From the minds of the Coen brothers comes this tale of a rather pathetic Jewish professor of physics in late 60s Minnesota. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is having all kinds of problems, from the serious to the mundane.

Larry is indeed A Serious Man, and one whose existence isn’t likely to be improved over the course of the film. Though you have a feeling if he could see the dark humor of his own situation, he might laugh himself to death.

His wife (Sari Lennick) has decided to leave him for a widower (Fred Melamed), his unemployed brother (Richard Kind) is living on his couch, his daughter (Jessica McManus) is stealing from him, a student unsatisfied with his grade (David Kang) is bribing and threatening him, a neighbor wants to build a shed on his property, the person deciding on his tenure at the college is receiving unflattering letters about the professor, and he’s being hounded by a telephone calls from a man demanding money for records Larry neither asked for nor received.

During these various crises, our protagonist attempts to find comfort from a lawyer (Alan Arkin) and a serious of rabbis (Simon Helberg, Alan Mandell, George Wyner), none of whom provide him with the solace he seeks. The outcome of each meeting only seems to add to the pressure and confusion Larry is faced with.

Like many characters from the films of the Coens, Larry Gopnik is a man in a world he can’t control. This provides for several humorous moments over the course of the film. Those expecting a screwball Coen comedy like The Big Lebowski or O Brother, Where Art Thou? may be slightly disappointed. What they will get is a bleak character study that may not overwhelm you, but will keep your attention.

Unlike many of the Coens’ other leading men, Larry isn’t in his situation for the questionable decisions he’s made but instead for his own inaction and unwillingness to confront the situations which are troubling him. For a main character, he’s about as pathetic as you can get.

The things which happen to him over the course of the film are both funny and sad, but it’s hard to feel for the character when he’s so unwilling to stand up for himself. The message, it seems, is that this character, and perhaps many of us who fail to act, are doomed. Isn’t that a cheery thought?

I was also somewhat confused by the lengthy opening scene involving a Hasidic Jewish couple (Yelena Shmulenson, Allen Lewis Rickman) who welcome in a stranger (Fyvush Finkel) who may or may not be a a wandering demon spirit. Although the little parable itself is well done, it adds little overall to the film except perhaps give the audience a peek at the hopelessness yet to come.

A Serious Man isn’t a great film, but it is a well-made and an intriguing intellectual exercise. It’s the character study of a man whose life is spinning out of control. It may not be funny enough or dark enough to be the Coen brothers classic, but it’s a solid entry into the catalog and one their fans shouldn’t miss out on.

Tags: a serious man, a serious man movie review, coen bros., coen brothers

For the on-camera review with clips from the movie, click here.

Before the critical triumph of the surprisingly warm-hearted black comedy “Fargo” in 1996, Joel and Ethan Coen’s critics had accused the brothers’ movies of being cold and detached—exercises in cinematic virtuosity, for sure, but lacking empathy for their characters and instead reveling in any opportunity to put them through the wringer.

Those critics are going to hate “Burn After Reading.”

Is it cynical? Yes. Is it mean-spirited? Of course. But—is it funny? Hell yeah.

I guess the answer to that last question really depends on your sense of humor. “Burn After Reading” is certainly not the upbeat romp that its trailers make it out to be. The Coens wrote this at the same time they were adapting last year’s Best Picture winner “No Country for Old Men,” and it looks like that film’s existential dread rubbed off on this one in a big way.

Like “No Country”’s harried protagonist Llewelyn Moss, middle-aged fitness club employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) must make some hard and fast choices when an opportunity to improve her life presents itself. A CD-Rom that may contain classified CIA secrets has fallen into the hands of her friend and co-worker, a hyperactive knucklehead named Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). When Linda decides to blackmail the disc’s apparent owner, fired agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), it sets her on the road to getting that image-improving plastic surgery she wants so badly.

In a series of events too convoluted and ridiculous to believe, Linda is suddenly mixed up with a perverted womanizer (George Clooney), Cox’s icy wife (Tilda Swinton), and a lonely boss who has a crush on her (Richard Jenkins). The plot is a slow build towards a manic conclusion, full of shocking violence and shockingly bizarre revelations.

The Coens’ wicked black humor is on full display here, but I would argue against those who say that the writer-director team have no empathy for their characters. It is easy to get involved with the plight of poor Linda, who is so desperate to be noticed that she can’t notice the people who like her the way she is. Malkovich’s CIA consultant may be self-righteous, but when it comes to getting fired, who can’t relate to that? Even Clooney’s philandering husband really seems to love his wife—he just can’t help himself.

