Larry Gopnik (answering the phone): Hello?
Dick Dutton (the voice on the other end of the line): Hello Mr. Gopnik? This is Dick Dutton from the Columbia Record Club. I’m calling because it’s now four months, and we have yet to receive your first payment.
Larry: There’s some mistake. I’m not a member of the Columbian Record Club.
Dick: Sir, you are Lawrence Gopnik of 8419 Fern Hill Road?
Larry: No, I live at the Jolly Roger.
Dick: Excuse Me?
Larry: Well, yes, okay.
Dick: Yes, you are Lawrence Gopnik?
Larry: — Okay.
Dick: ‘Okay’ means…
Larry: Okay. Yes. Lawrence Gopnik. Yes.
Dick: Okay, well, you received your 12 introductory albums and you’ve been receiving the monthly main selection for 4 months now.
Larry: The monthly main selec… Is that a record? I didn’t ask for any records.
Dick: To receive the monthly main selection, you do nothing. You…
Larry: That’s right. I haven’t done anything.
Dick: Yes, that’s why you received the monthly main selection.
Larry: But I…
Dick: The last one was…the last one was Santana Abraxas. You…
Larry: I didn’t ask for Santana Abraxas.
Dick: You request the main selection at the retail price by doing nothing. It’s automatically mailed to you plus shipping and handling. You’re about to receive…
Larry: I can’t afford a new record every month! I-I-I h-h-haven’t a-asked f-f…
Dick: You’re about to get Cosmo’s Factory, sir, the June main selection and…
Larry: Look something is very wrong! I don’t want Santana Abraxas! I’ve just been in a terrible auto accident!(Pause)
Dick: I’m sorry sir.
Larry: Thank you, but I…
Dick: Are you ok?
Larry: Yes, yes. No one was hurt.
Dick: Okay, good. Well, you had 14 days to listen to Santana Abraxas…
There’s no purpose to this little scene from Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, but I rewatched it over the weekend and it just keeps getting better. All of the scattered and seemingly random (but funny) details start to fit together and form a whole that is much greater than the sum of the parts.
A Serious Man is about our feeble attempts to assign order, either through science or religion, to a chaotic universe coolly disinterested in our well being. We invent a god to hold our hands in the darkness, but if there is a god, why do these horrible things happen to us? Either God wills it, or He simply doesn’t care. Isn’t that a worse fate than believing we’re simply on our own? No. We are superstitious creatures who respond to the unexplainable appearance at our doorstep of a friend we believe dead with the conviction that supernatural forces are at work. The simple answer would be that we are mistaken. Either the person at our doorstep is not our friend, or our friend did not die. What happens then? Well, Traitle Groshkover could’ve told you the consequences of superstitious thinking if only he hadn’t been killed.
What of Larry Gopnik’s beloved science? It’s of no more use to us when confronted by the Columbia Record Club man, our doctor or the class bully than it is to Schrödinger’s cat. All it ultimately tells us is that we don’t really know anything and even though we don’t know, we’ll still be responsible for the questions on the midterm.
At least science will help us cheat at cards as long as we don’t get caught. What did faith ever do besides get a man an ice pick to the chest?
To twist a lyric from Jefferson Airplane: when the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies – perhaps it’s simply better to accept the mystery and move on. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, watch out for tornadoes.
In other Watercoolerage, there is Chloe which I liked but almost everyone hated; there is Hot Tub Time Machine which critics and fanboys embraced, audiences skipped and I found kind of middling; and there was the delightful How to Train Your Dragon that was pretty well loved in all quarters including this one. I also caught up with the behind-the-scenes Disney doc Waking Sleeping Beauty that threw back the curtain on Disney’s rise from the animated ashes in the early 1980s only to crumble again a decade later over the creative differences the large egos in charge. Fans of animation, of Disney or of movie history in general will want to take a look at this rare, warts and all appraisal told through the words and pictures of the people who were actually there.
That’s all I’ve got. Your turn.
Filed under: The Watercooler
Yeah, I rewatched the film last weekend on Blu-ray. You know you’ve seen something great when you have a hard time picking the best scene.
Yes, there were dozens. I picked this one because it neatly illustrated many of the movie’s themes, but there are plenty of others.
I went bonkers this week, catching an opera at the Met last Monday night (Verdi’s Atilla) an off-Broadway theatrical work at the St. Ann’s Playhouse in Brooklyn on Saturday night, and seven (7) films in theatres over the weekend, despite some restrictions due to my attendance at a Friday night wake and Saturday morning funeral for the father of one of my best friends, who passed on after a long illness at age 82. My determination to see all these films (Lucille was there for some, the kids for others, and Lucille and Broadway Bob for a few others) is again a showing of OCD, the disease of having to see everything out there on pain of death!
