Mike Yanagita (Asian guy in Fargo): Classic or dud?

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/eddiesfathertvguide.jpg

This is how I've always seen it. Marge is in town to check on the car dealer and the Native American guy. Since she's in town, she decides to go ahead and meet up with this old friend. After the awkward lunch, she finds out that her perception has been skewed and too rosy, hearing from another friend that her lunch partner lied about the dead wife, was living with his parents, and had tried this before.

Being a little jaded and mistrusting, she goes back to the dealership to confront Jerry. Jerry takes off, and she (and the rest of the police) realize that they have their confirmed suspect.

Why else would Marge go back to the dealership? A lesser movie would've had her lying in bed with flashbacks of Jerry dulling his pencil lead or something with her sitting up going "A-ha!" Instead, we get this very real reason why someone would just all of a sudden decide that a sketchy situation was worth taking a second look.

-- Pleasant Plains (acewhiske...), October 13th, 2004 12:19 AM. (Pleasant Plains) (link)

Roger Ebert / June 1, 1997

Q. I've spoken to several knowledgeable film goers and no one has given me a satisfactory explanation as to why the scene with Chief Gunderson (Frances McDormand) and her Asian high school friend Mike Yanagita (Steve Park) was included in the film "Fargo." Your comments? (Kerry Glicken, Highland Park, Il).

A. This is the most common question asked about the film, and now that it's out on video, people are asking again. The scene functions in several ways. (1) It works on its own terms, as a wonderful little human drama. (2) It shows that Marge Gunderson, so competent as a police officer, is still capable of being thrown in a social situation. (3) Most importantly, it separates her two crucial meetings with the suspect Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy). She interviews Jerry almost as an afterthought at the car dealership (where she went looking for Shep Proudfoot). Then she has dinner with her old friend Mike. The next morning, she learns in a phone call that everything he told her was a fabrication. Then we see her looking thoughtful in her squad car. Then she returns to the dealership to ask Jerry more questions--and this time he cracks and flees the interview. Being deceived by the school friend nudged her to replay her original interview with Jerry. Imagine the Lundegaard interview as one unbroken scene, and you can see how much less effective it would have been. The delay between the scenes also allows us to imagine Lundegaard marinating in his guilt and fear, setting up his extreme nervousness when she returns.

...it strikes me as edging toward the M.Night Shamyll- school of this ultra-significance to detail that serves as a puzzle that you are supposed to piece together. maybe i am taking it too far but i think richard kells was extrapolating the scene thusly and i wish he wouldn't.

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n128/coryloubenhatzel/thelundegaards.jpg

I want an Accordion King poster.

Kid looks like Jake Gyllenhaal xpost

I never really connected with Fargo the first couple of times (had trouble getting beyond all those "yah"s initially), but now I watch it every couple of years and count it as an all-time favourite. Two things I noticed last night: 1) how John Carroll Lynch (Marge's husband) is the guy who plays Arthur Leigh Allen in Zodiac--he nicely underplays both characters, but they couldn't be farther apart as to how you perceive them; 2) Marge says "You betcha" at one point, thereby joining Edith Prickley as a blueprint for you-know-who.

Methinks the reason they put it in the film, and the reason for Marges surprise when she learned he was lying, is because she felt sorry for him and boned him. They had to cut that out though, because she was pregnant. Just a thought.

Struggling for Dignity

Is this the only time in the last twenty years that anything good has ever accompanied the phrase "Wake up, America!"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF3z-j8o39I

http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/345-keynote-the-many-faces-of-fargos-minnesota-in-five/

"What'cha got there? Arby's?"

this is our only fargo thread?

there's a tv show now? with martin freeman?

& key and peele apparently?

Jordan Peele as Webb Pepper[2]
Keegan-Michael Key as Bill Budge[2]

who is playing mike yanagita?

From what I've read, the show seems "loosely based on" the movie. It's not the exact same characters but similar types.

ok but whos playing margie? that melissa mccarthy would b good amirite

http://i.imgur.com/dc3fi.gif

Best Coen Brothers movie

goole, shakey revived this thread a couple weeks ago

ah ok

figured it'd be better on a dedicated fargo thread since the coens aren't involved at all (beyond getting paaaid)

i don't even get FX!

TV show is wonderful.

Yeah I just spent all weekend watching both the OG movie (which I hadnt seen before somehow!!) and then the 3 eps out so far of the series.

It is really fucking good. Billy Bob Thornton's manipulative, delighted menance is just.... so fucking perfect, I loved him.

Perhaps "bemused" is better than delighted but you can see he's loving the shit out of the horrible things he's doing.

The little twist last ep linking the events of the show to the events of the film was very cleverly done.

One thing it's lacking is the movie's undercurrent of profound sadness, but maybe that's coming later.

But in terms of pure watchability I honestly think there might not be anything better out there right now.

I dunno I think Martin Freeman does the crushed-under-heel hopeless everyman sadness rather well!

Perhaps we need a proper thread for the show.

If only for us two, Trayce:

We need a thread for the FARGO TV show yah? Oh, yah!