New Coen Bros, A Serious Man

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.