New Coen Bros, A Serious Man

sorry I have no idea what I meant by that I just wanted to type it

this movie wasn't bad by any means but I felt like it wasn't doing anything new/I really never felt a connection to it for whatever reason

I liked The Man Who Wasn't There, but I'm a big fan of the source material

I am too, but this movie didn't even come close to the moody intensity oc the best Cain screen adaptations imho. cast, as I said, was terrible.

It's definitely better than the Hudsucker Proxy or the Big Lebowski.

totally disagree on both counts but I tend to be the lone Hudsucker stan around here

nah man i like it

definitely better than TMWWT

"cast, as I said, was terrible"

I liked the cast generally. Sco-Jo was miscast though.

I love Hudsucker, actually.

The Man Who Wasn't There had a terrible cast? I'm not crazy about the flick (it's def. better than, say, Lady Killers), but the cast looks pretty good on paper to me ... I need to watch it again, though, wasn't sure whether the ending was brilliant or terrrrrrible.

Totally forgot about the Lady Killers. That movie is total garbage.

the Clooney/Zeta Jones divorce lawyer one is also really bad. Not a fan of Burn After Reading either

Also Intolerable Cruelty, sigh. Lot of lame Coen bros movies.

I am a fan of Burn After Reading just for J K Simmons scenes. Those are so good they almost redeem the rest of it.

the weirdest thing to me about A Serious Man was how under the radar it seemed - distro was totally shitty, was gone from the theaters in a couple weeks, never saw much press for it, etc.

intolerable cruelty and burn after reading are both hella enjoyable

Burn After Reading's pretty easily my favorite since Lebowski if not Fargo

Loved Serious Man (finally saw it a couple weeks ago). Was refreshing not to have a bunch of big name actors in it after the overload of Burn After Reading.
I am a fan of Burn After Reading just for J K Simmons scenes
Yes -- I lol just thinking about them ...

I am a fan of Burn After Reading just for J K Simmons scenes.

Also, the David Rasche scenes - though I may be getting those mixed up with "In the Loop".

I watched A Serious Man last week and it mainly left me cold. If I'd have grown up with this sort of Jewish culture I may have loved it, though. Some good moments (loved the tenure guy leaning on the door each time, Sy Ableman in general) but found it kind of unsatisfying.

No he's the one who Simmons is talking to.

He's not funny in In The Loop at all.

"If I'd have grown up with this sort of Jewish culture I may have loved it, though."

Yeah I def think this helps.

i grew up a lutheran in a small dutch calvinist town in iowa and i thought it was one of the most brilliant things they've ever done.

i do live in the twin cities tho. i was just in SLP this past weekend!

He's not funny in In The Loop at all.

I thought he was good in "In The Loop" - though maybe I imagined it. Seeing him in anything usually brings a smile to my face - probably because of watching "Sledge Hammer!" too much in my formative years. Sort of like my reaction to Bruce Campbell.

I didn't think any of the Americans in In The Loop were funny so maybe it's me.

creepy aide had some decent lols imo

oh god, when i made my post upthread i forgot that the following shitty coen brothers movies exist

burn after reading
intolerable cruelty
ladykillers

"creepy aide had some decent lols imo"

The racquetball guy? He had a moment or two.

Ladykillers is the only one I thought was truly shitty.

Intolerable Cruelty was brutally bad.

yeah it was pretty bad, but maybe Clooney was OK in it? I don't know, I don't remember it all that well.

yeah I almost walked out on that one (xpost)

the weirdest thing to me about A Serious Man was how under the radar it seemed

wasn't it nominated for Best Picture though?!

everything between fargo and no country was pretty awful iirc

just remembered the scene that made me lol harder than the goy's teeth - when he's explaining the math behind Schrodinger's Cat and it pans back to this whole huge wall of chalkboard filled with equations

and THAT is why we can NEVER be sure about ANYTHING!

A Serious Man, for as much as I loved it, was even bleaker than No Country

really similar theological territory imo. chigurh = god, kinda

similar theological territory = god hates us

idk, No Country feels godless. Chigurh is this capricious figure of fate. I actually think it works reading No Country in light of like The Searchers, or Liberty Valance, where society is built on violence and myth, and where our fathers are somewhere in the future keeping the fire for us. (Except unlike Searchers or Liberty Valance, No Country also takes place in the presence -- the violence isn't historical but contemporary. Society hasn't fully mythologized it, so it continues to erupt at the borders of civilization.) A Serious Man is a world where God exists, and leaves messages on the inside of teeth, but they mean nothing and ethics are precise and legalistic -- missteps mean that your entire world will be destroyed. I can't help but feel more hopeful about the world where I can hunt around for meaning, even if its buried in ritualized violence, than the world where God wants to punish and destroy all of us for stepping out of line.

i don't know if dude really steps out of line... that would imply he knew where the line was.

in ASM if there is a line it is hermetic, secret, ineffable.

kafka-esque is thrown around so willy-nilly it doesnt really mean anything any more but the three rabbis really reminded me of the castle. the closer you try and get to god, the further away he recedes.

yeah what does he do wrong, exactly? and his son, who is a fuckup and gets high before his bar mitzvah, gets everything he wants (sure a tornado comes after him, but hey, what are you gonna do)

both films are set in scary universes, it's just that in No Country For Old Men the inescapable force is death personified, and in ASM it's an incomprehensible, distant God

"what did he do wrong" is really his central dilemma

I was thinking more near the end where his accepting the bribe brings the tornado and the medical news. But you're right, throughout most of the film it's very Job-like. He's being tested, not punished. (Of course, what kind of asshole God would put you through misery just to test you.)

lol yeah once he takes the money, vengeance is instant. before that it's more like just a slow grind of bad news.

even the taking the money could be a red herring... it's all inscrutable

that too

it can be read both ways, Coens are clearly leaving it ambiguous

You're all wrong--it's cause he fucked w/Columbia House!

j/k of course. I do love that scene though.

there is a moment where the Coen's suggest something very conservative, tho -- in the scene at the Bar Mitzvah, participating in their tradition and religious is clearly very moving to both parents, and its really the father's sole moment of grace throughout the film. the mother is moved to apologize, he sheps nachus from his son, etc. which is why i think it's a great film to read against American Pastoral -- the Coens are making an argument about what it means to be an alienated Jew in America.

The specific congregation at B'nai Emet (filming site, also Coen family temple I think) is conservative.

That's the end of town with the eruv, too.