154 wrote:to people who incessantly quote this movie and/or 'Caddyshack' at get-togethers and parties, fuck you!

I was just reading the defenses of the Coens from the condescending accusation. I have a point and then a question.

whiskerando wrote:The COENS (capitalized for correct spelling show-offiness)

Yeah...that's just reenforcing the image some detractors already have of Coen Bros. fans (which I definitely am). That is both snarky AND not that funny, so you just sound like a dick, whether or not you intended to sound so.

Now, a more general question about Fargo.

whiskerando wrote:The characters in Fargo weren't shown as ridiculous. It was a standard thriller but the brilliant part was they set it in a part of the country where people talk funny

I love the Coen Bros., but I've never enjoyed this movie at all. I agree that it's a pretty standard thriller, except without the suspense. The part that you say is brilliant, I've never understood how that adds or subtracts from the movie in any way whatsoever and it feels really random to me. How does the setting in Fargo enhance either the mystery r the comedy in any way?

Oh yeah, and TBL? Not Crap. Ever. Any part of it.

Yeah...that's just reenforcing the image some detractors already have of Coen Bros. fans (which I definitely am). That is both snarky AND not that funny, so you just sound like a dick, whether or not you intended to sound so.

I wouldn't call myself a Coen brothers fan. I like some of their movies. I like Lebowski and Fargo a lot. I wasn't trying to be snarky or really very funny at all. I also wasn't trying to sound like a dick. Their names get misspelled constantly. There's even an old thread here where Spoot keeps spelling it Cohen even after correction which i love. Really i only mentioned the correct spelling so maybe if the guy said something else he would spell it right (which he did) which helps when people search for shit on this forum.

The part that you say is brilliant, I've never understood how that adds or subtracts from the movie in any way whatsoever and it feels really random to me. How does the setting in Fargo enhance either the mystery r the comedy in any way?

Fargo is, like i said, a standard thriller but undoing very basic things about the genre. The Sam Spade character is an unimaginably upbeat pregnant woman. The setting is not a seedy big city it is a snow bound town. Setting a thriller here and populating it with these characters completely subverts the "effortless" cool and suspense of this type of film. Anyway it makes me laugh.

Lebowski is the same way. They took a hapless, stoner, ex-hippie and made him the Marlowe in a Chandler story, more or less.

The Coens take archetypes and skew them a bit and cast them with fantastic actors and shoot the films gorgeously (the ones i like at least). They are getting the credit comedies deserve. Comedy gets shafted when it comes to awards or best ofs or any of that shit, which doesn't really matter but it's disheartening to see a great movie lose to a weepy hunk of shit because making people laugh is somehow misread as being easier than making people cry.

If there is a valid argument against the Coens it is this: they borrow heavily from other sources, make a slight change which ends up altering things greatly, and ask you to laugh at how unusual it is. If you don't like that I can understand but it took me a few viewings of Lebowski to realize that the Dude borrowed lines from other people in the movie a lot: "this aggression will not stand, man" "in the parlance of our times" and so on. not a lot of movies can surprise me on repeats.

whiskerando wrote:it took me a few viewings of Lebowski to realize that the Dude borrowed lines from other people in the movie a lot: "this aggression will not stand, man" "in the parlance of our times" and so on. not a lot of movies can surprise me on repeats.

I could be wrong, but after several dozen viewings i'm pretty sure that the ONLY thing The Dude manages to come up with himself is the realization that The Big Lebowski faked the ransom note and that the ringer was a "ringer for a ringer." Just about every last major piece of dialogue out of his mouth is borrowed from elsewhere, and just about every decision he makes in the movie is basically made for him and he just goes along with it. ("I'm just trying to help her conceive, man!") There's a bit of brilliance in that.

There's a bit of brilliance in that.

They did something sort of similar in The Man Who Wasn't There he didn't borrow from other characters but, you know, the title and all.

I would also like to mention that the Coens use great music. They got middle-aged women to listen to Ralph Stanley. They used fantastic and not over-used 70's rock and made me like a song from an oft-maligned Bob Dylan album. Using "sonata pathetique" as a theme was great. And the huge sweeping strings that played over the shot of a single car driving through endless snow in Fargo were very very great.

whiskerando wrote:Their names get misspelled constantly. There's even an old thread here where Spoot keeps spelling it Cohen even after correction which i love.

it's a bit more nefarious than that.


[guilty face]

dead man's spelling indeed

I liked O Brother Where Art Thou, as well. Didn't like Fargo so much.

I'm a usually a dour, depressed fucker. This film never fails to elicit a gut laugh. NC.

The cult status and geeky adoration is kinda not so good.

Whatever you think about this movie, you have to appreciate this script.