Posted on 09/12/2009 9:18:07 AM PDT by Saije
No doubt some filmgoers will be more than a little surprised by the overtly religious themes explored in A Serious Man, the latest film from brother-filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen*****
While they are Jewish and were reared in a religious home in suburban Minneapolis, the Coens have never dabbled in heavy-handed religious fare à la Cecil B. de Mille's epics, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ or, more unfortunately, John Travolta's tribute to his Scientology faith, Battlefield Earth.
A Serious Man is a black comedy set in the Coen brothers' real-life hometown of St. Louis Park, Minn., in 1967 and tells the story of Larry Gopnik, a modern-day Job...
Gopnik, played by newcomer Michael Stuhlbarg, is a physics professor at a local university. Gopnik's suburban serenity begins to devolve when his wife announces she's leaving him for Sy Abelman...a corpulent, pious bloviating fellow professor. A series of minor, if life-altering, calamities lead Gopnik to question the existence of God and the meaning of life – and of suffering*****
The average moviegoer may not realize the duo who gave us whimsical comedies such as The Hudsucker Proxy, The Ladykillers and Burn After Reading, are the same guys that made the bleakly noir The Man Who Wasn't There and the gangland period piece Miller's Crossing.
The cinematic styles, periods and themes of their films are so varied, some critics have wondered whether there is an overarching vision to the Coens' work. I would argue that it is the spirituality – the theological notions, the existential questions, and the religious ideas – of their films that, to paraphrase one of the oft-quoted lines from Lebowski (a flick so spiritually significant and influential that it literally has spawned its own religion, the 60,000-strong Church of the Latter-day Dude), really ties the room together.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestar.com ...
My other favorites are Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski, Oh Brother, and Fargo...
“We’re gettin’ ready to pop here honey!” H.I. McDonough
LOL! Those boys are excellent writers and character developers.
You bet. The wife’s favorite part is the “Turn here honey!” when he’s trying to get the Huggies back. That’s some funny stuff.
LOL! I love that Huggies scene!
Painfully so.
I was actually looking forward to the end, this time.
These guys make some great movies (Fargo cracks me up) but I gotta say “No Country for Old Men” may be the worst movie yet made.
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