I remember catching "Fargo" on TMC years ago, and being greatly amused that curse words were all overdubbed with the word fruitful. Love those Coens.

i don't know if they made the big lebowski before or after Fargo. i mean, the coen brothers will turn their dirty underpants inside out and wear it on their heads and sell it for big bucks in this country. couple of cowards using the wank-off to get ritch.

i bet there's more than one well-armed lady cop on their tail.

are you listening in? mind if you tell us what you did or who you paid, slept with, or what have you to source this movie? inquiring journalistic minds want to know!

perhaps that question should be phrased ... who paid you?

and that's exactly right this one could cost you oh mighty coens

how bout you start with .... lemme see .... how do i wreck an innocent man's life?

The funniest thing about Fargo was the first time I saw it. It did a limited premiere, with one of the theaters being the Rotunda in Baltimore. The only advertising was a small newspaper ad that read "Fargo. A Murder Mystery by Joel and Ethan Coen." with a cross stitch patterned border. It made the movie look like some sort of Agatha Christie thing.

When I went, the theater was filled with senior citizens who had apparently had the same impression of the ad that I had. By the end of the movie, fully half of them had left.

I mean, something that's coherent.

Just wanted to let you know that this column is awesome. I check it before work every day to see if there is anything interesting I should set my DVR for before heading out, and it has brought me a slew of really great documentaries on PBS that I would not have known were airing otherwise.

I usually don't read "what to watch" columns. I don't want to catch up on the newest best selling authors or starlets out of rehab. But yesterday's Frontline listing caught my eye last night and my roommates and I broke our TV silence last night to learn about Vice President Cheney and David Addington's calculated power grab under the guise of being "at war". Most stunning was the absolute innocence with which John Yoo explained his reasoning behind the torture memo... on camera.

I'll keep coming back. But I hope you keep surprising me with the thought provoking, odd, and truthful that I might otherwise miss.

Watch Chelsea Lately on E!, damn it! Chelsea's guests have been pretty good lately. The panels have been hit or miss.

An early Coen Brothers film, their first one maybe, was called Blood Simple, a nasty little story about betrayal and murder and about generally screwed up people generally screwing up, most of whom don't survive the end of the movie. I mention this because it was filmed just up the road from my house, which practically makes me famous.

I found out that even though they are not filming the second season of Friday Night Lights just up the road from my house, they are still filming in Austin and San Marcos, Texas. The second season of Friday Night Lights, as everyone probably knows by now, is about betrayal and murder and about generally screwed up people generally screwing up. Whether everyone survives until the end of the season is still up in the air. Or, for that matter, whether the show itself survives.

I never understood that scene in Fargo where Marge Gunderson meets up with that pathetic high school classmate. Does she sleep with him? The movie seems to be ambiguous on that point. On the one hand, it seems implausible for her character. But on the other hand, maybe it's some remarkable act of charity on her part after the pathetic guy breaks down in tears. Later on, it seems like she isn't real forthcoming to her husband about seeing the classmate, either. Am I the only one who came away with this weird interpretation of that scene?

She pities him and treats him with dignity.

That's how human beings react when others behave in a pitiable way. They don't immediately go into mercy fuck mode.

They don't tell their husbands about their pitiable acquaintances because decent people let others suffer out of the spotlight.