"Prison life is very structured - more than most people care for".
Good call, what an intro to a film. Prior to the title sequence and that great music we learn so much about H.I and Ed. This may be the only Nick Cage movie I love. Hudsucker and Raising Arizona are great but I think the most under appreciated Coen brothers film is Millers Crossing. If you dig dialog and the noir detective genre, check it out if you haven't already. As for favorites, that's a tough one. I like b_b's call but would probably swap out Burn After Reading for Millers Crossing add O' Brother Where Art Thou, I really enjoyed that film. It's been played out but it's damned good.
Nick Cage makes plenty of terrible movies, but he has some great ones, too. In addition to Raising Arizona, there's Leaving Las Vegas, Bad Lieutenant, Adaptation (a personal favorite of mine--maybe top 10 of all time), Kick Ass, Con Air, and let's not forget, he had a small role in Fast Times. All in all, I'd say that's a pretty damn good career, even if he has City of Angels and Ghost Rider to his credit. Even De Niro makes shitty movies sometimes.
Adaptation was great, Leaving Las Vegas was good too. The others I could take or leave, with the exception of Fast Times -which he can hardly take credit for. When his movies suck, he really annoys me. When he's on, he's on though.