The Quintessential Minnesota Film: Mighty Ducks

The Quintessential Minnesota Film: The Mighty Ducks

My Minnesota Credentials:
I spent a summer studying in Minneapolis and visited my sister multiple times when she lived in St Louis Park for 6 years. This is the same Minneapolis suburb that the Coen brothers are from and my sister’s synagogue (where my niece was christened) happened to be the shooting location of “A Serious Man”. My time in Minnesota was spent as a gangly 20-year-old trying to get a new start halfway around the country (my hope was to finish college there) and as such I became acutely aware of the differences between myself as an East Coaster and the nuances of the “Minnesota nice” mentality. While I was never able to convince my parents to pay the out-of-state tuition to restart my life in Minnesota, I will always have an appreciation for the state where I learned to roller blade; where I learned about being resourceful in Winter; where I rode a rollercoaster indoors; where the evil eye of Walmart is replaced by the mildly conspicuous conglomerate of Target, and where no one gave me weird looks for cross-country skiing.

My Pick:
The films of Joel and Ethan Coen have a strong sense of place as evidenced by their portrayals of Mississippi (“O Brother Where Art Thou”), Hollywood (“Intolerable Cruelty”), a quasi-modern day Louisiana (“The Lady…