horned_grebe Reviews

Fargo (1996)

Not my cup of tea

[5/10 · 19 February 2007]

Obviously this movie struck a chord with many people, but I failed to see its charm. I found it visually beautiful, but hollow. I found the characters hollow, both the good and the evil ones.

If I had interpreted it differently though, it could be perceived as a projection of the characters onto a purely material plane, in which they are observed strictly in terms of their actions with no added effort to reveal their psychological state on the part of the filmmaker. The onus is on the viewer.

In the end, in any case, I was not drawn in, and I found it to be a cold meditation on the effects of human stupidity and materialism. A description of a world that we don't quite actually live in, but could, if we don't watch our step and observe ourselves in the same cold ridiculing manner of Fargo's camera?

Owning Mahowny (2003)

Unforgettable

[8/10 · 11 March 2006]

I'm not sure that it was a fantastic movie, but it really sticks with me. I gamble quite a bit too, and I regularly see Mahoney-like behaviours at the casino. The guy next to me the other day started with $200, then went up, in my eyes undeservingly, to about $2500, and finally lost it all in a matter of half an hour. The entire time completely without expression, like a gambler, like Mahoney. No matter what happens to a gambler in the short term, he knows that it is ephemeral. Unfortunately, the ephemeral losses are a bit bigger than the ephemeral wins, and the cumulative loss is what you are stuck with in the end.

I liked the way that Mahoney was so boring. As though the things that make life interesting for the average person and the things that make the average person interesting all pale in his eyes to the passionate communion that he has with the game.