New Coen Bros, A Serious Man

NICE trailer.

Middling trailer, looks to have about the same heft as Burn After Reading (which I enjoyed).

I am so fucking excited about this film. Everything I've heard - including waaay advance stuff from friends who went to see them talk about it at temple - suggests retro Jewish Fargo. Was filmed in the Twin Cities in places designed to evoke St Louis Park, MN in 1967. Over on the Gentile side of town my parents would have been busy making me at the time.

Will definitely watch.

great trailer

I'm in Suzy's hometown pride boat, but this looks MUCH better than early descriptions indicated.

I was born in St Louis Park in 1970, so the retro part's exciting to me.

where is a serious man, who really aims movie?

i will see this

this looks pretty great and i have no idea what sort of film it will be

Seems like of like Revolutionary Road + Philip Roth.

this looks pretty great and i have no idea what sort of film it will be

otm, being waiting for months for the trailer to come out. Having seen it I'm no wiser as to what the film will be like. In terms of sound design I can't remember a more complete trailer, really stoked for it now after seeing it.

Dr. Morbius what are ur thoughts :)

http://www.brendanmcgetrick.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/han-solo-frozen-in-carbonite.jpg

So, the Coens will have now set a film in every decade from the 1920s through the present, except for the '70s.

I'm too lazy to do it, but can someone list them in chronological order of when they're set?

They're like the August Wilson of film.

No Country is set in the late 1970s, I believe.

20s: Miller's Crossing
30s: O Brother Where Art Thou?
40s: Barton Fink (1941), The Man Who Wasn't There (1949)
50s: The Hudsucker Proxy
60s: A Serious Man
80s: No Country for Old Men (1980), Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo (1987)
90s: The Big Lebowski
00s: Intolerable Cruelty, Ladykillers, Burn After Reading

(Assuming that Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Intolerable Cruelty, Ladykillers, and Burn After Reading are "contemporary.")

Lebowski is set at the start of the first Gulf War but not quite "contemporary" to the time it was produced

for a second, when I first glanced at this title, I thought it was Tom Ford's forthcoming directorial debut A Single Man.

xp Oh right. Still their only film set in the '90s, oddly.

awesome trailer. i'm totally down with trailers that pique interest without giving away much of the movie

Really wish more movie trailers had some measure of thought put into them like this one.

Revised:

1929: Miller's Crossing
1937: O Brother Where Art Thou?
1941: Barton Fink
1949: The Man Who Wasn't There
1958: The Hudsucker Proxy
1967: A Serious Man
1980: No Country for Old Men
1984*: Blood Simple
1986*: Raising Arizona
1987: Fargo
1991: The Big Lebowski
2002*: Intolerable Cruelty
2003*: The Ladykillers
2007*: Burn After Reading

*shooting date

They've never made a film where the action leaves the US.

Oh, except for a brief sojourn across the Mexican border in No Country.

These are the dudes responsible for the trailer, they've done some good stuff over the last while
http://www.markwoollen.com/

Hoberman all but calls them Jewish anti-Semites:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-09-29/film/for-serious-man-coen-brothers-aim-trademark-contempt-at-themselves/

but Armond loves it!

http://www.nypress.com/article-20412-the-humor-in-gloom.html

Who knew Hobermann had gender reassignment and a name-change to Ella Taylor?

a serious woman

the film is somewhere in between "great" (in parts) to mediocre/embarrassing (in other parts).

the last 30 minutes or so of the film (esp. the bar mitzvah scene) are truely great: only then did The Coen brothers took the film seriously and thoghtfully as they didnt for (most of) the rest of the movie, which is a not-so-much-inspiring take on judaism as philosophy and culture.
the comedy is vulgar on those parts because it was done while the directors didnt take their "job" seriously, and as a result - the characters,the story, the jokes are shallow, and some people would say even anti-semite (as they did).
at least they did made the effort to make the movie into something profound - a piece of art - at the last part,saving it from being their worst movie into being somewhere in the middle between their best and their worst to date.

still - some good sequences there too - the one where Gopnick is fixing the antenna on the roof is brilliant,for example.

frank grimes: the movie

i loved this

http://www.talkingfilms.net/wp-content/trailers/serious-man-tr1.jpg

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/20/m_0fcac5bb5d14ac81db54b6cad104fa71.jpg

oops on me for attributing VV review.

