Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Fargo (1996) - The Coen brothers make movie magic with dark-humored crime thriller

4/24/2018

Fargo (1996) - The Coen brothers make movie magic with dark-humored crime thriller

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Movie of the Year

+ Best American Movie of the Year + Best Breakthrough Actress of the Year: Frances McDormand + Best Cop Movie of the Year + Best Dark Comedy of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year + Best $ Return of the Year: 8.65 Times the Cost + Best Mega-hit of the Year + Best North Dakota Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year

A homespun, fantastic, ominous poster for the 'homespun murder story' that is Ethan and Joel Coen's Fargo

Pathetic car salesman Jerry Lundegaard of Minneapolis hires a couple of goons to kidnap his wife, so that his father-in-law will pay a hefty ransom, (of which he will receive half, - enough to help him against the creditors that are at his throat.) - But nothing goes as planned in Fargo, North Dakota.

Fargo is written and directed by Minnesotan master filmmakers and brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (Miller's Crossing (1990), both). The film claims to be based on a true story, but the Coen brothers have since been pressed to divulge that it is essentially only true that it is a story.
Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)) as Brainerd police chief Marge Gunderson and William H. Macy (Cellular (2004)) as Jerry Lundegaard both give outstanding performances in Fargo: McDormand is hilarious, Macy is exceptional, making us actually like his morally inadmissible character. Steve Buscemi (The Boss Baby (2017)) and Peter Stormare (Graceland (2015), TV-series) are also just swell as the pair of really ugly guys that Macy employs.
The Coens elegantly weave humor with suspense and a particular, snowy kind of poetry in Fargo, where life is lived right alongside pointless violence, (much as in real life.)
Fargo is a precious gem and a true masterpiece.

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Unbroken (2014) - Despite good elements, Jolie's Grand WWII Biopic is mostly distant and weak (co-writers)
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Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
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1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Barton Fink (1991) or, The Writer's Hell

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 60.6 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[Fargo was released 8 March (USA) and runs 98 minutes. Shooting took place in North Dakota and Minneapolis, including in Fargo and Brainerd, from January - March 1995. The film opened to a 730k $ first weekend in 36 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #6 and in 716 cinemas (different weeks) and grossed 24.6 mil. $ (40.6 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 7 Oscars: It won for Best Screenplay and Best Actress (McDormand). It lost Supporting Actor (Macy) to Cuba Gooding Jr. for Jerry Maguire, Cinematography (Roger Deakins) to John Seale for The English Patient, Director to Anthony Minghella for The English Patient, Editing to The English Patient, - and Best Picture also to the much inferior epic, The English Patient. The film was also nominated for 4 Golden Globes, won 1/6 BAFTA noms, won Joel Coen the Best Director Prize in Cannes, was nominated for a César award (France's Oscar), won 6 Independent Spirit awards, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Kathy Bates directed a pilot for a Fargo-based TV-series with Edie Falco in 1997, which only aired in 2003. A successful TV-series executive produced by the Coens called Fargo, set in the same locale but in a different decade and with other characters, have been successful for 3 seasons (2014-17). IMDb-users have voted Fargo the original movie in to #161 on the site's Top 250 list, sitting between The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Deer Hunter (1978). The Coens returned with The Big Lebowski (1998), another masterpiece. McDormand returned in Primal Fear (1996). Fargo is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Fargo?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

4/24/2018

Fargo (1996) - The Coen brothers make movie magic with dark-humored crime thriller

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