“I am like a Spanish Conquistador. Recently, I’ve learned of untold riches hidden deep in the Americas.”

A strange idea, obsessing over the “this is a true story” opening titles of Fargo, putting a degraded VHS tape of that movie into the hands of an already disconnected-from-reality Japanese woman whose hobby is treasure hunting, and setting her loose in Minnesota. However this movie, which opens with those same Fargo titles, is at least loosely based on a true story of a Japanese woman found dead outside Fargo.

Judging from the blu-ray alternate scenes, it seems the Zellners are inclined towards absurd comedy but dialed it down for the feature, so we’re left with a character study of a nearly mute, mostly unsympathetic (she rips off everyone she comes across) woman with a singleminded need to find something that we know doesn’t exist: the briefcase of money a wounded Steve Buscemi buried in the snow on a roadside twenty years earlier. Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim, Norwegian Wood) is engrossing to watch, and it’s fun to see the Minnesotans vainly try to culturally connect with Kumiko (asking at a Chinese restaurant if anyone can translate Japanese, giving her a copy of Shogun, offering her a ride to the Mall of America). I appreciated the concept and performances but wasn’t feeling it overall.

Bedtime for Bunzo:

This pet store had an owl, a parrot and a monkey, and the combination of their sounds stunned my two birds into silence:

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Black Something (2016, Zellner Bros.)

Found on Filmstruck: the directors’ new homage to Malle’s Black Moon. A short burst of weirdness, and the first thing I tried to watch on that site, so I can’t tell if the barking dogs sound was out-of-sync on purpose or if this is gonna be a problem. A girl picks flower petals, centipedes wriggle, plants drip with goo, and frilly collar-wearing dogs attack a bear.