Movies
That constant busy signal when you call G-d
The Coen brothers deliver the good stuff again. They have to have the wickedest imagination in the movie business and have the best track record for thoroughly enjoyable films going all the way back twenty five years to "Blood Simple".
They get in their time machine for "A Serious Man" and go back to their suburban beginnings in Minneapolis. It's 1967 and a physics professor named Larry Gopnik is about to be a poster child for all the improbable absurdities that can possibly bedevil one man. His life goes to pieces. Being a devout jew he seeks spiritual counseling and gets the same runaround as he gets from his lawyers.
This is from the review at the Telegraph:
"His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) tells him she wants a divorce, and that she plans to marry Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), supposedly a denizen of the local community, but in reality a patronizing, touchy-feely pontificator. His overweight, mentally-challenged brother Albert (Richard Kind) sits on the couch all day writing a tome on probability. His son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is a TV-obsessed stoner who owes a school bully twenty dollars for marijuana. His daughter (Jessica McManus) is saving to pay for a nose job. It all adds up to a portrait of dysfunctional Jewish suburbia unparalleled since Capturing The Friedmans (2003)."
That "dysfunctional Jewish suburbia" is an amazing place with it's cookie cutter housing and boringly impeccable landscaping, much like where I grew up in NY. Oh what lurks behind that split level perfection. They couldn't have done a better job recreating a 60s environment; attention to detail is astounding. I was happy to see that for once they went with all new actors and actresses, new to my eyes anyway. I recognized one character by voice, Larry's brother played by Richard Kind, who played Clark in Horizon Air's Lewis and Clark radio ads. Fresh faces all and the Coens know how to pick 'em.
This is a dark and acerbic satire from the Coens done with their amazing ability to make you laugh at and love a subsection of american society at one and the same time . They gave the same treatment to Minnesotans in "Fargo" and Irish mobsters in "Miller's Crossing" and here it's suburban jews. In this one they dumped their foray into screen buffoonery from "Burn After Reading" and with it's chaotic existentialism it could be likened to a kosher "The Big Lebowski", only with a good dose of theodicy.
As Ebert puts it "Someone up there doesn't like Larry Gopnik."
A sly, black masterpiece, one of their best. Choose your poison here.
The Coen brothers deliver the good stuff again. They have to have the wickedest imagination in the movie business and have the best track record for thoroughly enjoyable films going all the way back twenty five years to "Blood Simple".
They get in their time machine for "A Serious Man" and go back to their suburban beginnings in Minneapolis. It's 1967 and a physics professor named Larry Gopnik is about to be a poster child for all the improbable absurdities that can possibly bedevil one man. His life goes to pieces. Being a devout jew he seeks spiritual counseling and gets the same runaround as he gets from his lawyers.
This is from the review at the Telegraph:
"His wife Judith (Sari Lennick) tells him she wants a divorce, and that she plans to marry Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), supposedly a denizen of the local community, but in reality a patronizing, touchy-feely pontificator. His overweight, mentally-challenged brother Albert (Richard Kind) sits on the couch all day writing a tome on probability. His son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is a TV-obsessed stoner who owes a school bully twenty dollars for marijuana. His daughter (Jessica McManus) is saving to pay for a nose job. It all adds up to a portrait of dysfunctional Jewish suburbia unparalleled since Capturing The Friedmans (2003)."
That "dysfunctional Jewish suburbia" is an amazing place with it's cookie cutter housing and boringly impeccable landscaping, much like where I grew up in NY. Oh what lurks behind that split level perfection. They couldn't have done a better job recreating a 60s environment; attention to detail is astounding. I was happy to see that for once they went with all new actors and actresses, new to my eyes anyway. I recognized one character by voice, Larry's brother played by Richard Kind, who played Clark in Horizon Air's Lewis and Clark radio ads. Fresh faces all and the Coens know how to pick 'em.
This is a dark and acerbic satire from the Coens done with their amazing ability to make you laugh at and love a subsection of american society at one and the same time . They gave the same treatment to Minnesotans in "Fargo" and Irish mobsters in "Miller's Crossing" and here it's suburban jews. In this one they dumped their foray into screen buffoonery from "Burn After Reading" and with it's chaotic existentialism it could be likened to a kosher "The Big Lebowski", only with a good dose of theodicy.
As Ebert puts it "Someone up there doesn't like Larry Gopnik."
A sly, black masterpiece, one of their best. Choose your poison here.
posted by nolocontendere at 4:41 AM
2 Comments:
Serious Man is a haunting film that keeps haunting for weeks and months afterwards. The Jefferson Airplane song "Somebody to Love" is never the same after this movie since the first few lines are dissected throughout this film in surprising ways. Going to ask the rabbi for advice takes on a whole new meaning as well.
definitely a must see film.
I thought that using "somebody to love" was an inspired choice too, anon.
The movie's filled to the brim with great moments, and the humor isn't the laugh out loud kind; it's their own brand of dark, sly and intelligent playfullness. Does it mean little or does it mean everything? The Coen's greatness is in respecting the audience enough to decipher it for themselves.
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