Solid Snake

Probably cuz they don't know how to sell it.

slop101

Yeah, if a movie's not based on a video-game or an '80s cartoon, marketing departments just go all retarded with how to sell it.

mikella.mikella

Removed -Blake

whotony

Only showing in 2 art house theaters Phillly area.
widening to 4 in a couple weeks.

Meglos

Saw it this weekend. Liked it.

rkndkn

Saw it this weekend and really didn't like it. Michael Stuhlbarg is very good in the lead, and there are some good supporting performances. However, it didn't work for me as a whole despite a few amusing scenes. And that ending. . .!

I see this as being very "love it or hate it".

Ginwen

I saw it a couple of weeks ago. It was ok, not boring, but I don't know that I've ever seen a movie before where I pretty much felt everyone, including the main character who was just infuriating to me, deserved a punch in the face.

slop101

I liked it at first, but it really sticks with you and keeps turning around in your head - the more I think about it, the more I love it. But it's certainly not for all tastes.

It's closest comparison would be the Coen's own "The Man Who Wasn't There", which may have been a bit more wacky and out there than Serious Man, and a less sympathetic lead with Billy Bob Thorton, but they share a lot of similarities.

NoirFan

For me, this is the fundamental flaw with many of the Coen Brothers' films - they are populated almost entirely by unlikable characters. All that misanthropy grows tiring after a while.

slop101

Unlikable characters are okay, as long as they're interesting.

RyoHazuki

I thought the lead was likable Heck I even liked Sy Abelman. He cracked me up with how nice he was about stealing Larry's wife.

Burn After Reading, on the other hand, didn't have any likable or interesting characters imo.

Finisher

Absolutely hilarious movie. Extremely dark, even for the Coens. They've always made cynically dark movies but their past few have been unrelentingly bleak. It was literally one thing after the other. Reminiscent of Barton Fink: dark, mysterious, very specific time period, depresssing, feeling of being trapped, existence as hell, repetition, meaninglessness ..

conscience

That's great to hear as TMWWT is probably my second favorite from the Coens.

foofighters7

Seen this over the weekend and must say, It was Terrific! I loved it and thought it was one of their best since Fargo at the very least.
Reminded me of Barton Fink and Fargo rolled into one.

Wonderfully written and hilariously dark. Just a great story. Great Cinematography.

My wife said she really liked it but grew tired of the constancy of the the "bad luck".

I on the other hand loved every minute of it, Great opener great finish. loved it.

emachine

A masterwork, in my opinion. It was some really haunting stuff, especially the ending.

gmanca

Really enjoyed this, which had a surprising amount of humor given the mood. Michael Stuhlbarg was great and Richard Kind was basically Andy from Curb; every time he yelled "I'll be out in just a minute" I was cracking up.

hardercore

A bleak, yet unnervingly funny film in the way only the coens can produce. Incredibly well acted and intensely thought-provoking.

"are you taking advantage of the new freedoms?"

ChineseCheckers

I just saw this on the plane and really liked it...didn't quite like the ending but what can you do?

Just a quick question about the beginning. I didn't understand how it ties with the rest of the movie. Any thoughts?

Also, in the end...

hardercore

I took it to mean that Larry, as a rational man, could have been some descendant of the husband. It was left ambiguous, but the husband, like Larry, was unwilling to accept the mysticism of the circumstance -- "please, accept the mystery" is one of the most important lines in the film for me.

Rabbi Marshak may have been in some way connected to the Dybbuk in the prologue... Marshak has an almost mythical ancient nature, and at first look I'd thought they were both played by the same actor.

Supermallet

It also shows how a person's life can be upended in the strangest of ways at a moment's notice. Saul later becomes Larry's personal dybbuk.

hardercore

I think the cruelest, most bleak reading of this movie could be in the films title, that the whole film is an indictment of "serious" men leading serious lives. Larry feels like he's being punished when he feels he's "done nothing" to deserve it. Yet that could be the point, he's not taking advantage of the new freedoms. I could see this as a personal ideology the Coens share.

Aegean2007

I viewed it as part of a theme of duality. The guy could have been a dybbuk or he might not have been, there was evidence for both views. It's like Schrodinger's cat, which is also mentioned in the film. This continues with the ending, with both the

grrr

The trials Larry faced were not his condemnation for being a serious man, but commentary that living a clean and decent life is no guarantee of reward or freedom from suffering. The entire film was a postmodern retelling of Job without the hopeful addendum of the original in which Job receives his reward for faithfulness to God even when ignorant of the cause of his suffering.

I can't help but admire the craft of the film, but the Coens' relentless nihilism just doesn't sit well with me when I have to watch utterly perplexed individuals being tortured like ants under a magnifying glass. The biblical book of Job has a moral, namely that God feels no need to explain the suffering of the innocent, but is nevertheless worthy of worship and love. Not my favorite book of the Bible and difficult to reconcile with many ordinary Christian notions of God, but challenging nonetheless. A Serious Man rejects the notion of a merciful God as a lie fit for fools, mumbling dotards, and stoned teenagers--the people who are most active in the pursuit of faith are the most idiotic of all. It's not that God's existence is doubted by anyone in the film, but rather that the Coens judge allegiance to such an obviously vicious figure to be absurd.

There's a lot to like about the way the film is put together and in particular how a couple of absurdist barbs work (the narcissist son with an F-Troop obsession was hilarious), but the Coens' treatment of their main character is far nastier here than in Barton Fink or Burn After Reading. And if I were to leave all metaphysics at the door, that's my complaint about the film: It feels less like an immersive narrative than an exercise in how much brutality the brothers can force a meek family man to endure before he breaks. No Country had an immersive story with a devastating and unsettling conclusion; by contrast, A Serious Man is a distant exercise that I found inhumanly cold and pretty damn repugnant.

Dr Mabuse

Great film.

Sy Ableman was a serious man.

terrible chong

According to the Coen Bros. themselves, the story at the beginning is not meant to have an explicit connection with the Larry Gopnik story. It is just to show the tradition of Yiddish storytelling. The prologue sets the tone of Jewish humor. Like, here's a Jewish story... Now here's another Jewish story.