Arrow Announcements, Speculation & Wild, Irresponsible Conjecture

[hearthesilence]

tbf some people hate Fargo, though they generally dislike the Coens' work too.

[Lowry_Sam]

But with 8.1 on IMDB & 88 metacritic score, it's one of their most broadly liked films, woodchipper included.

[Finch]

I don't hate it and it is a good film but I'd rank several other Coens higher. I wish I could articulate it better but the characters in Fargo get on my nerves.

[Lowry_Sam]

I wish I could articulate it better but the characters in Fargo get on my nerves.

and I would say that that was what the Coen brothers intended.

[Finch]

Fair point. To which I'd say I can respect the intent and still find the film off-putting as a result.

[Beloved Aunt]

Miller's Crossing, O Brother, The Man Who Wasn't There, and True Grit are all better than Fargo, by a fair bit I'd say, and I also prefer Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski and Burn After Reading to Fargo even as smaller works. I like the Coen brothers, or at least, the films I mentioned, quite a bit, but I'm sort of leery of Fargo, to some partial degree, for reasons I can't quite define, at least not completely.

[Finch]

I'm having trouble with that too, not least because a couple other Coen films have simpletons or outright idiots in them (Burn After Reading etc) but while I'm not the biggest fan of those films either, none quite irritate me to the same extent that Fargo does. Is it because Lindegaard and the hired killers inflict suffering and death on people who don't deserve it and therefore the stupidity feels more jarring? Burn After Reading is easier to accept because it plays as broad satire, Fargo on the other hand does to some of degree play like a police procedural with some verisimilitude, so perhaps the idiocy feels more crass and less palatable (to me, anyway) there than elsewhere. I mean I really love Steve Buscemi but his character is aggravating in this.

[Finch]

Circling back to Arrow announcements: their WB titles haven't been for me so far, with the exception of The Long Kiss Goodnight, so I'm not expecting whatever gets announced Friday to buck the trend. I wonder what the next Golden Princess title is. Possibly the two Prison on Fire films since they were released by Shout after the Woos.

[Beloved Aunt]

Fargo on the other hand does to some of degree play like a police procedural with some verisimilitude, so perhaps the idiocy feels more crass and less palatable (to me, anyway) there than elsewhere.

That sounds right, and also the tone of the film is so nasty and facile, more indulgently so and more over-the-top nasty than any other Coen Bros joint I've seen, at least at times, that it feels like it pushes over sometimes into into a tinge of Tarantino-imitation filmmaking--just about the worst kind of filmmaking. The Coens are occasionally perfectly comfortable openly grasping for "Art" while providing something that is totally incoherent, like Barton Fink. But I don't really have an idea of what the Coens are even trying to say with Fargo, so I don't know whether I think the film is incoherent.

[beamish14]

Miller's Crossing, O Brother, The Man Who Wasn't There, and True Grit are all better than Fargo, by a fair bit I'd say, and I also prefer Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski and Burn After Reading to Fargo even as smaller works. I like the Coen brothers, or at least, the films I mentioned, quite a bit, but I'm sort of leery of Fargo, to some partial degree, for reasons I can't quite define, at least not completely.

I enjoy Fargo a lot, but it’s The Hudsucker Proxy that I still think is their masterpiece. I’ve come to watch it every New Year’s, and it’s so beautiful and hilarious in equal measure. Steve Buscemi’s beatnik cafe proprietor is one of their best creations.

[Zot!]

Funny how Fargo has such a mixed reception here. I am not a Coens aficionado, but it probably ranks up there for me for exactly the reasons (for and against) stated. I can understand the apathy though, because this was a huge staple of the 90s zeitgeist and has a million releases and I am also burned out on it. But it seems best to get the obligatory UK 4K out of the way and move on.