On Monday night, I witnessed a superlative staging of Giuseppi Verdi’s gorgeous Atilla, an opera that would fall methinks, in a grouping after the Big Five: La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Aida and Otello. I hope to pen a review later this week if time permits, but the presentation of the fabulous score, the conducting and set design were top-rank. This was not one of the operas offered this year on the HD broadcast schedule.
A first trip ever to the landmark St. Ann’s Warehouse, literally right “under” the intimidating Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side of the river provided a photo shoot session for our erstwhile cameraman Broadway Bob, who shot some photos of the bridge from point blank range as well as others involving Lucille and I. The show, the critically-praised “A Life in Three Acts” stars ‘Bette Bourne’ a drag queen activist in the 1970′s, who uses a slide show to document his upbringing in the U.K. social scene, his own biography, and an often hilarious extended monologue (playing out like a stand up comedy routine) where he is sometimes interuppted by his production colleague Mark ravenhill to pose some lead-ons or pointed questions. Christopher Isherwood’s New York Times review was extremely favorable, but you ahve to see this to really appreciate the unique approach to the material. Again, hopefully, a review will follow.
The seven films I saw this week (all over the weekend) are as follows:
Dream Boy ** (Chelsea Cinemas) Sunday night
Waking Sleeping Beauty **** (Landmark Cinemas) Sunday night
The Eclipse ** (Angelika Film Center) Sunday afternoon
Chloe *** (Edgewater multiplex) Friday, noon
Bluebeard **** 1/2 (IFC Film Center) Friday night, midnight
Vincere **** 1/2 (Montclair Cinemas) Saturday afternoon
How to Train Your Dragon **** 1/2 (Paramus multiplex) Fri. afternoon
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is one of the great animation glories in recent years, blending a witty script, splendid voice working, soaring animation, and surprising emotional resonance to provide for an experience that will enthrall adults and kids alike. I nearly went with a four star rating, but reserve the right to do so in the near future. The film is so utterly exhilarating that I smile from ear to ear while thinking about it.
VINCERE Marco Bellocchio has crafted a film with unusual insight into the life of the woman Mussolini spurned, before marrying his wife, and the son he denied fathering. Some breathtaking scenes of visual beauty and aural magnificence, the film boasts an electrifying performance by its leading female, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, and an expressionistic style and operatic underpinning that makes this film come very close to a five star rating.
Atom Egoyan can never be dismissed, and CHLOE is not a film that deserves some of the very bad notices it has received, even with some tacky plot contrivances on par with FATAL ATTRACTION, and some unexplained morivational aspects centering around Julianne Moore’s character. Reportedly, Liam Neeson was suffering grief at his wife’s death while filming, and lamentably this seems to show, but the two female leads (especially moore) are excellent. It’s trashy, but it’s seriously entertaining, which I think makes it worthwhile for a look-see
The Irish film, THE ECLIPSE is well acted, and there are some striking screnes and lovely scenery, but it’s a serious misfire, as it doesn’t know what it wants to be, and it has some rhythm or flow. Even the “romance” advertised is only faintly hinted at, as the ghost story segments are completely alien to the story being played out. Some are reading way more into this than what it’s worth.
WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY, a documentary about Disney’s last rise to the top in the late 80′s and 90′s is only 68 minutes long, hence it couldn’t go as far as it might have, but it’s still a joy for the lovers of this animation, and the creative process is presented in a highly informative an dentertaining fashion. I admire the candid approach too.
Based on Clarles Perrault’s grisly fairy tale, Catherine Breillat’s sensuous BLUEBEARD is at at the same time psychologically insightful and stylistically minimalist, but it’s a morbidly intoxicating fable beautifully lensed and provocatively played out by an excellent cast. Breillat’s cinema leaves always much more than meets the eye, but as was the case with her terrific THE LAST MISTRESS a few years ago, what you see is absolutely ravishing.
DREAM BOY, one of three features in a festival, is an amateurish gay coming-of-age tale with the typical stereotypes and a jarringly unpleasant conclusion. Little chemistry between characters and a pedestrian script mitigating some minor perceptions.
I meant to say in regards to DRAGON that I almost went with a FIVE star rating, not a four as I accidentally conveyed above.
I am really beginning to think it deserves a FIVE.
I got nothing. Caught Thunderbolt and Lightfoot on cable which was pretty interesting and diverting, but not entirely satisfying. But I enjoyed it and its odd eccentricities.
Saturday was my friend’s famous annual birthday movie marathon. We had a choice of themes this year, one of them being pre-code Hollywood and the other being films about New York’s upper westside. I voted for pre-code but was outvoted. However, since a few people were late we ended up watching one of the pre-code movies Counselor at Law with John Barrymore, Melvin Douglas and a supporting cast of excellent actors, most of who never went on to big things. It’s really an entertaining movie and every character is memorable.
