New Coen Bros, A Serious Man

i really liked the opening dybbuk scene, the goy's teeth story, the stoned bar mitzvah, and the ending, but i think i disliked it overall cause i hate job stories.

opening dybbuk scene really reminded me of this:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_96uP6vDZMT8/SorEyk_9hzI/AAAAAAAACd8/W021WwNivBk/s400/BLACK+SABBATH3.jpg

I have no problem with Job stories featuring some kind of unternebbish.

LOL the deli's own site (which suggests amazing food) says it's in St. Louis Park - it's the new place that took over one of the Lincoln Del's old sites. But it is so close to being Mpls that it should serve as some kind of border marker.

I think it does, really. it's right where Minnetonka blvd splits off from 7, which I tend to associate with the beginning of slp.

History lesson: Jews were redlined to the suburbs north of 7 when they made the great exodus from North Minneapolis after WWII; south of there (where my family still live) are still many Jewish families but not in the same numbers, because synagogues are not nearby and Edina can be seen from my house.

always thought Edina was WASPy?

Oh god, I miss the Lincoln Del.

is Edina where the MST3K studio was? cuz I been there.

That was Hopkins, I think. Or maybe that's just where their fan club PO box was.

Edina is so WASP, its high school team mascot is a fucking hornet. Also forget living there before 1968 if you were black or Jewish.

Our corner of SLP is all about Excelsior Boulevard.

(the film I would make about Mpls. suburbs could well be a John Justen horrorshow called 'Schmucks versus Cake Eaters' BTW)

In the time period ASM covers, my suburb was still mostly farms, I think.

I was also wondering if this film took place over six days in 1967.

Eric, which was your suburb? If it was Eden Prairie, my dad used to take us to a farm there when I was TINY to play with the horses of a farmer whose name I swear was Crank.

i keep thinking about this movie. the two keys for me are the opening scene -- a (fake?) folk tale, supposedly with a meaning and a lesson but providing neither really -- and the second rabbi's lesson of the goy's teeth -- ditto. who cares?. and that's the structure of the whole movie. more things happen. and then, this, and then, another thing. he has a dream. and then, the doctor calls. how does it end? it doesn't.

in memory, i can hear the second rabbi as the narrator of the whole thing; "his wife says, 'i have begged you'. his daughter asks about the bathroom. larry asks what's going on. nobody answers him." what happens? "who cares? oh, then there was a tornado"

Burnsville

That's where the other Eric on this thread (Eazy) grew up, IIRC.

Didn't realize Eazy was even a MN-ite. I don't follow the hastings thread enough, apparently.

It ends, goole; he and the kids die like the rest of us.

but, he had kids, presumably his kids' kids are the ones on this thread, or any thread, or in the theater, it goes on...

it's about a moment in the past worth commemorating (do you take advantage of the new freedoms?) which presupposes a future where the remembering happens!

ACCEPT THE MYSTERY

this film owned, hard-style.

for the record, I was such a rebel that I'd sit in hebrew school class with an earbud in my ear listening to Pink Floyd and the Doors.

Just got back from this. Could not stop laughing at the bar mitzvah scene. Growing up in Michigan, some parts rang really true like the tornado, the huntings neighbors, and the guy going to escape to Canada by rowing a canoe across a lake.

i really enjoyed this film

I also liked the almost zen parable feeling of the goy's teeth scene - though the person I was with took it as critical of rabbis, it actually reminded me of all the things I like about the Jewish tradition - the kind of shrugging, comic unknowingness of it.

^ This. Was my favourite sequence in the film. I really felt more in line with the haters than the ravers on this one; felt like a movie about how Jews fuck up, in the divine sense. All the mistakes they make, these lazy or venal errors, caring about the forest instead of the trees. And while I think the movie does essentially believe in God, and about some kind of truth out there, and isn't suggesting that the characters are bad or evil, this vision of the world felt ungenerous. The Rabbi's teeth story felt like the only representation of the main element of Judaism that I cling to, now, older and non-practicing - about living well, happily throwing yr arms up at the unknowable (or nonexistent).