Anyway, this is one of their best (like, top 4) and I'd declare it my favorite along with Raising Arizona if there wasn't some slippage into actual cruelty, as opposed to a study of gracelessness under pressure. All the roles are astoundingly well cast. And yeah, it's the most aerious American film about Judaism I can recall since Mazursky's Enemies. Key ambiguous line: "I didn't do anything."

Also, I know the guy who plays the shtetl husband in the prologue (he also did the Yiddish translation). We're in the same vintage film-comedy film buff circle.

^"misattributing"

"serious"

Morbs, I did not get to see ASM while home but you might wanna take a look at this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100804786.html

http://resizeimage.org/system/0002/7635/serious-man-9.jpg?1255889533311http://i35.tinypic.com/2wbri9w.jpg

Dybbuk, Schmybbuk: I Said "More Ham"

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

I loved this! I agree about the pot sequences though.

come on, "do you take advantage of the new freedoms?" is a brilliant scene

this movie is amazing. and speaks to my n american jewish upbringing with alarming specificity.

I just found out from my dad that Amy Landecker, who plays Mrs. Samsky, is my aunt Paula's stepdaughter and that, according to a Chicago Tribune interview, she modeled her performance after my aunt. o_O

I loved loved loved this.

Movie's only weakness was that despite Sy Ableman's character being amusing as all get out I found it somewhat difficult to believe that Gopnik's wife would actually fall for someone that thoroughly unexciting (not to mention so completely unctuous.) But that minor stretch of credulity aside, it was pitch perfect.

Ableman does come off as unctuous, but I can also see how his touchy-feeliness could represent an attractive alternative to Larry's essential conservativism.

I couldn't quite see it, but it's a minor complaint cuz Ableman's character is so hilariously funny that I was able to overlook it.

The bar mitzvah sequence definitely belongs on my list of favorite drug freak-out sequences ever.

anyone know if / when this will get nationwide release? or will i have to wait until it comes to the arthouse cinemas here?

They have been teasing that for years now, no? But I hope it comes true so I can give it to my parents for Christmas!

Well, this does not appear to be a drill. People on the St Louis Park nostalgia groups on FB are obsessed with Lincoln Del but what I want is the recipe for Palm's Bakery's blueberry muffins.

Related: the lengths I would go to purchase the recipe for the sauce at Alice's Spaghettiland in suburban Des Moines are immeasurable.

*Sy ABLEMAN*?

just look at the parking lot

― Οὖτις, Friday, March 17, 2017 2:58 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am not an evil man! i am not-- i went to the astor art. i saw swedish reverie. it wasn't even erotic! although-- it was-- in a way--

I CAN INTERPRET, CLIVE

but-- you-- you can't really understand the physics without understanding the math. the math tells how it really works. that's the real thing. the stories i give you in class are just... illustrative; they're like... fables, say. to help give you a picture. an imperfect model. i mean, even i don't understand the dead cat. the math is how it really works.

you'll find you need the iced tea.

It has a pool.

i said SCRUB UP, MITCH

it wasn't even erotic! although-- it was-- in a way--

Stuhlbarg's delivery of these lines might be my favourite moment in the movie

yeah it's beautiful: uncertain even of his own dick

Even!

it's... just... odd

almost time for my nearly-annual rewatch

can't believe this bitch is 10 years old

can't believe this bitch fucker is 10 years old

finally saw this last night, just back to back killer scenes

accept the mystery

take advantage of the new freedoms

what happened to the goy?
*pauses, chuckles* who cares?

it is an impressive film, i think about it all the time

i haven't seen it since seeing it in theaters. was my favourite coen bros at the time.

its a dreamstorm, i think about the brother all the time

I loved the son who just got stoned all the time

i'm not missing anything. i know where everything is.

iiiiiiiii don't think so? the art of the possible? that's... i can't remember. something else.

I haven’t DONE anything!!

What has Adonai done for me? Bupkis!

