another maniacal Armond White review, this time "Fahrenheit 9/11"

josh brolin's character was too stupid to live. (in the book as soon as he headed back out to the shooting site with the water, i completely lost interest in him.)

they don't look totally blank! there's just not a lot of dialogue! what, you want them to be making frownie faces and big wide-eyed A-HAs when they realize shit?

funny thing is the only reason he survived as long as he did is he went out there, because if he wasn't pursued from the start they would have just tracked him to his trailer and killed him and his wife there, right? that was the impression i got anyway.

Fargo & Barton Fink are the fave Coens films of people whose contempt for humanity is (even) great(er than mine).

how would they have tracked him to the trailer...?

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if he hadn't gone back there, there was nothing to tie him to it at all. it's a big clumsy plot device. and not surprising, since plot is not mccarthy's strong point.

my fave Coen Bros films are the comedies - Hudsucker Proxy and Big Lebowski

haha yeah plotting is definitely not what McCarthy's good at!

there was a tracking device in the money bag, which is how chigurh tracked him from place to place.

people who like hudsucker proxy hate humanity a lot more than people who like fargo

people who like intolerable cruelty just hate themselves.

where do O Brother fans fit in?

oh! you're right about the transponder. ok.

the character's still an idiot though.

(although the transponder didn't have much of a range, right? presumably if he'd just packed up and skipped town he would have been ok.)

people who like hudsucker proxy hate humanity a lot more than people who like fargo

uh okay I guess... I don't know what this means either

"the character's still an idiot though."

I didn't think this at all.

hudsucker proxy is shallow and glib, borderline autistic. the idea that because some midwesterners in fargo have funny accents the movie hates humanity is the most o_O thing on this thread.

no, he's a pretty resourceful and smart dude. who makes some pretty bad mistakes. who hates humanity now?

Raising Arizona >>>>>> Intolerable Cruelty >>> Hudsucker Proxy and Big Lebowski

Biggest too clever schtick in Fargo is the "BASED ON A TRUE STORY" thing at the beginning.

i do not understand the fargo hate, except for people who do not think it is funny. more than anything else the coens have ever done, it makes me laugh out loud.

i am like prince #1 a+ champion of vaguely realistic humanist cinema, and i can't stand barton fink or miller's crossing for being too cruel and roundly mean-spirited, but there is no way i would level the same charge at fargo.

raising arizona is bullshit. dismissing fargo as "smug funny-accent travesty" and then riding for that garbage is psychotic

i am reserving judgment on fargo cuz i havent seen it since it came out. i liked it then, not sure if i would be as into it now.

we shore get up to some heeelarious goings-on!! huyk!

i haven't seen it since it came out, either, but remember enjoying it quite a bit. however, being from minnesota meant enduring "...do you ALL talk like that?" for years after

A: actually, yeah, a lot of people DO talk like that

yes

is there one review or critic or school of thought that we can blame for all the people who now think fargo is some smug anti-humanity genre exercise because people say dontcha know?

look how frances macdonald said 'yah' in that last scene - clearly these so-called coen brothers are nietzschean sociopaths!

xp: Donal Logue

he's a pretty resourceful and smart dude. who makes some pretty bad mistakes.

this is how he's intended -- there's the bit where his wife is all, like, oh he can take care of himself -- but in fact he pretty much fucks everything up from the start and keeps fucking up until he inevitably gets himself and assorted other people killed. which is the big moralizing twist: the hero never stands a chance. death awaits us all! thus has it ever been, etc. but you know, you can improve your odds at longevity a little by not being a dumbass.

pretty sure i don't recall anyone actually from minnesota getting upset by the lol what rubes character typing. i think that's because the coens actually did a decent job of presenting uniquely midwestern personalities. regardless, i don't need idiot movie critics going to bat for me and my neighbors and getting capt save a lutefisk

I don't think that's the moralizing twist or the point of the movie at all.

also, aren't they FROM minnesota originally??

anyway, now i think i might have to blow off doing laundry and go see twbb instead

For my money, Miller's Crossing is clearly their best film. But given that I am Richard Roeper compared to some of you guys, I understand if my opinion doesn't carry much weight around here. :)

Also, NCFOM was their best film since Lebowski, that much is certain. Whether it deserves to be slobbered over is a matter of personal taste.

Hating on TLJ performance in this movie baffles me. It's a great performance. Should he never act again because he's always going to look and sound like TLJ?

Crimewave >>> Miller's Crossing

thats what im saying, man! is fargo shittier or more cruel to its characters than double indemnity or chinatown or blade runner or or sunset blvd or mulholland drive or etc etc etc

o brother is funny and cute and well-loved unironically by every CMT-watching redneck non-cinephile i know back on SC

I've never seen Crimewave.

TLJ was great! It probably hurts him that he has no "range," but I love the dude, even in his bad movies.

another maniacal Coen Bros thread, this time in the Armond White thread

tipsy: so the movie is inhuman because you think the main character is so stupid he deserves to die? ya that's really on the movie there.

the characters in fargo came across like a lot of regular minnesotans i knew from my time there. i didn't think they were rubes, but i remember seeing it in nyc when it was released and many people were loling at the accents (which i don't necessarily think was the film's intent).

god i hated o brother.

If anything, this thread convinced me to see Shakes the Barley, and maybe to finally check out Zodiac (despite not being much of a Fincher fan).

"I've never seen Crimewave."

Haha I was kidding. It's good, but Miller's Crossing is better (if not their best.)

I hate Fincher generally, but I love love loved Zodiac.

its not great CINEMA!!@@#!@ or anything but for a tart little populist hit its def good enough - most dvd collections file it next to, like, the notebook & 13 going on 30

xp about o brother

i just thought it was annoying

i mean i cant speak on the midwestern stuff but as a southerner the only ppl getting all madd about the southern shit in that was yankees