Fargo Review: It's pretty good, don-cha-know?

Breaking Bad ended quite a few months ago and I felt I was let down gently. I'm not exactly dying to fill a Walter White shaped hole in my heart. But I'm always on the look out for quality, and the buzz around the new mini series was good. I think it was because I hadn't been looking so hard for the next big thing (which is Hannibal) that Fargo got to me. It's good. Really, really, good. It feels like the work of budding talent that aren't just parroting Fargo, but have taken apart and reassembled it into something just as interesting.

I've been to Minnesota many times in my life, my mother grew up in Edina, but I can't say I remember much about it. I was 10 the last time I was there, it was always in the summer, and nobody had a particularly thick accent. So the Coen brother's Fargo was just as foreign to me as it must have been to most of you.

"No, I was the English Jim from the other offi- ...You know what? I'm sick of explaining this to you yanks."

Familiar beats from the inaugural film remain. There's a brow beaten man turning to a life of violence, mysterious vagrants stirring up more violence, and a strong female lead in law enforcement. But it's obvious from the get go that this is a format that can work for a lot of stories... hence the fact this is now an anthology series.

We open on Lester Nygard (Martin Freeman who's also nailing the accent) sharing a massive bowl of tomato soup with his wife, who nonchalantly (and oh so politely) calls him half the man his younger brother is. Well that's not true, we actually open on something much stranger, but I'll let you see that for yourself.

Does this feel ominous to you? I was going for ominous...

From what I know of Minnesotans (my mother) they are aggressively positive and polite to a fault. This politeness in my mother's case is, more often than not, slathered in mean spirited sarcasm. Everyone's dismissal of  Lester's machismo hit much closer to home than I expected. The casual racism Lester endures from his old high school bully later on, also rang bitterly true. But I'm not going into any personal anecdotes on that count.

I haven't even brought up Billy Bob Thornton yet, and he's having a grand old time playing what is essentially the devil. I'm not exaggerating. The man is cartoonishly conniving and violent. Thornton is clearly having a ball with the material, incredulous though it can be at times, and it's just as much fun to watch him wind all these people up.

It's the relatively unknown Allison Tolman who grounds the series as a rational woman surrounded by contented sheep. She's the only one in the sheriff's department who sees the connection between Nygard's evasive panicking and Thornton's trail of blood. I'm only three episodes in and the chase already has me hooked. Lester is much more sympathetic than William H. Macy's character, but he's still guilty as sin. I'd explain why, but trust me, you'd rather be surprised.

This all struck me as more interesting than the movie ever was, but for a 13 part mini-series I guess it had to be. Sure, a lot of what Thornton's character does seems to be violently creepy for creepy violence's sake... and there's a sub human set of teenage twins that are as boring as characters as they are bad at acting. But to be honest, the Coens did that sort of thing all the time too. Remember John Polito's son in Miller's Crossing? It was like he stumbled out of a completely different movie.

Quibbles aside, it's a damn good serial thriller regardless of the fact it's bobbing in the wake of Breaking Bad. That fact alone should be enough if you were worried about it. It's certainly enough for me.

I'm not feeling too hot.

Sleeping has become more of an issue for me lately. Not sure why. Sometimes I'm out like a light for 8 hours. Sometimes I'm fresh as a daisy at 3 in the morning... then not so fresh at 7:30. Either way, I'm not posting as much as I should.

So to recap:

 *Dark Souls 2 was wonderful and I plan on running through it a couple more times.

I don't have a "silly" helmet, You! yuh- YOU'RE a silly helmet.

 
* Last night's Hannibal was spectacular.

I said this was the best body horror in decades a year ago. They've improved since. How is this on NBC?

*And that Amazon Gary Busey ad is just the best. Didn't they do one with Kevin Bacon years ago? I didn't dream that did I?

So Close....

You might be wondering where I've been. I've been busy. With work and some other more personal thingys. Also Dark Souls 2. God damn, do I love Dark Souls 2. Not only am I happily getting skewered by the final boss-ette right now, I'm apparently in the top ten percent of all steam players.

Because apparently less than 6% of everyone who plays it on steam has gotten as far as I have. That feels pretty amazing. I mean I also have an achievement that less than 3% of all those chumps have. But all I did was talk to some dying soldier until he gave me a helmet.

Still, chalking that up as a win.

Dark Souls 2 PC Impression: Absolutely Goddamn Worth it.

This is a personal screen shot in case anyone gave a damn.

This is the first game I've ever bought twice. That's how deep I am in this series. To think that four years ago (after throwing down Demon Souls in disgust) that I'd not only love it's spiritual successor so much, and then I'd not only buy it's sequel day one, but it's PC port a month later. What happened to me? You know, besides a better paying job? Damn good games happened. Damn good games.

To be honest, there is no major difference between versions in terms of the overall experience, but the little things are already starting to pile up. For one, I can rock the max settings at a silky smooth 60 fps (on a evga 780) which is nice considering even the PC Dark Souls chugged quite a bit during that lava pit sequence. For another, I can read the inventory screen without a damn magnifying glass. Apparently everyone that owns a PS3 also has a massive flat screen and doesn't have an issue with infuriatingly tiny text.

But honestly? The biggest step up is the loading time. No longer am I checking my texts and swigging coffee during the minute and a half trip back to Majula. Now loading is damn near instant. And that, that, was almost worth anouther $50. Almost.

And it's SO much prettier now. I'm spending most of my time just zooming in the camera oogling the stitching on my guy's leather armor. Stupendous texture work, From Software. Stupendous.

