New Coen Bros, A Serious Man

so many scenes in this movie are punctuated with question--"who cares?" "why not?" "then what?"

u know he is credited at the end as "dybbuk?"

― mo collier mo problems (s1ocki), Thursday, February 18, 2010 12:28 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

like i said here... the question mark is in the actual credit, if i didnt make that cler

ahem clear

who cares?

me iirc

so what?

embrace the mystery

I didn't do anything

F Troop, a childhood favorite of mine, was like a dumbed down cavalry version of Sgt. Bilko. Some of the humor was pretty Borscht Belt (the Indians were the Hekawi tribe, as in "where the heck are we?"), but I think the only regular played by a former Catskills comic was Larry Storch's Corporal Agarn.

Film fans and car aficionados will have the chance to own a unique piece of movie memorabilia from one of the Best Picture nominees when Variety – The Children’s Charity of Southern California next week begins hosting the online auction of the 1966 Dodge Coronet used in Focus Features and Working Title Films’ A Serious Man. The film is nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Original Screenplay (Joel & Ethan Coen). The auction will be live at www.eBay.com/varietyskids, starting Monday, February 22, 2010 and end Thursday, March 4, 2010 – right before the Oscars. Proceeds from the auction will go to help inspire hope, enrich lives and build a better future for the children in need in Southern California.

The auction will give collectors the chance to bid on the vintage vehicle seen on-screen as the car owned and driven by lead character Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg)...

Watching this right now for the first time. Impressions to come, but at the moment it feels very much a film about the ways that the Jewish community fails to help individuals deal with tragedy. Not sure if I feel totally comfortable with that, but it feels true to my experiences.

i almost don't want to watch it again: it was so dope the first time i don't think i could like it as much again. otoh, i want to watch it again.

^^^^^^

but Mordy, I thought the community helped as much as it could. ie, we all die alone.

Side note, but I recently interviewed Peter Himmelman, who grew up in St. Louis Park in the '60s and '70s a few years behind the Coens in school, and he said, "That is exactly my life."

Awesome. Sussman Lawrence were invited back to play countless dances and, I think, a prom there.

Best thing I've seen in maybe 5 years. Watched it on a plane, overtired and vulnerable to begin with, and it just destroyed me. So funny, so dark, so wonderful.

Not mentioned here yet, not sure if I imagined it and couldn't rewind to check: one of the messages in the first stack Larry gets from his secretary is his doctor calling about "urgent test results". He's flipping through when he gets distracted (by the Korean student maybe?) and never gets back to it. So even as Larry's life finally took a turn for the better near the end, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Amazing ending.

except that doesnt he go to the doctor and get an x-ray sometime during the movie?

wasn't that the first thing we saw in the 'present'? so the urgent message came afterwards?

do we know how long a timespan the movie covered? cuz I try not to think of it in terms of 'horrible shit happens to dude for no reason' as much as I do 'bad shit happens to dude, gets worse because he can't deal with it', so leaving getting back to the doctor for an age (and so letting whatever's wrong with him get worse) would work for me, whereas being fucked through no fault of his own, less so.

I am happy that the actor who plays Sy Abelman FINALLY has a wikipedia page.

My favorite Sy Abelman moment: when he counts, silently, to 10.

About the message: maybe the first time (of the several) Larry comes into his university office and his secretary hands him his messages, he gets a small stack of them (including one from Columbia Records and maybe one from Sy Adelman?), and he's flipping through them, he flips past one that says "Dr Whatever, re: urgent test results" just as he gets distracted by something (his department head? the Korean student? his kid calling him about F Troop?) and doesn't notice. This is fairly early on.

I may have hallucinated it. But I spent the rest of the movie waiting for the phone call that only came in the last scene.

yeah, Richard Kind and Fred Melamed rooked out of Oscar nominations in favor of Martin Short doing Conrad Veidt.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Dodge-Coronet-4-DOOR-1966-EXCELLENT-CND-BLUE-USED-IN-COEN-BROS-A-SERIOUS-MAN_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem3a5815a773QQitemZ250585917299QQptZUSQ5fCarsQ5fTrucks

"Item location: Hastings, MN."

loved the score for this

i loved this movie

Finally saw this last night, possibly the best thing they've done. Only time will tell.

An excellent and substantial analysis of the themes of the movie by Todd Alcott, some of the ideas are a bit fanciful to me (Mr Brandt is God/Mrs Schlasky is the devil) but there's plenty to commend it http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/tag/coen%20bros

Not mentioned here yet, not sure if I imagined it and couldn't rewind to check: one of the messages in the first stack Larry gets from his secretary is his doctor calling about "urgent test results"

Re-watching, it's actually a message from Clive the Korean student's father re: "unfair test results".

i think i really need to see this don't i?

although i've never gotten excited by one of the coens' films before, so i'd be surprised if this did the trick. i suppose i'm just not on their wavelength. (my girlfriend likes them much more.)

Finally saw this last night, possibly the best thing they've done.

this is the growing buzz, isn't it? which is why i suddenly feel like i should see it.

the whole "god as protag" is sort of ridiculous. i mean, i can see the idea of god as a hidden agent being important to the film, but if you want to accept "god as protag" you'd have to throw out like almost every component element of that concept (protagonist) that makes it mean anything.

Some of the weakest sequences here are, predictably, pot-related

Another vote for you're nuts; the entire barmitzvah set piece was incredible.

I loved the exchange between fake Ira Glass and Gopnik in his office -
(badly, I'm sure, paraphrased):

Ira: "I shouldn't be telling you this, but we've gotten some letters to the tenure committee... disparaging you."
Gopnik: "Is the writing... idiomatic?"
Ira (pauses for thought): "No... in fact, they're quite eloquent."

I really loved this.

no, i just know pot + comedy = boredom

apologies if i said this before, but the scenes depicting the tense jewish/gentile relations were unsettling and genuine.

It's strange - I'm sure there were Gentiles in the town that were a bit taciturn with their Jewish neighbours for whatever reason (and tbh I'm sure that neighbour would have been considered fuckin' weird by anyone unfortunate enough to be next door) but we were not those neighbours. Few were; the suburb is known for its Jewish community.

oh i didn't mean that suburb in particular. but those scenes capture the feeling of being a particular type of outsider that i've felt, too (albeit in a different time and place).

I mean, I'm not going to deny a certain anti-Semitism of the lazy, centred on envy of either perceived wealth or intelligence. I for one, did not resent the Frozen Chosen. Also, in school, it was a huge, detention-punishable, all-tongues-wagging offense to call a classmate a schmuck, much less anything more inflammatory. Anyone who was going to do that pretty much got schooled within a month of starting 7th Grade.

thought this was even better second time around fwiw (and loved it to begin with)

Frozen Chosen--ha, name of MN klezmer compilation a decade ago, iIrc. Did this expression/joke precede Public Enemy?

The expression was current when I was in high school, so yes (we also said Chosen Frozen).

that lutheran wit!

Just who are you calling Lutheran?

that phrase was presumably created by jews to break the ice with their uneasy gentile neighbours i guess?

Collectively arrived at by comedy nerds in my high school.

it's a nice phrase!

Suzy, when were you in high school?

Btw, spending all Passover discussing this film with family.

Pete, I am old: class of '86.

Ah, you're a baby. Email me at petescholtes at gmail dot com, I'd love to ask you about da cities during that period for mah bookh.

Will do. Shall I put you in touch with M1ch3ll3 Str4uss, who is older than me and used to work at Northern Lights?

You're writing about about the Cities in the '80s, Pete? Sweet!

if u need the perspective of a 5 year old (in 86), lemme know