Wish I could see this just as a character/setting/historical study, as many here have, but very much felt like a Commentary On Jews As Jews.

what's wrong with that, though?

oh, nothing - like it's not a critique of the film in itself, just an articulation of why i didn't like it. (and also why i didn't like its worldview. which makes me realise: a dislike for a film's ideology often functions as a critique of the film: see common debates over Slumdog Millionaire, Rachel Getting Married (which i loved), etc.)

I really felt more in line with the haters than the ravers on this one; felt like a movie about how Jews fuck up, in the divine sense.

Well, they killed the Saviour.

seang, just look at the parking lot.

Hey, does the Directors Guild have a rule that only brothers can receive dual credit?

Nope. The two directors it took to bring Little Miss Sunshine to the screen were rewarded with one nod.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directors_Guild_of_America_Award_for_Outstanding_Directing_-_Feature_Film

so what was the big deal about rodriguez quitting the DGA so that frank miller could get co-credit for sin city?

Second viewing holds up. lol Rabbi "Scott"

The second viewing really brings out the lols.

"i'm fine.... someone just {throatcutting gesture} but..."

I think the Rodriguez-DGA spat was due to the fact that Miller didnt direct much of anything for Sin City. I think his credit was mostly due to his making the graphic novel.

Millers lack of directing chops was later fully revealed in "The Spirit".

I really, really enjoyed this, and I got the feeling I would have enjoyed it more if I knew a bit more about Judaism.

The quantum mechanics he is writing on the board in the lecture is not just bullshit symbols, so they clearly had some help, but it's wrong in quite a trivial algrebraic way. this must have been so obvious to whoever helped them that i suspect it is deliberate. Like he has gone nuts and forgotten that x - x = 0 (which is one of the mistakes).

Morbs: maybe you know some behind the scenes stuff here. Was the Serious Man prologue in 4:3 or something like that? Or am I misremembering? If it was, what was the reason?

What an awesome catch, caek! Does sound like a Coenish deliberate mistake.

Haha, I hope so. He literally writes q^2 - q^2 = 0 iirc. Quantum mechanics is weird, but it's not that weird.

^^^^you are expecting me to understand higher maths, LOL. To say I wasn't interested in post-algebra maths at school is putting it mildly; how did I ever get an A in Physics? I am sure many of the film's nerdier extras felt compelled to point it out on the scene.

Next time I'm home I have to get my mom to see it.

This was AWESOME. The younger rabbi + "goy's teeth" sequences = every conversation I ever had with a rabbi. that peculiar kind of avuncular unhelpfulness, stories that go nowhere, etc.

don't really get why the short was included at the beginning. it was funny and all, but seemed pretty unrelated to what followed.

i didn't understand it and felt maybe some knowledge of judaism would have helped me? but idk, i didn't mind it being there.

god, the goy's teeth sequence is one of the best things they've ever done. loved loved loved that.

"don't really get why the short was included at the beginning. it was funny and all, but seemed pretty unrelated to what followed."

every conversation I ever had with a rabbi. that peculiar kind of avuncular unhelpfulness, stories that go nowhere, etc

Larry Gopnik: I don't want it to just go away! I want an answer!
Rabbi Nachtner: Sure! We all want the answer! But Hashem doesn't owe us the answer, Larry. Hashem doesn't owe us anything. The obligation runs the other way.
Larry Gopnik: Why does he make us feel the questions if he's not gonna give us any answers?
Rabbi Nachtner: He hasn't told me.
Larry Gopnik: And... what happened to the goy?
Rabbi Nachtner: The goy? Who cares?

^^^was dying during this exchange

lol x-posts

"The goy? Who cares?" line is just LOL.

that peculiar kind of avuncular unhelpfulness, stories that go nowhere, etc

fwiw this is always why i wanted to be a jew---priests were weird and creepy, rabbis seemed like funny bros

Judaism: We're Funnier

Look at the parking lot, Larry. Just look at that parking lot.