Just who are you calling Lutheran?
― DCLXVI (suzy), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 15:08 (fourteen years ago) link
that phrase was presumably created by jews to break the ice with their uneasy gentile neighbours i guess?
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 30 March 2010 15:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Collectively arrived at by comedy nerds in my high school.
― DCLXVI (suzy), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 15:21 (fourteen years ago) link
it's a nice phrase!
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 30 March 2010 15:25 (fourteen years ago) link
Suzy, when were you in high school?
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 30 March 2010 16:26 (fourteen years ago) link
Btw, spending all Passover discussing this film with family.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 30 March 2010 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Pete, I am old: class of '86.
― DCLXVI (suzy), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 30 March 2010 17:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Will do. Shall I put you in touch with M1ch3ll3 Str4uss, who is older than me and used to work at Northern Lights?
― DCLXVI (suzy), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 18:10 (fourteen years ago) link
You're writing about about the Cities in the '80s, Pete? Sweet!
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 18:11 (fourteen years ago) link
if u need the perspective of a 5 year old (in 86), lemme know
― drink more beer and the doctor is a heghog (gbx), Tuesday, 30 March 2010 18:31 (fourteen years ago) link
What a great movie.
― Jack Human (kenan), Wednesday, 14 April 2010 21:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Also, what a dark movie. Life is uncertain. Things happen. Move along, there's nothing to ponder here, except perhaps to the end of figuring that fact out. Sussman: "Is the answer in Caballah? In Torah? Or is there even a question?" No, there's no question. Just look at that parking lot.
― Jack Human (kenan), Thursday, 15 April 2010 00:43 (fourteen years ago) link
First there is a parking lot, then there is no parking lot, then there is.
― Jack Human (kenan), Thursday, 15 April 2010 00:48 (fourteen years ago) link
thinking about starting a dybbuk / not a dubbuk poll
― Simon H., Thursday, 15 April 2010 01:23 (fourteen years ago) link
As long as the third option is "Who cares?"
― Jack Human (kenan), Thursday, 15 April 2010 01:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Having recently started journaling my dreams, I was impressed by the dream sequences. I love when Sy Ableman asserts that mathematics is the art of the possible, and Larry knows that's wrong, but can't remember what it actually is. (Otto von Bismark said that "Politics is the art of the possible.") It's an expression of how Larry knows that Sy is, or was, completely full of shit. And that obviously Sy was banging his wife. Sometimes we need dreams to tell us the obvious.
― Jack Human (kenan), Thursday, 15 April 2010 05:57 (fourteen years ago) link
It took me a while to figure out the scene between the uncountably wise old Rabbi and the kid, but I think I have a handle on it. He's saying, "The things that are important to you now are as important as anything will ever be." Very old people can take the very long view of life, and children can take the shortcut, but neither can be bothered by the mushy middle that poor Larry is stuck in.
― Jack Human (kenan), Thursday, 15 April 2010 10:29 (fourteen years ago) link
I like that take on the old rabbi
― ogmor, Thursday, 15 April 2010 15:50 (fourteen years ago) link
I have to comment on that rather unhinged Ella Taylor review.
A Serious Man is crowded with fat Jews, aggressive Jews, passive-aggressive Jews, traitor Jews, loser Jews, shyster-Jews, emo-Jews, Jews who slurp their chicken soup
Wow, that's a lot of Jewish stereotypes, most of which I've never heard of. Are you sure we're not taking about... people?
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 18:27 (fourteen years ago) link
what you never saw the classic Nazi propaganda about emo-Jews
― I won't vote for you unless you acknowledge my magic pony (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 16 April 2010 18:28 (fourteen years ago) link
those are all total Jewish stereotypes. Which isn't to say the representation of Jews in that movie was a stretch, or to be surprised that the Coen brothers use exaggerated characters.
― dan selzer, Friday, 16 April 2010 19:12 (fourteen years ago) link
Doesn't a bit of the piss get taken out of stereotyping when that many bases are covered? I mean, I wonder if she even read that article back to herself.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:16 (fourteen years ago) link
I guess maybe she really meant to type "Jewish fatties, Jewish aggressors, Jewish passive-aggressors, Jew traitors, Jew losers, non-Gentile shysters, Chosen emos, chicken soup slurpers of the Jewish persuasion."
― who's always getting head from the commissioner (Eric H.), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:18 (fourteen years ago) link
it's a bit... all cultures use stereotypes in their fictions. and a lot of them are pretty similar: apart from the chicken soup dude, maybe, all of those "types" could be found elsewhere, more or less. im not jewish so probably shdn't talk on it, but it does seem way the hell ott.
