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Ishtar
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The Fortune
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-30-
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Betrayal
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Play It As It Lays
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The Outfit
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Alex in Wonderland
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The Legend of Lylah Clare
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In The Cool of the Day
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That Cold Day in the Park
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Thumb Trippin'
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Midas Run
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At Long Last Love
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Outcast of the Islands
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Run of the Arrow
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House of Secrets
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Saint Joan
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The Fiend Who Walked the West
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Tropic of Cancer
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I Never Sang for My Father
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Sometimes a Great Notion
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Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
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Fast-Walking
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When the Wind Blows
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Housekeeping
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The Glass Menagerie
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Patty Hearst
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Drowning by Numbers
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Haunted Summer
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City of Hope
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I'm repeating myself, yes, but I can't help gnashing my teeth over how mushy and...well, Barack Obama-minded the thinking is right now among Best Picture prognosticators in the case of the Coen Bros.' A Serious Man -- easily one of their wittiest and most sharply cut films, and hands down one of the year's best.

To my knowledge Serious still has only a handful of ardent supporters -- myself, The Envelope's Tom O'Neil, Awards Daily's Sasha Stone, In Contention's Kris Tapley, The Wrap's Steve Pond, Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, legendary Oscar-watcher Robert Osborne, etc. Am I missing anyone?

Okay, that's more than a handful, but this Focus Features release really should have legions behind it at this stage. The Movie Godz are appalled that it's not locked down as one of the no-questions-asked contenders. I talk to them and I know. You wouldn't believe the hand-wringing going on up there. Is this because the film says God doesn't love or care, religion can't help and we're basically helpless before whatever dark fate may befall us? Well, that's true, isn't it? Shouldn't at least one film out of the ten be allowed to feel this way?

The blockage is mainly about a perception in some (okay, most) quarters that the film is, at bottom, a chilly, misanthropic thing. This of course is seen as a demerit by the pulse-taskers because Best Picture contenders are required to provide a semblance of positive assurance. A Serious Man is very, very comforting to me because it's so ruthlessly well shaped, perfectly performed, richly comedic and unstinting in its world view, which at the very least proves that vision lives in this industry. Vision and exactitude and making films that play just so without sanding the edges.

(Thanks to Sasha Stone for posting the above trade ad on Sunday.)

Usual Factoids<< previous | next >>Financial Guy Says...

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 3, 2009 at 10:20 AM

comment #1

Colin says ...

I've got the same ad up on my blog.

This film has got to be a Best Picture contender.

Posted by Colin at November 3, 2009 11:13 AM

comment #2

great scott says ...

Coen Brothers fatigue. Didn't these guys win three Oscars apiece just two years ago? They each have four Oscars on their mantle and Frances MacDormand has one too. Could be no one wants to give them another one no matter how good their new film is.

Posted by great scott at November 3, 2009 11:20 AM

comment #3

anonymous2 says ...

Great Scott beat me to the punch. I don't think people want to acknowledge the fact that the Coen brothers again made one of the best films of the year. Too soon.

Posted by anonymous2 at November 3, 2009 11:21 AM

comment #4

anonymous2 says ...

Even though Serious Man is the better film. I forget where I saw one complaining that it was too perfect.

Posted by anonymous2 at November 3, 2009 11:22 AM

comment #5

Jeffrey Wells says ...

It can't win, understood, but to not even be nominated? That's all I'm saying.

Posted by Jeffrey Wells at November 3, 2009 11:24 AM

comment #6

Colin says ...

I'm sorry but that argument is hardly credible. Look at how many nods Eastwood gets, same for Streep, Winslet to a smaller degree.

Let's face it the only reason the Coens won was because the Academy thought their outsider status was less outisde then Paul Thomas Anderson. All 3 great directors shunned by the AARP, I mean the Academy.

Posted by Colin at November 3, 2009 11:33 AM

comment #7

anonymous2 says ...

It will definitely be nominated. Right? 10 nominees and no A Serious Man would be embarrassing. If it's not they will make it up to it with a screenplay nomination.

Posted by anonymous2 at November 3, 2009 11:39 AM

comment #8

BurmaShave says ...

you really need to lay off this Obama is wishy washy stuff, it's based on analysis of things you, Arianna, and Maher don't understand. I don't like Geithner either but jesus christ it's getting tiresome.

Posted by BurmaShave at November 3, 2009 11:40 AM

comment #9

Uncle Larry says ...

As if any of these dimwit prognosticators have a pipeline to the psyches of the thousands of equally dimwitted Oscar voters. Yeah, it's a great movie - and gee, great movies NEVER get overlooked by the Academy. Or do they only get overlooked when media dickwads fail to point them out to the great unwashed masses?

Posted by Uncle Larry at November 3, 2009 12:01 PM

comment #10

lazarus says ...

It bugs me how many critics are so threatened by the playful,, cynical intelligence of the Coens that they feel it's their duty to take the filmmakers down a couple pegs in an attempt to claim a monopoly on the worldview.

Posted by lazarus at November 3, 2009 12:02 PM

comment #11

Gordon27 says ...

The reason most people think the movie has no chance is because it's a movie with no plot, no character arc, no climax, and it openly tells you (through the Parable of the Goy's Teeth) that it has no point. [If you'd prefer, I'll say that it does actually have a point, despite that, but the point is incredibly obscured and buried; I disagree with your statement about what the movie is about, but I like the fact that the movie is open and you can't definitely pin down what it's about.]

Now, I like a lot of those aspects -- at least, in practice here -- but they can leave a lot of people unsatisfied.

Posted by Gordon27 at November 3, 2009 12:17 PM

comment #12

Gordon27 says ...

I should add, it's nice to see Jeff trying to use his hypothetical influence over the Oscars for positive instead of negative ("Eddie Murphy shouldn't win!" "Amy Ryan shouldn't win!").

Posted by Gordon27 at November 3, 2009 12:30 PM

comment #13

Flash Gordon says ...

Just wait until Lovely Bones comes out, Gordon. ("Peter Jackson shouldn't win!")

Posted by Flash Gordon at November 3, 2009 12:42 PM

comment #14

Sean Means says ...

Add my name to the list of supporters. I gave it four stars, and it's in the running as my No. 1 of the year (only other contender so far: "The Cove").

Posted by Sean Means at November 3, 2009 12:42 PM

comment #15

dinther says ...

IMO, A Serious Man had its moments, credible acting, a nice build -- and a stunning close -- but it left me relatively unaffected. I saw it last weekend and haven't thought about it since - which is my personal litmus for whether a film is Oscar worthy.

But I disagree w/ Jeff about what the film "says." It's not that God doesn't care; it's that we are to "respect the mystery."

Posted by dinther at November 3, 2009 1:16 PM

comment #16

Matthew Starr says ...

What positive assurance did No Country have?

If this movie does not get in and compete for the top prize they need to revamp the voting process.

Posted by Matthew Starr at November 3, 2009 3:03 PM

comment #17

OtownRog says ...

A prologue that appears to have nothing to do with the movie (something ignored in most reviews). And...well, what Gordon said. Over-rated.
Joe Morgenstern, Pulitzer winning critic, WS Journal. "Who knows WHAT the hell the point the Coens were making," or words to that effect.
Chewy bits, not a meal.

Posted by OtownRog at November 4, 2009 12:20 PM