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21 Nov

Dentist Humor Joke

Continuing the pattern of my guest reviewers completely outdoing me at my own game comes my aunt Laura with a review of A Serious Man. I had no (and I mean zero) desire to see this film. So Laura was good enough to write up a review after she saw the Coen Brothers' latest. Click the link to see what she thought...

The Coen brothers film, A Serious Man, opens with a scene in a European schetel, in which a husband and wife speak Yiddish. An old man comes to the door. The wife claims the old man actually died years ago and is a dybbuk, or ghost. To prove that she is right, she stabs the old man in the chest with an ice pick. The filmmakers create the only suspense that will occur for the next hour and a half—will the old man’s wound bleed? It does and he staggers out the door as the husband cries that the couple will be cursed for the murder of the old man.

Fast forward to Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlberg), a Jewish physics professor in a college in the Midwest, whose seemingly normal life in a subdivision is about to fall apart as his wife announces she is leaving him, a Korean student tries to bribe him for a better grade, his weirdly asocial brother gets arrested, his bar mitzvah-bound, pot smoking son seems concerned only about seeing the sitcom F-Troop and his teenage daughter views him as an annoying interruption.

The movie drags along as Larry seeks spiritual advice from rabbis, young and old. The rabbis are actually the centerpiece of the film’s joke—shit happens and the rabbis have no explanation. Larry, a 1960’s Job, listens intently as the rabbis use parables to explain the unknowable, but the parables do not result in any spiritual answers. In fact, one of the stories provides a highlight of the movie—a dentist who discovers a message in Hebrew carved in the teeth of a Gentile patient. The story, carefully told by a supposedly sage rabbi, and recounted through a flashback, should provide Larry with a meaningful revelation, but as with all of his rabbinical encounters, the story is a story without meaning. Larry is frustrated, but not bitter about his inability to find comfort through his religion.

Although the movie seems interminable at times (my friends threatened to leave at least twice during the 1:45 minute running time), it had a strangely lasting impact on me. I found myself liking the movie more in retrospect than when I was watching it. While I was watching it, I wondered who the heck the audience was and why anyone would want to watch a period piece movie about a middle class, unremarkable Jewish family living in the Midwest in the 1960s. As it turns out, the movie has a subtle, dark humor that pokes fun at religion and is, in its quirky revelations, a sly denunciation of the comfort of spirituality-not an easy theme to communicate but one worth thinking about.

Henry's Grade By Proxy: B

Best Scene By Proxy: The meetings with the two Rabbis

When the season's greetings start rolling in, tally up the points for each card you receive and check your holiday luck.

Gain points when you receive cards from:

Dentist, insurance agent, hairdresser, dry cleaner, mailman +0.5 each
Your own mother +0.5
Another relative +1
Friend via e-mail +0.5
Your boss +1
Friend you see at least once a week +1
Above, with reference to an inside joke +3
Long-distance friend, devoid of any personal message +2
Above, with personal message of at least three lines +5
Anyone who includes a handwritten personal note of more than five sentences +5
Long-lost friend who hasn't been heard from in 20 years +10

Lose points when:

Card and envelope are same piece of paper -1
Signature is imprinted rather than handwritten inside card -2
Photo is of a helpless pet in a holiday costume -3
Your name is spelled incorrectly -4
Highly religious card celebrates faith other than your own -5
Card is the same one you received last year -6
Return-address label was provided by charity to which sender may not have actually contributed -7
Family newsletter contains words such as gallbladder, spleen, and gout -8
Family newsletter is from ex who is (not so) subtly gloading over his/her recent wedding and cushy new job -10
Long-lost friend who hasn't been heard from in 20 years asks for money of a place to live -20