― Big Fate (as Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner) (history mayne), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:20 (fourteen years ago) link
The fact that these people are Jewish is not the source of either the humor or the meaning of the movie. They're Jewish because these are people the Coens know and grew up with, in one way or another. I don't think they're meant to be exaggerated at all, at least not W.P. Mayhew-style.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:20 (fourteen years ago) link
(not to say that I don't love W.P. Mayhew.)
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Take Arthur, for instance, the easiest target of ridicule in the movie, if one wanted to take that route. He takes a really, really long time in the bathroom, but that's not a stereotype. He has a cyst that's disgusting and needs draining, but that's not a stereotype, either. Arthur doesn't even kvetch. He's actually in constant pain. The one scene where he airs his grievances is more of a breakdown than anything that could be called specifically Jewish. And to boot, he might actually be a genius, though of course the movie doesn't tell us.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Well, from a culture that's given us the mensch, the schlemeil and the schmuck, often in very humorous contexts, it's hardly surprising that some of the characters here would be describable as such. Thought her insinuation of Coens being self-hating thoroughly missed the point. I found all those things she was on about - the exaggeration of habits and characteristics - to be more about the claustrophobia of growing up in a particular suburb and community where everything you do is under the microscope of your god and the neighbours, who may or may not have it in for you.
― show us on the doll where the hotdish was served (suzy), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Btw: a detail I liked. Sy Ableman points out to Larry that the Jolly Roger has a pool. In the scene with Arthur by the pool, we see that the pool is empty.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:40 (fourteen years ago) link
if i wrote a piece of drama it would have various stereotypes from my background basically
granted it's not a frequently persecuted minority ethnic group but j/s
― Big Fate (as Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner) (history mayne), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:44 (fourteen years ago) link
about the claustrophobia of growing up in a particular suburb and community where everything you do is under the microscope of your god and the neighbours, who may or may not have it in for you.
The neighbors, well... maybe there's something to be afraid of there. I freaked out myself when the people moved in upstairs who hung American flags in the front windows and drive a big-ass truck. Anyway, I relate very much to Larry's fears on that front. This is why I don't live in Texas anymore.
But I don't think Larry feels like he's under the microscope of God. He's too rational by nature to ever assume that he's being punished by God. But that's also his problem -- he also demands rationality from the world, and the world doesn't have gracious amounts of that to spare.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Which explains the opening scene, too.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 19:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Kind of.
Most every review I've read, positive or otherwise, has seen all three rabbis and all of their advices as being merely comic. What's comic is Larry's frustration, not the advice. All of the rabbis are saying something essential about our place in the world. The comedy (and tragedy) of it is that Larry is not the kind of person who will ever hear it.
― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:23 (fourteen years ago) link
Which one of these is Mrs Samsky?
― The Man With the Magic Eardrums (Billy Dods), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:43 (fourteen years ago) link
hot stoner jews
― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:48 (fourteen years ago) link
MILF JEW
― Roomful of Moogs (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:48 (fourteen years ago) link
milf jew > bear jew
― emotional radiohead whatever (Jordan), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:49 (fourteen years ago) link
as a gentile i must agree
― goole, Friday, 16 April 2010 20:52 (fourteen years ago) link
hmmm is this a website yet
― I won't vote for you unless you acknowledge my magic pony (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:53 (fourteen years ago) link
JILF?
― GREAT JOB Mushroom head (gbx), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:55 (fourteen years ago) link
i don't think mrs samsky had kids so technically that would make her a JOUGAR
― elmo leonard (elmo argonaut), Friday, 16 April 2010 20:59 (fourteen years ago) link
rofl
― goole, Friday, 16 April 2010 20:59 (fourteen years ago) link
coen jougar mellowcamp
― goole, Friday, 16 April 2010 21:00 (fourteen years ago) link
JOUGAR ELIMINATOR
― Roomful of Moogs (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 16 April 2010 21:04 (fourteen years ago) link
I really enjoyed this. One of the Coen Bros. better films I think.
Not really seeing this as anti-semitic at all. Coens just continuing their tradition of populating their films with cartoon characters. And the only prominent gentiles in the movie are the dim, aggressive redneck neighbors, so w/e.
― circa1916, Friday, 16 April 2010 21:05 (fourteen years ago) link
...and the Asians.
― Roomful of Moogs (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 16 April 2010 21:07 (fourteen years ago) link
do east asians count as gentiles? i think they're beyond that biblical scope tbh.
― elmo leonard (elmo argonaut), Friday, 16 April 2010 21:09 (fourteen years ago) link
Chosen moms choose JILF.
― who's always getting head from the commissioner (Eric H.), Friday, 16 April 2010 21:11 (fourteen years ago) link