Ah, 1996. A year that movie stars were made. Will Smith in “ID4.” Billy Bob Thornton in “Sling Blade.” Matthew McConaughey in “A Time To Kill.” Edward Norton in “Primal Fear.” Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau in “Swingers.” And, of course, Billy Zane in “The Phantom.”
The big hullabaloo at the Oscars was that all of the best picture nominees but one were indy movies. Big deal, sniffed Cam.
“The English Patient” – I’m with Elaine Benes on this one.
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“Jerry Maguire” – I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I still love just about everything about “Jerry Maguire,” despite its clunky moments.
“Secrets & Lies” – Other than “Naked,” which I saw under the influence of…something…I never have cared for Mike Leigh’s movies. Nor do I hate any of his movies, or find him to be a hack. But his movies don’t illicit anything more than a “that didn’t suck” outta me.
“Shine” – Really never got all the fuss over this one, either. I kinda hate it, in fact.
“Fargo” – From the lie that it’s based on true events to every aspect of the execution — everything about “Fargo” screamed instant classic.
WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED:
“Tin Cup” – Yeah, tt’s fluff. But damn if isn’t rewatchable and entertaining. Costner is so on, after a string of misfires. What the hell ever happened to Ron Shelton?
“Sling Blade” – There are about a hundred lines in this movie that I use every chance I get. Complete with the Karl Childers voice. Throwaway lines, even, like when my kid says a cuss word, I poke out my bottom lip and growl, “You shouldn’t be tawlkin’ like’at, you jest a boy.”
“Swingers” – So good that they remade it with actors as bottom-feeding gangsters, and I still loved it.
“Trainspotting” – Marketed as a British “Pulp Fiction,” the film is actually more like “Good Fellas” with junkies. Its first half comes very close to glamorizing the lifestyle of heroin junkies, and then the baby dies, and the carefree tone shifts radically. Haven’t seen this in years, but it remains burned in my brain.
“Fargo” – I had always been a fan of the Coen Brothers, but with this one I finally decided they were geniuses.
WHAT SHOULDA WON
“Fargo” comes tantalizingly close to being a perfect movie. The genius of the movie: its tone. Its humor is both dark and folksy, sometimes both at the same time, and from the very first scene, in a smoky bar in snowy Fargo, North Dakota the Coens establish a tense, unshakable sense of dread: we know Jerry Lundegaard’s (William H. Macy) convoluted scheme will end badly. Jerry hires two goons, the monosyllabic, chain smoking thug Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), and the wiry, talkative Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) to kidnap his wife in hopes that Jerry can convince his “well-off” father-in-law to overpay the ransom. Jerry will split the overage with Gaear and Carl, and give them a burnt umber Cutlass Ciera to boot. Right off the bat, Gaear and Carl have their doubts about the plan. “That’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul, Jerry, it doesn’t make any sense,” chirps Carl, who is unwilling to debate the subject any further.
But they go along with the plan and it goes bad when they’re pulled over by a State Trooper. Carl shows his hand, the Trooper suspects something, and Gaear takes it upon himself to kill the Trooper, after which he mocks Carl sarcastically, “You’re a real smooth smooth one.” So. Awesome. Oh, and then a passerby sees them dragging the trooper to the side of the road, so Gaear takes off for’em, kills them, and we think, “Goshdarn, what a mess, yah know?”
And then we meet Marge Gunderson (Francis McDormand), the Chief of Police in Brainerd, Minnesota, home of Paul Bunyon and Babe, the blue ox. She’s, oh, about fourteen months pregnant, married to Norm “Son of a” Gunderson, a painter. A nicer couple you shall not meet, but Marge doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the bad guys will face justice.
But it turns out that Marge is a pretty goshdarn good detective, albeit a bit naive to the darker side of human nature. She arrives at the scene of the crime and figures out what happened in about two seconds flat, “OK, so we got a trooper pulls someone over, we got a shooting, these folks drive by, there’s a high-speed pursuit, ends here and then this execution-type deal.”
I’m not the first to say it — this moment is a game changer. We know that bad things will happen, because we’re watching a Coen Brothers movie. But we also, in this moment, relax a bit, knowing that there will be some level of justice. Marge is on the case.
Marge Gunderson is one of my twenty favorite characters of all time. Laid back, friendly, smart but never smug; it’s impossible not to root for her. Francis McDormand walked away with an Oscar for the movie, and the Coen’s don’t so much direct her as turn her loose. She’s not introduced until thirty or so minutes in, but it’s her movie. The supporting cast also excels. Macy wrings empathy from a role that could have been just plain creepy, and the Coens never judge him or attempt to justify him. We sense he was at one time a decent guy, and hate that he has chosen to go down a very dark path. Buscemi is in typically motormouth, bizarro-Barney Fife form. Stormare’s Gaer is a monster, plain and simple, with a seemingly impenetrable dark heart. But, because they’re geniuses, the Coens include a scene in which a routine twist in a bland soap opera offers a brief glimpse at Gaer’s human side.
“Fargo” is, to me, a masterpiece. It’s one of those movies that make me say, “So, this is the best movie ever,” every time I watch it.
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