What I’m watching: a new film by Joel and Ethan Coen and a sitcom for grownups.

On Netflix: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

I’m a huge Coen Brothers fan (“Blood Simple, “ “Raising Arizona,” “Millers Crossing,” “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski” “No Country for Old Men,” “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” and many more) and I find that even when their films are not completely successful there is something usually worth watching.

So, it was with great anticipation that I sat down to watch their latest film, a collection of short stories all set in the 19th century West.

The Coens showed they could handle a vintage western for their reboot of “True Grit,” a film I really enjoyed, and once again with this film they showed their respect and affection for the conventions of Western films. They tackle six short films, all of which either touch on the tropes of the genre. Some are very successful, while some are not, in my humble opinion.

The first segment introduces us to Buster Scruggs, a singing cowboy played with vigor and confidence by Tim Blake Nelson. Buster, though he is dressed in a white outfit with the kind of shirt Ken Maynard – look him up – wore in 1930s, is not necessarily a good guy. In fact, he is wanted.

For those us who are B-Westerns fans, the Coens play with our anticipations and the segment is a lot of fun. The fact the story opens in Monument Valley is a wink and nod to all of us Western fans.

The next story, “Near Algodones,” is a tale with very dark humor. James Franco plays a cowboy who is trying to rob a bank and doesn’t succeed. The film begins a sequence of unlikely events when Franco nameless cowpoke awakens to find himself with a noose around his neck and destined for a hanging.

To say more would be unfair, but the story is stylishly and firmly amusing.

“Meal Ticket” continues the descent into very dark story-telling territory with Liam Neeson as a traveling showman who goes from town-to-town exhibiting an armless and legless young man who does inspirational oratories. The impresario makes a decision about the young man’s future when he sees a chicken that can apparently add sums.

I’ll stop there, except to say it is the less successful of the stories.

“All Gold Canyon,” tells the tale of a lone prospector played by Tom Waits who finds a perfect secluded spot to look for gold. Again the story has a twist. I liked this one a lot as well.

The longest and most complete story was “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” a story of the grim realities of life for a young unmarried woman who finds herself on a wagon train. This story has the least humor and presents the difficulties a woman faced in the 19th century, especially if she was an unwilling settler. Zoe Kazan in perfect as Alice and Bill Heck is the stuff of classic Western heroes as the understated but sincere Billy Knapp.

This is the only story that could have been expanded to a feature film and in fact, I wish the Coens had done that.

The movie ends with “Mortal Remains,” a segment that plays like an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” but not a very good one. A stage coach is carrying an odd assortment of people, each of whom has a story to tell seems a lot like some sort of Ingmar Bergman film or the venerable British horror film “Dt. Terror’s House of Horrors.” It was a weak way to end the film.

Considering out of the six stories only two were unsuccessful, I’d give a recommendation for any Coen Brothers fan to check this film out.

The Kominsky Method

Maybe because I’m in my sixties and I can feel the breath of my mortality on the back of my neck, I really like this sit-com/drama from Chuck Lorre, the man behind “The Big Bang Theory” and many other sit-coms.

The series is about Sandy Kominsky (Michael Douglas) a successful actor turned acting coach and his agent Norman played by Alan Arkin. It’s an inside show biz story but its grounded in the kind of events with which older people must deal: health issues, death, problem children, among others.

There are plenty of laughs – yes, laughs – as Kominsky deals with a cancer scare, his floundering career before the camera and his efforts to have a successful relationship with one of his students, Lisa played with great humor by Nancy Travis.

This show has clever thoughtful writing and the performances are spot on. Among the shows produced by Netflix this is definitely one of their best.