Here's the first Age of Ultron pic:

Would we respect him more if Downy Jr. didn't troll us? I sure as hell wouldn't. It's nice to see some faces of the more unsung founders of the Iron Man cum Marvel saga. That's Jeremy Latcham, by the way.

"Who preformed this c-section?" no no no no no NO NO NO DON'T... awwwww.

Hannibal has been on spectacular form all season long. The story has zigged when I thought it would zag and it's contrived returns to normalcy seem poetic instead of tactless. I thought they burned through their A material last week with Dr. Chilton and it looks like they're going to take a break from the serial story for a time.

But that means we get some new killers to focus on, and the nesting doll this week kept me from finishing my lunch. I guess it's dinner now. Anywho, if you're not watching hannibal you're missing out on the best thing on tv right now.

Fargo's pretty good, Thrones is holding steady, and I'm waiting on Orphan Black for a while. But I sincerely doubt they can top what Hannibal's got cooking right now. I mean, I was yelling "don't go in there" to a veterinarian cutting open a horse! Where the hell else are you going to see something like that?!

The Winter Soldier Review: Coup De Grâce.

I wish I could be contrarian about this. I wish my voice could stand out from the chorus. I also wish I had gotten this done a week and a half ago, but here it is. The Winter Soldier was fantastic. It was both a solid political thriller and super hero action set piece, as well as a damn decent character drama.

This should be the point where Marvel slips up. Where their shtick wears thin, their well of stories runs dry and the shadow of an absent Downy Jr. looms large. None of these are the case for Cap 2, though most were for Thor's second go around. I was scared about TWS precisely because Thor 2 was just so stunningly predictable.

Apparently, they had to go back and add more Loki to the mix. Seeing as he barely took up a 6th (far and away the best 6th) of the film, can you imagine how much more earth we would have had to take? I'm getting off topic, but The Dark World had me really frightened, guys. It wasn't "bad" in a "you couldn't pay me to see it again" kind of way. It was just disappointingly boiler plate. It even walked back it's solitary piece of character growth in the last second, seemingly just to salt my wound one more time.

Cap 2 made up for all of that and then some. I'd almost be fine with all marvel movies from here on out being tangentially related to Captain Rogers. Chis Evans isn't simply that good (he is), the plot isn't simply one of the strongest so far (it is), and the action sequences don't simply build on each other and become more impactful as they go (they do).

All of those things coupled with such breezy editing and a direction so confidant I'm convinced cocaine was involved, we have one the best super hero films ever. The fact it all seems to build to something greater is exciting instead of disappointing. I didn't throw my popcorn at the screen and hiss at the strings of obvious cliffhangers. I was more than satisfied at that point and I understood they had to leave me wanting more. And brother? I want MOAR.

Dude, what are you doing with 70 bookmarks? That's embarrassing.

We last left Steve in the hands of Shield, (a clandestine government agency laser focused on protecting the world from supers and aliens, can you believe I typed that with a straight face? ) after the events of the New York invasion and his struggle fitting in to society after 50 years on ice. He's more than happy to run errands for Director Fury, just as long as he can keep his nose to the grindstone and not get too close with anyone he doesn't already know.

 But something begins to stick in his craw about shield, Scarlet Johansson is constantly trying to set him up both romantically and professionally. It seems he hasn't been privy to all the parameters of his operations and has been responsible for padding Shield's bottom line at the expense of civil liberty.

This whole sequence here is just... I don't even... it's so great. It's beyond the expressive power of the English language.

Cap's not too happy about that, but Fury demands that he stow it, his pay grade isn't high enough for him to explain himself. But as one of the tensest and most balls out amazing car chases I've ever seen will soon prove... neither is Fury's. What comes next is hard to explain without spoilers, so I won't. The movie's called the "winter soldier" so what about him? That's a good question, and let me answer it by saying you'll forget about him, mostly. Right up until he pops out of nowhere and grabs the narrative by the throat. Sebastain Stan dosn't have a whole lot to do with what could be easily misconstrued as just anouther cybernetic ninja assasin (I know, I know, another one?) but he makes it work. In fact, I wouldn't call the "final battle" a battle at all. It's the most emotionally complex finale of any Marvel film to date.

Man, I haven't even name checked Robert Redford yet, and he's fantastic. Same goes for Anthony Mackie who turned in one hell of an interview for TWS. Seriously, I was laughing so hard my cheeks hurt. If he doesn't do audio commentary I'm straight up not buying the dvd:

Will Smith should be absolutely terrified.

I'd just end up recapping the whole film if I got into those guys. Everyone has room to breathe here and nearly everyone arcs in a meaningful way. Except for Dani Pudi's cubical drone. But he has less than a minute of screen time so, I guess sacrifices must be made. It's so much fun and I'm in the process of nagging my friends into seeing it again. It's the most entertaining treatise on civil liberty you will ever see. You wouldn't expect a American multimillion dollar film to attack drone ware fare so explicitly and so viciously. But it does so with wit and finesse to spare.

Add that to an end credits sequence that's a monochrome homage to 70's paranoia thriller posters and The Winter Soldier has exhausted all the buttons I have left to be pushed. I haven't had this good of a time at the movies since The Lego Movie. But I haven't had this good a time at a super hero flick since The Avengers. That should be enough to get most of you out to see it, though most of the world already has. For a film that should smack of stone faced propaganda, that's incredible. But than again, so is The Winter Solider.