Thursday, May 26, 2011

[Movie] a serious man

 If you are a fan of  horror movie, you'll find there are movie with frightening situation that put you scary right away, but there are movies make you only feel disgusting, make you think about it for a long time  looking for the deep meaning of it, and more you think about it, it makes you scare, and so are comedy movies. There are comedies (most of them) makes you laugh and feel relaxing, lower your stress, but there are comedies about normal life problems, normal life ridicullus situations that someone laugh their ass off, others dont see them funny at all, those are black comedy (or dark comedy). One of the good black comedy recently that I want to tell you to day is "A serious man". The movie has many award, and has 2 Oscar nomination, BBC called it "one of the less talked about nominees" .
 this black comedy drama centered on Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel through multiple sudden incidents. Though seeking for meaning and answers he seems to stay stalled.
  well. here's the plot quoted from wikipedia
In a Polish shtetl in the early 20th century, a Jewish man, Velvel (Allen Lewis Rickman), tells his wife Dora (Yelena Shmuelenson) that he had been helped on his way home by Traitle Groshkover, whom he has invited in for soup. Dora objects, saying Groshkover is dead, and that this visitor must be a dybbuk. When he arrives, Groshkover (Fyvush Finkel) laughs off the accusation, but Dora plunges an icepick into his chest. Bleeding, he exits into the snowy night.

In Minnesota in 1967, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a professor of physics whose wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), abruptly informs him that she needs a get (a Jewish divorce document) so she can marry widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed).

Three other people reside at Larry and Judith's house. Their son Danny (Aaron Wolff) owes twenty dollars for marijuana to an intimidating Hebrew school classmate, but the bill is hidden in a transistor radio since confiscated by his teacher. Daughter Sarah is always doing her hair. Larry's brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), sleeps on the couch and spends his free time filling a notebook with an extravagant theory that will, he claims, tie together all natural laws.

Larry faces an impending vote on his application for tenure, and his department head lets slip that anonymous letters have urged the committee to deny him. A Korean student, Clive Park, about to flunk Larry's class and lose his scholarship, plants in Larry's office an envelope stuffed with cash. After Larry attempts to return it, Clive's father comes to his house to threaten to sue either for defamation if Larry accuses Clive of bribery, or for keeping the money if he does not give him a passing grade.

At the insistence of Judith and Sy, Larry and Arthur move into a nearby motel. Judith has emptied the couple's bank accounts, leaving Larry penniless, so he enlists the services of a sympathetic divorce attorney (Adam Arkin). Larry learns Arthur faces charges of solicitation and sodomy, despite his previous attendance at "mixers."

To cope with his streak of unfortunate circumstances, Larry turns to his Jewish faith. The two rabbis he consults are either obtuse, oblivious, or obscure. His synagogue's senior rabbi is never available. Larry's mental state reaches a breaking point when he and Sy are involved in seemingly simultaneous, but separate, car crashes. Larry is unharmed, but Sy is killed. At Judith's insistence, Larry pays for Sy's funeral.

Larry is proud and moved by Danny's bar mitzvah, unaware of his son's distractions from nerves and marijuana. During the service, Judith apologizes to Larry for all the recent trouble and informs him that Sy liked him so much that he even wrote letters to the tenure committee. Danny meets with the senior rabbi in his office, where the old man — who has had Danny's transistor radio in his desk — quotes verbatim from the psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane's song "Somebody To Love". When he returns the radio, he counsels Danny to "be a good boy."

Larry's department head compliments him on Danny's bar mitzvah and hints that he will win tenure. Upon receiving the bill for Arthur's criminal lawyer, Larry decides to pass Clive. Larry's doctor calls, asking to see him immediately to talk about the results of a chest X-ray. At the same moment, Danny's teacher struggles to open the school's shelter door as a massive tornado bears down on them.

 I especially like the short presentation, it's so deep. go watch it, I don't know about you guys but I think it's damn funny!


19 comments:

  1. Very thorough review. Thank you for including the youtube trailer as well.

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  2. love this movie! coen bothers rock!

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  3. A great writeup! I'll certainly be seeing this one

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  4. Thanks for the reviews - will have to check it out.

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  5. I love the Coen brothers, I might have to check it out for that alone!

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  6. There are no good horror movies :(

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  7. didn't hear anything about this movie before, looks great

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  8. Sorry to say that but it was the first Coen movie I didn't like, I don't know why but I couldn't get a "feeling" for the movie.

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  9. Great movie. There's a really nice song in that movie and I can't remember it.. :/

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  10. the trailer seems to have a quirky charm

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  11. Horror movies now have nothing on the old school ones.

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  12. Gonna watch it. Thank you bro ;)

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  13. it's pretty indepth for a blogger review, i should really find out a bit more before i decide to watch it though.

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  14. Looks good, gonna watch it :)
    Great post, followed!

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  15. The Coen brothers are great producers !

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  16. I love black comedies and Coen brothers rarely let me down (:

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  17. Have heard this is good, may check it out now.

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