When Fargo was released 20 years ago, its subsequent success would have seemed unlikely, even impossible. The Coen brothers’ three previous films had all failed at the box office, despite receiving glowing reviews. On its surface the film would seem too dark and too violent to ever attract audiences, another flop in the making. But …
In his 30-year career as a composer, Carter Burwell’s film scores have run the veritable cinematic gamut. From composing for Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., Where the Wild Things Are) to his work being the best parts of the Twilight saga, Burwell’s résumé is sporadic and unconventional, even for a man who makes film music for …
Joel and Ethan Coen have built a reputation as two of the most visionary and idiosyncratic filmmakers working today. Dabbling in Film Noir to screwball comedy, from off-beat indies to big-budget studio pieces, their films are adored by critics and audiences alike.
Everyone’s short-sighted plans come to a violent head in Fargo’s fantastic penultimate episode.
Fargo recovers from last week’s uneven episode with a thrilling, hilarious hour in the woods.
Fargo’s nods to the Coen brothers and messy timelines muddle an otherwise strong, thematically rich hour.
Another magnificent hour of Fargo dials up the tension with a number of revealing, dramatic standoffs.
Another stellar installment of Fargo explores the dangers of dreaming.
A number of characters find themselves ignoring the inevitable in another terrific Fargo episode.
Characters fight against the devastating feeling of futility in another stellar episode of Fargo season two.
In Fargo’s second episode, an enigmatic personality and some fantastic world-building highlight another standout entry.
With the first season of Fargo, Noah Hawley and company did something unheard of in television: he took an iconic American film, and turned it into a better TV show, adapting the dark, twisted humor of the 1995 Coen Brothers classic into a show that both felt abundantly familiar, and wildly original.
Noah Hawley’s Coens-inspired anthology series is back and it’s shaken off what little didn’t’ work the first time around for a fresh, funky new tale of small-town violence and intrigue.
The idea of doing a TV show inspired by the Fargo film is one that could have gone wrong in so many ways, but miraculously Hawley did everything right in the first season.
The Peabody Awards have grown to be a staple of media since their beginning in 1940, as the committee awards programs they see as excellent in quality. Beginning with only awards for radio, the group soon expanded to television, giving tv shows their due credit since 1948. While the actual awards ceremony has yet to occur, …
Once upon a time, there was a Japanese woman who watched the movie Fargo. The movie begins with a title card pronouncing, “THIS IS A TRUE STORY,” and the fact that the Coen Brothers were playing a little prank with that statement was covered in American media only. So it came to pass that the woman believed the film to be true, and carried her belief to such a degree that she travelled to Minnesota alone, in search of the ransom money hidden by the Steve Buscemi character near the end of the film.
30. Apollo 13 (1995) Lost to: Braveheart In 1995, director Ron Howard brought a true life story of hope in the face of peril and started sweeping up awards. He won the Directors Guild Award. He won the Producers Guild Award. He won the Screen Actors Guild Ensemble Award. He lost the Golden Globe Drama to …
Though this year’s Noah turned a lot of heads and made more than a handful of viewers frustrated, be it for declining to use the word “God” or just including Rock Titan Angel things into a Biblical story, Darren Aronofsky still remains a highly valued director and ever rising auteur in Hollywood. Aronofsky is currently …
For the second year running and for its final season, Breaking Bad won Outstanding Drama Series at the 66th Annual Emmy Awards. It virtually swept the awards in an especially stacked year, also picking up awards for Best Actor Bryan Cranston, Best Supporting Actress Anna Gunn, Best Supporting Actor Aaron Paul, and Best Writing for …
The dishonest suggestion of truth behind an uninspired movie is an easy means to attract a bigger audience. It is a double-edged sword, however, when said audience discovers that the majority of what they have seen is inaccurate and, on occasion, almost slanderous.
Part 2 of our listing of the best television episodes of the year to date looks at individuals outings of shows such as Bob’s Burgers and Fargo.
There are a handful of moments in “Morton’s Fork” where characters consider two very different options. Some are existential (Pepper wondering if he’s awake or asleep), some are incidental (whether Lester should run away not once, but two more times), and some are moral (Gus and Lou’s attempts to “protect” Molly). However different these choices may seem on the surface, the underbelly of “Morton’s Fork” is about the ambiguity of “good” and “bad”, silently observing the battle of each in characters, from Lester to Malvo, right down to our soon-to-be-retired police chief Bill. And by plainly stating the bad and good of each character in this world, Fargo doesn’t end with the Biblical implications it began with, ending with a Coen-esque morality play, where the decent win, the dumb die, and evil is finally vanquished from Bemidji.
In a world where the devil runs amok around America, killing dentists and mobsters, scaring little children and old men alike, Lester Nygaard is the most evil presence around. It’s taken Fargo awhile to build to this – nine hours, exactly – but it finally comes to light, in an hour where Lester’s pride refuses to let him walk away and enjoy his spoils. It’s not enough to be recognized and assisted by the devil, not for ol’ Lester, who walks up to Lorne Malvo in a Las Vegas hotel bar and insists he knows who he is. After repeated, obvious attempts by Lorne not to reveal such a truth (after all, six months of work was on the line), Lorne asks Lester a very, very familiar question: