My Review: In A World...(7/10)

"This Wednesday, one woman will teach another woman to sound a little less retarded."

Lake Bell starred, directed, and wrote the screenplay for this quirky romantic comedy which doesn't follow the normal standards of a genre film and at times feels like it's all over the place, but the awkward and goofy humor really worked for me. The kind of humor in In a World isn't for everyone, but I had a blast because I have a similar weird sense of humor like this. Bell was great in this film and I really liked her goofy character, she was charming. I had a lot of fun with this story and enjoyed all the quirky characters, but despite all the goofiness the film does make a statement about sexism in the film industry. Perhaps it is a bit heavy handed in the way it hammers the issue over and over again but the satire of Hollywood and all the back stabbings involved in the business worked extremely well for me. This screwball comedy is a bit ambitious but it works thanks to some charming performances and a tender romantic backstory.

The film opens with a tribute to the now deceased Don LaFontaine (who was the king of movie trailer voice-overs) through archival interview footage. In the interview Don's close friend and also a voice-over artist, Sam Sotto (Fred Melamed), is sharing his memories with the legend who coined the phrase "in a world" at the beginning of most of the movie trailers he lent his voice to. The other person interviewed is Don's son, Gustav (Ken Marino), who has inherited his father's empire and follows his foot steps as well. Sam has also been mentoring Gustav who he considers to be the future of the voice-over world. We are then introduced to Sam's daughter, Carol (Lake Bell), who has been working as a voice coach for other actors helping them on their accents and dialects. Carol doesn't make enough money to live on her own so she moves in with her sister, Dani (Michaela Watkins) who is married with Moe (Rob Corddry). Her life turns around when she agrees to do a voice-over gig that a young shy kid named Louis (Demetri Martin) offers her. Louis runs a sound mixing studio along with Heners (Nick Offerman) named Sound Mix-A-Lot. Carol does her job so well that she quickly begins getting more offers and all of a sudden has become a threat in the male dominated voice-over profession, competing against her father and Don's son. 

Lake Bell is charismatic and her character has a lot of spark in this film which allows her to carry the movie despite being all over the place at times with different subplots. She is easy to route for in a male dominated world which she is about to interfere with. The story has many awkward moments which I found silly, but charming. She had great chemistry with Demetri Martin and their romantic story was more tender than what we usually see in a Hollywood rom-com. In a World is unbalanced at times, but the individual performances make each turn worth it. Nick Offerman and Rob Corddry were great in their secondary roles and they gave the film that extra spark that was needed. There were also some entertaining cameos. Lake Bell's solid work here leaves me interested in her upcoming projects because she has proved she has talent and a voice that should be heard.

My Review: A Serious Man (7/10)

¨You can`t understand the physics without understanding the math. The math tells how it really works. That`s the real thing; the stories I give in class are just illustrative, they`re like fables, say, to help give you a picture.¨

(7/10) Those are the words professor Larry Gopnik tells one of his student`s who is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade and that is perhaps what the Coen brothers were trying to tell us about this movie. The entire plot serves as just an illustration to something they don`t have all the answers to. Just like the story one of the Rabbi`s tells Larry about the Goy`s teeth which doesn`t have a resolution, but nevertheless that doesn`t mean it isn`t a good story. Larry seems so preoccupied in this film to discover the meaning of all the tragedies that he is going through that we are expecting to find an answer, but what the directors are telling us is that sometimes there isn`t an explanation for things that happen, they just do. This is the Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan also known as ¨The Two-Headed Director¨ because they tend to work together) latest film after their Oscar Award winning No Country for Old Men and their dark comedy Burn After Reading. A Serious Man is more in the line of Burn after Reading except that it doesn`t count with the big names and most of the actors in this film are unknown. It is a much more personal movie for the directors who themselves are Jews who grew up in Minneapolis. The humor in this film is dark and it isn`t a laugh out loud film, but it does have a lot of comedy in it that mixes well with the depressive mood the main character is in.

The story takes place near 1970 in a Minneapolis suburb. The main character of the film is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg who had a small role in Body of Lies and is mostly known for working in plays) a Jewish Physics professor who explains most everything through mathematical equations. His life begins to turn upside down when his wife asks for a divorce because she has fallen in love with one of his best friends, while at the same time one of his students is trying to bribe him in order to get a better grade in his exam or sew him for defamation if he says anything, his son and daughter are a major headache, and to make matters worse his immature and unemployed brother is living in his couch. Things begin to unravel one by one for Larry and he seems to be falling into one debt after another due to the different lawsuits and problems he faces. Comparisons with the Biblical story of Job can`t be ignored at this point as he seems to be falling deeper and deeper into disgrace. Sari Lennick plays Judith, Larry`s wife who is tired of her marriage and is ready to live with Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed). I didn`t know either of these actors, but they both did a great job, especially Fred who was probably the funniest character in the film. Larry´s son, Danny (Aaron Wolff, also a newcomer) is studying Hebrew because he is about to have his bar mitzvah, but he gets into trouble for listening to Jefferson Airplane in class and buying weed from one of his classmates. Larry`s troubled brother, Arther (played by Richard Kind from Spin City) who lives with him and always seems to be getting into trouble with the law, gives him as much headaches as his son. Everywhere Larry turns he seems to be getting himself into trouble so he decides to go visit the Rabbi, but he can never get a hold of Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell) so he first has to settle with young Rabbi Scott (Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory) and later with Rabbi Nachtner (George Wyner), but neither of them have the answers he`s looking for.

If we actually pay attention to the small clues that the Coen brothers leave we know that Larry will not find the answers he`s looking for. At first I wasn`t excited about the ending of the film, but after I thought about it I really loved it. It would have been so easy to end the movie a few minutes before it actually did and we would think that Larry would end up fixing his life, but the final parallel sequence between him in college receiving a phone call from his medic and the one with Aaron in his Hebrew class is just great and really has the Coen signature all over it. The movie is very entertaining although I wouldn`t say it is among my favorite Coen films. I think Fargo is by far their best movie to date. Anyways it is always a lot of fun to watch their movies and most any actor would work for them for free. The opening sequence only served as a mere illustration as did the story of Goy`s teeth. Rabbi Scott would say that both are simply different perspectives which don`t have a real purpose; you`re better off if you let it be. I recommend this movie especially if you are a Coen fan.