The upper westside part, which started after everyone came, consisted of Little Manhattan, a cute little film about an eleven-year-old boy’s first love and The Mirror Has Two Faces with Jeff Bridges and Barbra Streisand, and directed by Streisand. These two were pretty painless as far as rom-coms go. The first was very sweet and the kids were good. And the second had Jeff Bridges, who I’ve always loved. It was pretty good as far as this genre is concerned, funny, with great performances all around, including a wonderfully comic turn from Lauren Bacall as the Streisand character’s mother. Bacall had some of the best lines in the movie, in fact.
Most importantly the company was great. We always have a great time, whatever movies we’re watching.
On Sunday the weather was crappy again so I stayed home with TCM, revisiting the wonderful Sunset Boulevard.
I *am* big. It’s the *pictures* that got small.
COUNCELOR AT LAW is a marvelous pre-code film Alison, I couldn’t agree with you more! What superlative acting on display there with those screen icons! As far as SUNSET BOULEVARD…..I gush. Love that line!!!
That sounds like an awesome party, Alison – cool friends you have.
I blanked as usual with movies this weekend between other events with friends and family. I did catch the continuation of “Life” on the Discovery Channel, which was amazing again.
I’m so behind on movies, meanwhile, that I don’t even know where to start. I would have never considered seeing How to Train Your Dragon if not for the unanimous raving about it, but how and when I’ll get to that is a mystery. I do remain a bit skeptical only because I still have issues with 3D (among fans of Avatar I’m one of the 0.1% who preferred it in 2D), but it sounds like there is more than just visuals to Dragon, which may be the biggest surprise of all.
Daniel I’m a fellow 3D skeptic, but it was worth it for Dragon. The flying sequences were a helluva lot of fun.
It looks like Joel and Alison represented Jeff Bridges from both coasts this weekend. Nice!
I think we can all agree that Sam wins this week’s Watercooler prize even before the day is through. Anyone who sees 7 movies in theaters over the course of a weekend deserves to win SOMETHING.
I only saw How To Train Your Dragon this weekend, but I replayed several of the scenes in my head enough I feel like I saw it twice. Great fun, 4 1/2 stars.
Ah, Sunset Boulevard. Everytime someone quotes that film I have an overwhelming desire to pop it in and watch it again. It never grows old.
Gee Sam. Seven movies in the theater? You may have won the Watercooler Prize this week, but with that kind of schedule I can’t see where you’ll find any time to accept it! Interesting thoughts on Chloe. I still want to see that very much. Funny how someone else (was it Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco paper? I think him or Ebert.) expressly commented on the fact that Liam Neeson was grieving during the filming of that but it didn’t show up at all on the screen.
Craig, thank you for bestowing that esteemed LIC prize on my hectic weekend. When my 80 year old father, whom I visit with my family for about two hours every Sunday night – but couldn’t last night for obvious reasons- heard of what I did he told Lucille ‘that man needs some serious help.’ Well, it’s true, as there really is no rationality to that kind of disturbed behavior. It’s to be pitied rather than applauded. I’ll be the first to admit it. All I can offer in meagre defense is that there were just too many seemingly must-see openings this past weekend. I don’t even want to get into the cost, as family members came along to some of the showings.
As far as DRAGON, Jenny, I actually saw the 2 D version, as Lucille wasn’t thrilled with the
$5 extra charge for each of seven tickets we bought. Yet I loved it as much as I loved the 2D of AVATAR. I will have to go back to the 3D later this week, as apparently it’s even better that way. Glad everyone at LIC seems to be singing its praises. I think I love it as much as Pixar’s UP.
I liked it better than UP. Heresy, I know, but there it is.
Hahah…I can picture a Juliano intervention where Sam shows up at a movie theater thinking it’s the latest hot film from France only see the auditorium filled with friends and family members who want to get him to face up to his movie addiction.
hahahaha
Thanks for blowing the pending intervention Craig. Can you even begin to know how hard it was organizing that thing from New Zealand?
What a great annual event to do with friends, Alison. Pre-code would have gotten my vote too.
“Hahah…I can picture a Juliano intervention where Sam shows up at a movie theater thinking it’s the latest hot film from France only see the auditorium filled with friends and family members who want to get him to face up to his movie addiction.”
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! This one is priceless Craig!!!!!!!!!!!!
Craig, are you saying that you never received that phone call from the Columbia Record Club?
;-)
It always came at the most inopportune time. That scene made so much sense to me. It was one of the many reasons why A Serious Man was THE American film of 2009.
Paul, I had stacks of letters of varying colors and temperament that I hid from my parents for months. It was a genuine Leave it to Beaver moment.
That’s also why the scene spoke to me and also it’s just a perfect illustration of the absurdity of the modern world.
I was a member of the BMG Club myself, not Columbia. ;-)
Oh, Craig, the hiding of the letters…so sad…
BMG later, Alison. ;-)
(In fact, I officially quit BMG a couple of years ago to stop receiving e-mails from them. That was Kafkaesque.)