A Serious Man – Blu-ray Disc Review
January 29, 2010 – 9:01 AM - Posted by: Justin SlussTags: Aaron Wolff, Alan Mandell, BD-Live, David Kang, Ethan Coen, Fred Melamed, Jessica McManus, Joel Coen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, The Coen Brothers, Universal
has an average rating of 7.7 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
are short but in Hi-Def & worthwhile
– 
– 2009
– 106 minutes
– Universal
– 
This uses 30.4GB for the movie out of 37.4GB total.
Street Date: February 9th, 2010
Overall Verdict – Recommended
Buy it for $19.49 @ Amazon.com
— Review written by: Justin Sluss —
The Movie Itself was written and directed by The Coen Brothers (Ethan Coen & Joel Coen) who have brought you such memorable films over the past few decades as “Raising Arizona“, “Fargo“, “The Big Lebowski“, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?“, “No Country for Old Men” and their more recent “Burn After Reading” to just name a few.
Returning strongly to their comedy roots is to be expected of the Coens but the taking on a Jewish main character and story that revolves pretty heavily around Jewish religion and even terms (words, phrases, ritual names, so forth) is a bit out of left field so-to-speak. Then again, who am I to judge, after all I am just a critic basically here and not anyone to say what the Coen brothers should or should not do as their next film. You must first know, I am not Jewish, in fact I’m not honestly that religious of a person at all but I guess I’d consider myself a “Goy” or whatever you’d like to call me. With that being said, it is a bit hard to pick up on some of the Jewish terms and such being used throughout the film but I have watched my share of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and other shows or films focusing around a Jewish lead actor, so I knew what to expect somewhat. I hope that statement does not offend anyone of Jewish faith, I just want to be upfront that I am not Jewish and that because of that, I found it a bit confusing at times the words being used. Luckily, for folks like myself there exists a great featurette on the bonus materials, which you will hear me discuss more down way further in this review.
As mentioned (or rather hinted above), the film takes place in a Minneapolis suburb during 1967 and revolves mainly around a 30 or 40 something Jewish man “Larry Gupnik” (played by Michael Stuhlbarg). Larry is a physics professor at the local university. He has a wife, two teenage children, a boy and girl and he has a brother unemployed that is staying with him. This home life is less than worthwhile even before things start to go wrong for Larry but they soon do and things become even less worthwhile it seems to him until he has a little bit of self discovery. Larry’s son “Danny” (Aaron Wolff) has his own adventure smoking marijuana with his friend and then getting chased home daily by the guy who he owes twenty bucks for the weed. This is just the crazy humor we have come to expect from the Coens over the years.
In closing, “A Serious Man” is definitely one of the funniest films the Coen brothers have made but in all honesty, not THE funniest of all — that goes in my opinion to “Raising Arizona.” Still, this has some really great humor to it, a unique Jewish style of humor that is rarely seen this way in film. The performance given by lead Michael Stuhlbarg is very memorable and should definitely win him at least an “Oscar” nomination for best leading actor. Fans of the Coen brothers previous films may not like this film as much, or get it rather as much as their other films; mainly because of the strong amount of Jewish religious content but proves to be definitely worth giving a chance.
Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc) in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and 1.37:1 for the opening segment. As IMDb clearly states, this was shot using Arriflex cameras on Super 35mm film and it makes for one beautifully vibrant, detailed Hi-Def visual presentation. In fact, I was almost convinced this had to have been shot in Hi-Def when I first saw the 1.85:1 footage after the introduction segment. The slight, I mean very slight bit of film grain is what lead me to realizing that it was shot on traditional film and not digitally in Hi-Def, plus that info I mentioned on IMDb helped me confirm that. Regardless of what this was shot on, it looks marvelous with rich vibrant colors, accurate fleshtones, a solid black level and just all around pleasant visual presentation with excellent cinematography from Roger Deakins who served as Director of Photography on yet another of many films with the Coen brothers. Deakins cinematography really translates, just as the Super 35mm film source, perfectly here to Hi-Def and is at times “jaw dropping” in the amount of minute detail and angles, as well as the actual physical (visible) amount of detail present visually in the transfer. This is by my eyes, simply flawless and a visual treat, especially in terms of cinematography and detail. “A Serious Man” on Blu-ray Disc earns Universal a perfect “5 Star Rating” for overall video quality. Extremely impressive effort here.
Audio Quality on this release is presented in DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. This film, just as with most other Coen brothers films relies heavily on dialogue which is delivered perfectly here in the 5.1 mix, primarily through the front center channel. The front left and right channels get the majority of the Foley, sound effects in the mix but the rear channels also get a tad bit of action for some environment style audio effects. The LFE (bass) level here is pretty decent but never really nothing too loud or intense. The film’s original music by Carter Burwell (another veteran working with the Coen’s) sounds excellent as does the Jefferson Airplane song “Somebody to Love” which is played numerous times throughout the film. One other thing worth mentioning is that this film does contain Hebrew and Yiddish at times but if you do not understand them, the dialogue is accompanied by subtitles. All and all, this audio presentation is pretty decent and does a little bit more than get the job done, earning it a solid “4 Star Rating” for overall audio quality.
Bonus materials are presented in High Definition (HD) video with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound @192kbps.
- BD-Live is include on this Universal release which requires the user to be on a “Profile 2.0” capable Blu-ray Disc Player to access online content from the studio as well as share content such as bookmarks (“My Scenes”) and other features.
- “Becoming Serious” (17:04 – HD) is your basic “making of” style featurette that includes interviews with writer/directors Ethan Coen and Joel Coen discussing how this is one of their more personal films to-date. The Coens also discuss how the opening bit of the film (the 4×3 material with black bars on the sides) is a fake Yiddish folk tale they made up that has no real significance to the rest of the film.
- “Creating 1967” (13:43 – HD) is a behind-the-scenes style featurette that takes a tour of the Minneapolis neighborhoods they filmed in as well as set pieces.
- “Hebrew and Yiddish for Goys” (2:14 – HD) is for the non-Jewish viewers like myself to have a better understanding of the Hebrew and Yiddish languages.
Overall, the bonus materials are actually impressive and very worthwhile despite only being a little over 35 minutes or so in total length (run time). One thing that is a definite plus is the fact ALL the featurettes are presented in Hi-Def video quality. If you enjoyed the film you will be pleased here by the bonus materials and if you are a “Goy” like myself you’ll appreciate the final featurette explaining the Hebrew and Yiddish languages.
Blu-ray Disc packaging:
Screenshots:
NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.
