We also know that he’s had a fake persona as a two bit crippled con artist long enough that Keaton and the NYPD were convinced that’s who he was. He had to have a reason to fake that physical disability for so long.
I honestly think “Return of the King” is the worst movie to ever be given Best Picture and I don’t think it’s a close call.
That’s not really in the spirit of the thread so I’ll throw in my own. Well, maybe it’s not one most misunderstand, but people often seem confused by what Jerry Lundegaard is up to in “Fargo.” He’s running two scams at once, and four different sums of money are talked out, so I get why it baffles people, but it does make sense.
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Jerry has scammed the car dealership, owned by his father in law, for $320,000. He has done this by getting car loans from GMAC for non-existent vehicles. Now an auditor is demanding proof the cars actually existed. Presumably, he’s frittered the money away.
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He comes up with the idea of buying a parking lot and borrowing the money from his father in law. He’s asking for $750,000 to buy the lot, so he likely plans to use some of it to pay off GMAC and figure out a way to buy the lot with only a portion of the purchase price, perhaps using that cash to leverage the rest.
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It’s apparent by the time the movie starts that he’s been trying for awhile to borrow that money from his father in law. Desperate, he concocts the kidnapping plan. Plan B is to have his wife kidnapped, get a million bucks from his father in law, pay the kidnappers just $40,000 plus a car (why he came up with $40,000 is never explained but it doesn’t matter) and boom, he’s got all the money he needs.
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He is surprised when he starts the kidnapping plan and then immediately after his father in law’s accountant actually decides the parking lot loan is a good idea.
Of course his plans are imbecilic and full of holes, but this is what he was planning.
As I recall, that’s why he’s flummoxed when the FIL wants to buy the parking lot by himself - it cuts Jerry out of tbe miney he needs.
I would offer a slight correction to point number 4. His father-in-law’s accountant decides that the parking lot purchase is a good idea–for his father-in-law. They’re not going to loan him the $750,000 (“We’re not a bank, Jerry”), just pay him a modest finder’s fee, which is not enough to cover what he owes to GMAC.
Yes, that just completely ruins Plan A. Of course, he’s an idiot for not taking what he could get. Had he been able to get the finder’s fee, $75,000 might have at least helped him flee.
Of course, Jerry doesn’t know that until he gets there. He tries to call off the kidnapping because he assumes Wade actually will lend him the $750,000.
I mean, his plans are all stupid. Suppose he actually pulled off the kidnapping plan exactly as he drew it out and manages to end up with $960,000 after he pays Showalter and Grimsrud; now what? You can’t just send $320,000 in cash to GMAC, they’d call the police. You can’t just drop it in a dealership account, the bank will want to know where all that cash came from. Even in 1987, things like that would set off alarm bells, and I don’t think Jerry is an expert in laundering money.
Except she has also decided that baseball wasn’t the most important thing, family was. She was giving all of it up for her husband. Why not also give her sister the win? At the very least her drive and determination weren’t so important to her anymore.
There is the cartoon where there are two kids watching Road Runner, and one asks why the coyote wants to catch the Road Runner. Wile E. stops and answers him (“a legitimate question, young man…”).
Fanucci was portrayed as a terrible person preying on his own people. i.e. He had it coming. (Just like that damned horse! He knows what he did.)
Vito helped an old widow keep her home from a greedy landlord, so he’s the benevolent force in that scenario. And Senator Geary was a corrupt politican with a penchant for hookers. He had it coming.
The point is that we don’t see the regular people who are victimized by the Corleone crime family. And it was a deliberate choice to ensure the audience would be able to sympathize with them.
He clearly can’t fake the poison in his own cup, because that’s too obvious, and Vizzini would spot that easy feint. But he clearly can’t fake having the poison in Vizzini’s cup, because that’s an obvious double-feint. And he clearly can’t fake it being in “neither” cup, because a man of true wisdom would realize it was actually in both.
Truly a staggering intellect.
Speaking of AI, the belief or ignorance there that I find is that viewers think the mechas actually brought David’s mother back. “The tech is stupid: how can they bring her back, but for only a day? Stupid!” The truth is, they faked it. For however advanced a machine David is, he’s really not that sophisticated. His programming can’t be altered. He loves his mom, and short of wiping his brain, nothing can be done. But the advanced mechas have compassion. They won’t brain wipe him. But, they give him a version of what he wants. He gets his mother, for a day. He’s truly happy. He’s too simple to realize that it’s a lie. Like a kid who was told his dog “went to live on a farm upstate”, he is content.
A poster addressed this in post 128. Rather brilliantly, I think…
Yeah, that makes sense. That never really sat well with me that they could “magically” bring his mom back to life but just for a day. It seems much more likely they could simulate his mom in some sort of VR environment. And maybe it only lasts a day because the act of pulling all the data out of David’s brain ends up destroying it. David just experiences it as a pleasant day with his mom.
*“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Do they? Or do they get there first?
Next- the Nazis may have been “digging in the wrong place” to start, that doesnt mean with unlimited manpower they wouldnt have found it.
IMHO, all that water in glasses turned into Holy Water. Of course, I could be wrong…
Incidentally, that isnt the way Police interrogations go. Spin a lovely story*- they check it* before they let you go.
I do not think “non-existent”. I think he did sell the cars, then pocketed the $$.
Incidentally, does anyone know if the first two Fargo spin off mini-series are available anywhere?
Sounds like the pilot of the 12 O’Clock High TV series (with Robert Lansing and Paul Burke), except the crew of The Leper Colony were just misfits and ne’er-do-wells.
Looks like they’re streaming on Hulu, or you can purchase them at Apple/Vudu/Amazon ($20/$15/$15 per season, respectively).
IIRC, they didn’t let him go, they were told to let him go, from up on high.
Which comes directly from the movie. Hugh Marlowe’s character is demoted from executive officer and ordered to fly every mission with a crew of the worse in the unit. At the end when Savage can’t fly he takes over and leads the mission.
It was a good series but I think the movie may be the best post WWII war movie. Done while showing very little combat.
I referenced that in my post. The Coyote breaks character, and the fourth wall, to talk to the two children. Since this is a cartoon in which he’s chasing the Road Runner, the character that he is stepping out of is The Coyote, not Wile E. Coyote.
Thought of a small one: U-571
“That didn’t happen!!! Americans didnt do it!!! It was the British !! REEEEEEE”
No one ever said U-571 wasn’t fiction. No more then The Bedford Incident is a documentary. Ficcctiooonnnnn.
Fantassssyyyyyyyyyyyy!
I’m with you! Was The Dirty Dozen attacked for not being “real”? Killing all those natzees that never existed? How about The Longest Day?
Hell, Imitation Game took more liberties with actual fact than U571 did with fiction.