Also, the dark opening fable set in a shtetl that simply exists to set the proper tone and frame of mind for a story set in a late-60s Minnesotan suburb.

Santana Abraxas

Esther is barely cold!

do you drink wine? because this is... an incredible bottle. this is not mogen david. this is-- a wine, larry. a bordeaux. open it--let it breathe--ten minutes. letting it breathe. so important. i insist! no reason for discomfort. i'll be uncomfortable if you don't take it. these are signs and tokens, larry.

― difficult listening hour, Monday, May 15, 2017 5:26 PM bookmarkflaglink

so important.

I think about this movie a lot. Stand by my assessment that it may be the most Jewish movie ever made.

That shtetl sequence makes the movie imo, tips it over from being good coens to one of their masterpieces

the parking lot larry... just look at it

no one's playing the blame game here

great trailer

I love this film unconditionally both as a love letter to my hometown, and as the most Jewish film I’ve ever seen.

The dream sequence with Richard Kind is OTT, otherwise I love this.

Its Extreme Jewishness brought me to tears in the cinema, especially the barmitzvah stuff

Finally saw this and absolutely loved it from the opening scene. For a dark movie, it was so damn funny. Some comments:

As discussed by Mordy and Shakey above, this seems thematically very similar to No Country, both preoccupied with the unknowability/unreasonableness of fate/life. Chigur/tornado have obvious parallels. The essential difference is that No Country is completely godless and sudden violent fate cannot be reasoned with. In ASM, on the otherhand, there is a God because of the "Goy's teeth" story and the fact that Larry appears to be punished by God the moment he changes the grade, which implies Larry has some control over his fate. On another level though there is no difference, I guess: we can never know God or what he wants, so effectively, he is as random and unreasonable as Chigur. I don't know.

Lol, at the 1967>>>1970 mistake (Abraxas and Cosmo's Factory both 1970). Has to be intentional, right? Also, that conversation with the Columbia House rep is more significant than it seems. Larry's, "I haven't DONE anything", is accurate, but is also a cause of his problems: he hasn't been paying attention to his wife/kids/life and just seems to be floating along until fate intervenes.

The pain at the beginning of the bar mitzvah scene is so real. I once got high when I worked at a country grocery store and had to weigh customer's produce on a scale and remember the prices of tons of different items. I had a near meltdown of laughter in front of a customer when I couldn't get my shit together and remember what bananas cost.

Was Larry's brother supposed to be gay? He got picked up on a sodomy charge, right?

I still see the Shtetl Husband at movie rep screenings, will tell him you all said hi.

My wife and I re-viewed The Hudsucker Proxy last night (nb: after more than 20 years she didn't even recall having seen it before). We both enjoyed it, but mentally comparing it to A Serious Man, their relative stature within the Coen's oeuvre is immediately apparent. ASM is just fabulous in several senses of the word.

Watched this again for the first time in years. Still think it's the most Jewish movie ever made. Still love it, one of their top films. So many incredible beats, many I missed the first time, or at least didn't remember. It's so, so, so dark, but in a really subtle way. In a lot of ways it's the opposite of the famous flood rescue/helicopter parable, only instead of God sending help, it's him sending, again and again, terrible things, and yet Larry keeps asking, what does it mean? What am I supposed to think? And then the tornado at the end is basically God finally saying, jeez, do I have to make it downright Biblical for you?

My wife was in awe of the period set design, but did catch one little mistake: the scene at the empty swimming pool, there's a No Diving sign. She pointed out that in the late '60s it would not have had a No Diving sign, though it sure as hell would have still had a diving board.

Still think it's the most Jewish movie ever made.

In terms of Judaism in North America, no contest. It might not map into Old World quite as snugly, e.g. a Sephardi might nominate some other movie.

No, I live at the Jolly Roger.

Rabbi Marshak reciting the names of Jefferson Airplane and shrugging as he gives up trying to pronounce Jorma's last name cracks me up very time.

OTM re "most Jewish movie". Was genuinely brought to tears the first time I saw this, watching suburban Jewish idiots like me on the big screen for the first time.

I was inspired to rewatch after Shiva Baby, which is a very close runner-up.