O Hollywood, Hollywood

Rating: 3/10 (9 December 2006)

I put off seeing this one because my dad went to Fargo High and I knew it would be weird to see this movie. Then i decided it was time--gee, what a good rep the movie has had to this day. However, my early doubts were sound. Hokey accents and "character bits"---beginning with the waggy headed blonde cashier. So, that dates this movie. Cuz now we know that the Upper Midwest is populated with regular people, who are not painfully cute in their snowsuits. In fact, audiences moved to penguins, who don't even have to wear snowsuits. As time has gone by we have also grasped the range of William (Pleasantville) Macy. He's gone on to better things. But the caricatures and gruesome psychosis juxtaposed with inept human greed and self-centered myopia---ah! it is a diversion. And it is very agreeable to watch Frances McDormand work. The Coens seem to have gone in, done their job and pulled out. A directorial road movie in which the repetitive snowy road goes through mood changes--same road, but the story has altered its meaning. At the end, it's comfortingly familiar. I feel the skeleton of a better movie here. Like Peter Jackson's animated bugs in "King Kong", the smiling heads of quickly daubed "local color" wouldn't be missed. There's good stuff, and it's just off the road a bit, that beautiful straight, snowy road.