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Out of print for more than 30 years, now available for the first time as an eBook, this is the controversial story of John Wooden's first 25 years and first 8 NCAA Championships as UCLA Head Basketball Coach. Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps said, "I used this book as an inspiration for the biggest win of my career when we ended UCLA's all-time 88-game winning streak in 1974." Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. Click the Book to read the players telling their stories in their own words. This is the book that UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan tried to ban. Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information. |
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A Serious Man (5/10) by Tony Medley Run time 105 minutes. Not for children. Joel & Ethan Coen have been responsible for
some entertaining movies, like “Fargo” (1996) and “Burn After Reading”
(2008). This time, however, they make a film based on their Jewishness
and growing up in the
Larry Gopnik (Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith (Sari Lennick) that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous acquaintances, Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry’s unemployable brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny (Aaron Wolff) is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah (Jessica McManus) is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry’s chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door (a luscious Amy Landecker) torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man? While sitting through all the travails Larry patiently endures I kept thinking that this was just the Book of Job updated to the 20th Century, but the Coens never mention any such inspiration. Still, I think the analogy holds, except for the ending. This is hardly
favorable to the Jewish religion. All three rabbis are presented in an
unfavorable, but comedic, light, not unlike the way “Seinfeld” (1990-98)
presented a comedic rabbi who makes a pass at Elaine as a continuing
character, and the goofy mohel in “The Bris” (1993), played by Charles
Levin in one of TV’s funniest performances. Here’s a link to view the
3-minute mohel segment of the show:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=moyle+on+seinfeld&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=Ma_USojnN4TWtgOByqS9Dg&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBYQqwQwAw#.
But make sure you’re sitting down. I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt
themselves falling over laughing. Alas, "A Serious Man” is not nearly as funny. Even so, the acting is uniformly good. In addition to a fine performance by Stuhlbarg, especially outstanding are Lennick, who is particularly hateful, and Melamed, who us particularly unctuous. But for a world that is predominately goyim, unlike “Seinfeld” this seems too esoteric to appeal to a wide audience.
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