CINEMA: SWEDE 'N' SOUR

THE NEW COEN BROTHERS CRIME FARCE IS ONE LONG DIALECT JOKE

A FEW YEARS BACK, HOWARD MOHR of A Prairie Home Companion wrote a book called How to Talk Minnesotan. Was it funny? Hey, you betcha. So are the twistings of that frosty, flabbergastingly flat accent as heard on the Minnesota-based Mystery Science Theater 3000. Two other gifted natives, the filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, have apparently never got over the giggle value of their regional dialect. Fargo, their derisive new true-crime comedy, could be subtitled How to Laugh at People Who Talk Minnesotan.

The film--which has not much at all to do with Fargo, North Dakota--is about the difficulty real folks...

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