Squib Squabble

Some dyspeptic reviews of recent films in the LA Weekly and elsewhere. (Let me warn some spoilers may come up, but probably nothing too serious, since I won't discuss what the critics aren't already discussing.)

Ella Taylor has a serious problem with the Coen Brothers' latest, A Serious Man. She feels it's

buried beneath an avalanche of Ugly Jew iconography. Set in 1967, in a Midwestern Jewish neighborhood with a strong resemblance to the one the Coens grew up in, A Serious Man is crowded with fat Jews, aggressive Jews, passive-aggressive Jews, traitor Jews, loser Jews, shyster-Jews, emo-Jews, Jews who slurp their chicken soup, and — passing as sages — a clutch of yellow-toothed, know-nothing rabbis....

...the visual impact of all these warty, unappetizing Jews (even the movie’s obligatory anti-Semite looks handsome by comparison) carries A Serious Man into the realm of the truly vicious. The production notes are larded with the Coen Brothers’ disclaiming protestations of affection for their hapless characters, but make no mistake: We’re being invited to share in their disgust.

No question the Coens can come off as misanthropic. But I'm not seeing what Ella is. In fact, while I didn't think that much of the film, what impressed me (aside from the design and period detail) was finally a film about Jews that stars Jews who look like Jews. Sure, the Coens could have hired better-looking people, even better-looking Jewish people, but seeing realistic faces and bodies didn't bother me.

Meanwhile, Scott Foundas takes a bite out of Zombieland:

The zombie movie — that evergreen vessel for all manner of social and political allegory — gets stripped down to its “Holy shit! Zombies! Run!” chassis in this fitfully amusing romp directed with little ambition and even less distinction by first-timer Ruben Fleischer....

Woody Harrelson leads the charge as a leathery urban roughneck in the Snake Plissken mold, with Jesse Eisenberg (typecast, yet again, as a virginal neurotic), Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (playing a couple of scam-artist sisters) riding shotgun.

I don't know--I think they were going for somewhat deeper feelings than that. Harrelson isn't just a badass. They ask us to sympathize with him. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but Foundas needs more foundation.

Meanwhile, at The New Yorker, Anthony Lane defames The Invention Of Lying. He thinks the film is ultimately a glorification of star Ricky Gervais:

Toward the end, “The Invention of Lying” becomes almost a one-man show; we find ourselves in a traditional church (who built that?), with the Cross digitally removed from its steeple and an icon of Mark, with outstretched arms, above the altar. So, the sweet best friend with the snub nose not only gets the girl; he gets to play the man in the sky. Talk about invention.

Hmm. Perhaps Lane was so turned off by this point he wasn't paying attention. The traditional church, based on the sign outside, seems to have been built by people who'd like to silently contemplate the man in the sky. And that man in the sky is by no means thought by anyone to be Ricky Gervais. He's pictured in the church as the man with the pizza boxes who gave the message from the man in the sky. The man in the sky can't be seen, and so a literal-minded world wouldn't depict him.