Comments on: A Serious Man

By: tmm

tmm — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:34:07 +0000

Re the apparent anachronism of Santana’s Abraxas and Creedence’s Cosmo’s Factory, I was complaining about it to a devoted film buff, and he insisted that the Coens would never have done that by mistake. Those albums are mentioned for a reason.

So we asked ourselves: what could the reason be? Well, think about the titles. The title of Santana’s Abraxas came from Herman Hesse’s Demian, a book that was very popular among counterculture types in the late ’60s/early ’70s. In the book, another character tells Demian about Abraxas, the god that contains both good and evil. In the film, Larry tells Dutton: “I don’t want Santana’s Abraxas!” But maybe the Coens are saying that Abraxas is coming whether Larry wants it or not.

As for the Creedence album, it’s more of a stretch, but take the title out of context and just look at the words by themselves: Cosmos. Factory. The cosmos may not make sense. It may just be a factory, churning out the lives of the people within it.

Interesting to think about anyway.

By: Anita

Anita — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:10:54 +0000

Even though it wasn’t technically accurate, I have to say, the whole “I don’t want Santana’s Abraxas!” bit was possibly my favorite part of the whole thing. Every time he said it, I laughed, and I don’t think another title would have had the same effect.

The redesign looks really wonderful.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:59:46 +0000

I’m honoured I provided three hours of distraction at work! That’s a nice chunk of time.

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:25:08 +0000

You are hilarious! I just spent 3 hours of my work hours (yes, it wasn’t a productive day today) reading your comments/reviews. Unfuckingbelievable writing and you need a standing ovation…well, at least from me. For all your underserved empty comment boxes, pretend I added my ‘LOLs’ in them. Please keep doing what you do although I don’t necessarily agree with all.