What will piss most people off is the bleak and hopeless worldview that the Coens subscribe to. In a typical Hollywood script, the bad characters are either punished or redeemed and the good ones are allowed a moment of triumph, be it literal or symbolic. Like “No Country for Old Men,” the world of “Burn” seems indifferent to the plight of the average downtrodden American citizen, even if it was their own weaknesses that got them into this jam in the first place.

Hey, at least the Coens have the good humor to be able to laugh in the first place. It’s easy to read a “News of the Weird” column in the newspaper and laugh at the guy with a terrible diet who was killed by his own flatulence. It’s another thing to spend an entire movie getting invested in pathetic characters portrayed by likeable actors, and to have it all blow up in your face, leaving you to wonder why you bothered.

If “No Country” left us to ponder the notion of the random and cruel ways that our seemingly limitless freedom of choice can relate to the bigger picture, then “Burn After Reading” puts an exclamation point on the pointlessness of it all. Whether you are able to laugh at the gratuitous inelegance that the Coens’ universe depicts will depend on you. The last five minutes of “Burn After Reading” had me in hysterics.

Humphrey Bogart famously said in “Casablanca” that “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Joel and Ethan Coen believe that too. They just have a way more thoroughly sick and twisted way of pointing it out.

Tags: brad pitt, Burn After Reading movie review, clooney, coen brothers, malkovich, mcdormand

I had a good feeling about this one. The man responsible for “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain,” director Darren Aronofsky, has just won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion Award for his newest movie, “The Wrestler.” It was also just picked up by Fox Searchlight for distribution.

Although a technicality keeps the lead actor in a Golden Lion-winning film from also winning Best Actor, there were universal raves for Mickey Rourke’s performance as a wrestler looking for a comeback. Can’t wait for this one, although I would say his role in “Sin City” was a comeback - one that should have gotten him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod. I voted for him anyway, in the KC Film Critic’s Circle Awards that year, and I remember he just barely lost out to Paul Giamatti for “Cinderella Man,” which, as much as I love Giamatti, is pretty lame. I think everyone else just felt guilty for not giving him props for “American Splendor” and “Sideways.”

Did I mention Aronofsky is doing a new “Robocop” movie? Only about a million times…

All this talk reminds me of something: Awards season has officially begun and its time for me to cram a year’s worth of good films (and usually some studio misfires that aimed for that pre-approved “stamp of quality” like “Cinderella Man” did) in four months. Joel and Ethan Coen, whose “Burn After Reading” opens tomorrow, have a new project that started filming Monday in their home state of Minnesota with longtime cinematographer (and seven-time Oscar nominee) Roger Deakins.

“A Serious Man” stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Fred Melamed, Richard Kind, and Minnesota actors Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, and Jessica McManus. Ever heard of any of them? That’s quite a ways from Pitt, Clooney, Malkovich, McDormand, and Swinton. It’s about a a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university whose wife leaves him and a lot of other bad things happen to him as well. I love the fact that these guys refuse to do the same thing twice.

Tags: aronofsky's the wrestler, coen brothers, fox searchlight, golden lion, mickey rourke, venice

Columbia Pictures third-highest grossing film of all time is “Ghostbusters.” So they’d be stupid not to make a sequel, right? Hmmm…Well, the writing has begun, and “the plan is for the film to reunite the stars of the original ‘Ghostbusters’ films, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson,” according to Variety.

The catch? The two writers they hired are Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, from NBC’s “The Office” and it may star Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, or some of the other Judd Apatow players. Pop Machine got an email response from original Ghostbuster and “Groundhog Day” director Harold Ramis about the film:

“the studio is hoping to tap into some of the [judd apatow] acting talent. aykroyd, ivan reitman and i are consulting at this point, and according to dan, bill murray is willing to be involved on some level. he did record his dialogue for the new ghostbusters video game, as did danny and i, and ernie hudson. the concept is that the old ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity.”

And a Dan Aykroyd interview from E!Online:

“Well, y’know, two sharp young writers are purported to be writing the sequel, the third movie now. If I could interest Seth [Rogen] and Judd [Apatow] to be part of it, that would be an absolute dream.”

Tags: , a serious man, bill murray, coen brothers, ghostbusters 3, ghostbusters iii, harold ramis, Judd Apatow