#black-comedy

#black-comedy

Fargo feels like Blood Simple, the Coens' neo-noir debut, got fed through the genre, well, woodchipper, producing a pitch-black comedy about the emptiness of greed. It's messing with you from the moment it opens with a blatant lie about being a true story, with Joel Coen later saying, 'If an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they may otherwise not accept.'

At the narrative midpoint, pathetic protagonist Yoo Man-su ( Lee Byung-hun) - also a hobbying horticulturist with a bonsai mag subscription - arrives at the home of a man he deems a rival for one of the only paper jobs on the market. He wields a pistol concealed inside several oven gloves, intending to kill vinyl enthusiast Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min) as a means of levelling the playing field.

In one scene, an adoring fan asks Melvin his secret to writing women. I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability, he says, an epic burn forever seared in my brain. Of course Melvin's anti-charm offensive only goes so far in a James L Brooks project. Before long, the rudeness erodes as Melvin is forced on to a journey of self-discovery with the nextdoor neighbor he can't abide (Greg Kinnear) and the diner waitress he can't live without (Helen Hunt).

On February 8, 1977, Indianapolis businessman Tony Kiritzis (Bill Skarsgard) kidnapped Richard Hall, a mortgage company president (Stranger Things' Dacre Montgomery), claiming that Hall's company had sabotaged his real estate investment. Kiritzis rigged a 12-gauge shotgun with a hair-trigger "dead man's wire" around Hall's neck, ensuring that Hall would die if police sharpshooters tried to kill him. He held Hall for three days as police, family members, a charismatic local radio DJ (Colman Domingo) and TV reporters were drawn into the standoff.

The plot centres around an English couple grappling with their relationship while their professional trajectories head in opposing directions. The pair meet in London, in one of London's best restaurants, Hide in Mayfair, where (co-founder of the Michelin-starred spot, Ollie Dabbous, makes a cameo about half way through the movie), where Theo (Cumberbatch), who plays a high-flying architecture about to make it big, is having a business meeting

As Langston Fleury - an A.R.G.U.S. agent sent, theoretically, to assist Economos as he monitors Chris Smith's house - Meadows spends most of the episode gleefully needling his colleague instead: debating the plural of "Pokémon," applying the unwelcome (but extremely sticky) nickname "Ginger Cool," and revealing what he says is his sole weakness: bird blindness, a rare condition that makes him unable to distinguish, say, between a hummingbird or a vulture.

Yorgos Lanthimos's macabre and amusing new film has a predictably strong performance from Emma Stone, an intestine-shreddingly clamorous orchestral score from Jerskin Fendrix and, most importantly, a wonderful montage finale but frankly it's a very, very long run-up to that big jump. Added to which, there is the question of whether this bizarre if sometimes heavy-handed black comedy has fully earned its eventual pivot to serious tragic issues in the ending.

Eddington is a hybrid western-black comedy about the summer of 2020, tackling issues like mask mandates, QAnon, and Black Lives Matter protests.

"Tommy Tiernan's engaging personality and profound insights range from quantum physics to parenting, reflecting his eclectic thoughts and vast interests in life."