Review: A Serious Man

-

Fact: This movie was one of the 10 nominated films for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. Did you remember that? Neither did I. Of all of the nominated films this got the least exposure. It's just proof that the Academy loves them some Coen Brothers.

Larry Gopick (Miachel Stuhlbarg) is our not so Serious Man. He's a Jewish college professor living in the Midwest. His life is seriously out of order. We see his relationships with his boring superficial children, his wife all of a sudden wants to leave him for a more serious man and he is at odds with one of his students after giving him a bad grade. All of these things are happening to him at once and he's got several different people trying to (unsuccessfully) help him. Larry digs deeper into his religion for answers.

A lot of this film has to do with being Jewish. Which is great for the Coens because that's how they were raised. I'll be the first to admit that a lot of the Jewish references in the film went over my head. I think the film has a really deep meaning, but I had a hard time concentrating on it. The film is meant to be a dark comedy and it does have it's funny bits. (Gopick's high as a kite son talking at his Bar Mitzvah is a good example)(Fred Melamed's character provided some laughs for me as well) I found the film to be slightly boring, but I got what the Coens were going for. The film is like many of their other ones: Not for everyone.

Recommended: No/Yes. There is so many different opinions on this film I'd would say everyone needs to make their own opinion about it. Like I said, I didn't care for it, but plenty of people who's reviews I trust did.

Grade: C

Memorable Quote: "I fucked your wife, Larry! I seriously fucked her! Sy Abelman (Fred Melamed)

Comments

  1. UnivarnMarch 29, 2010 at 4:13 PM

    We pretty much agree on this one. I did a podcast review, and while I though it had all the parts, they were just a muck up of mediocre when put together.

    ReplyDelete
  2. movie downloadMarch 5, 2011 at 11:41 AM

    I did watched this movie when I heard that it was nominated for Oscars. I skipped this movie earlier as my friends told me that its not worth a watch. But I found it very interesting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more