeous collection of classic blues, spirituals, old-timey and work songs, then got a stellar stable of traditionalist artists to record them. And in the grand manner of folk music, even the most recognizable tunes are noticeably different enough from any previous recordings you may have heard.

And that's the tradition ``O Brother'' cleaves to in every respect. Movie buffs, for instance, will recognize the title as that of the pretentious director's dream project from Preston Sturges' revered, 1941 show-business satire, ``Sullivan's Travels.'' And in one astonishing sequence, the Coens evoke Busby Berkeley, ``Triumph of the Will,'' ``The Wizard of Oz'' and ``Birth of a Nation'' all at the same time.

So there you go. From Gilgamesh to Griffith, ``O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' mixes up our myths with insouciant intelligence and sheer wacky bravado. And if you want, you can sing along to it.

It just doesn't get any better, brother.

``O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?''

(Rated PG-13: violence, language)

The stars: George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Joel Coen. Written by Joel & Ethan Coen. Based on Homer's ``The Odyssey.'' Produced by Ethan Coen. Released by Touchstone Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 43 minutes.

Playing: Century 14, Century City; Sunset 5, West Hollywood; AMC Santa Monica 7.

Our rating: Four stars