Hi all, MTV.com has laid it’s mitts on some exclusive images from the “Fall” movie releases one of which is a pic from A Serious Man, of Richard Kind emerging from the sea in a nice pair of trunks!

Hi all, just a quick note to remind you all that the Favourite Coen Brothers Movie poll is still running (it lives in the sidebar on the right). If you haven’t voted yet please do so. As you can see, The Dude is rolling away with it with a quarter of all votes!

If you have any ideas for future polls please add a comment below. My idea is that we have a kind of history of poll results on various Coen brothers topics.

Long time Coen brothers composer, Cater Burwell has been nominated for two prestigious World Soundtrack Academy Awards for his rousing work on Burn After Reading. The awards have been running and have been held in Ghent annally since 2001 and comprise of three main categories; Film Composer of the Year, Best Original Score of the Year and Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film. Burwell is up for a gong in the first two categories. Below is the complete list of nominees;

FILM COMPOSER OF THE YEAR

o CARTER BURWELL (Burn After Reading, Twilight)
o ALEXANDRE DESPLAT (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Coco Avant Chanel, Largo Winch, Cheri)
o DANNY ELFMAN (Milk, Taking Woodstock, Notorious)
o MICHAEL GIACCHINO (Star Trek, Up, Land of the Lost)
o HANS ZIMMER (Frost/Nixon, Angels & Demons, The Dark Knight)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE OF THE YEAR

o BURN AFTER READING by Carter Burwell
o THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON by Alexandre Desplat
o FROST/NIXON by Hans Zimmer
o THE INTERNATIONAL by Reinhold Heil, Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek
o SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE by A.R. Rahman

BEST ORIGINAL SONG WRITTEN DIRECTLY FOR A FILM

o “GRAN TORINO” from ‘Gran Torino’
Music & Lyrics by Jamie Cullum, Clint Eastwood, Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens
Performed by Jamie Cullum & Don Runner

o “JAI HO” from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’
Music by : A.R. Rahman
Lyrics by Gulzar and Tanvi Shah
Performed by A.R. Rahman, Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, Mahalaksmi Iyver, Vijay Prakash
Published by KM Musiq ltd

o “O SAYA” from Slumdog Millionaire’
Music & Lyrics by A.R. Rahman and Mathangi Arulpragasam
Performed by M.I.A. & A.R. Rahman
Published by KM Musiq ltd

o “RUN & HIDE” from ‘Je l’aimais’
Music & lyrics by Anna Chalon
Performed by Anna chalon

o “THE WRESTLER” from ‘The Wrestler’
Music & lyrics by Bruce Springsteen
Performed by Bruce Springsteen
Published by Bruce Springsteen

Winners will be announced on October 17th at the closing of the Ghent International Film Festival. The very best of luck to him!

You will have probably seen one or two of the Volkswagen “See Film Differently” ads over the years. I usually see them before a movie at the cinema. Well director Seth Gordon who brought us the delightful King of Kong has directed a new series of them for VW.  Inspired by The Dude and the “teachings” of The Big Lebowski, fan Oliver Benjamin, founded the “religion” of Dudeism and it is this that is the subject of one of the new VW ads. Enjoy…

Focus Features have stepped up and entered the 21st century with their promotion for the Coen brothers’ forthcoming movie, A Serious Man. Going all Web 2.0 they have the obligatory Twitter page, a Facebook account and a YouTube channel fot you to subscribe to.

Little, old You Know, For Kids! will do its best to keep up.

Another great find on the Focus Features site, this time a slideshow about the inception, design and finalising of the awesome Saul Bass-esque, 1960’s poster for Burn After Reading. In it you can see some truly brilliant early designs (including one I posted in July 2008 but had to take down again) and some bizarre information about how the MPAA had a say over the poster’s design. Here are a few of my favourites from the article…

Also on the Focus Features website is a revealing interview with Myles Bender, Senior Vice President of Creative Advertising at Focus Features, who oversaw the creative direction of the trailer for A Serious Man which was cut by Mark Woollen of Mark Woollen and Associates. He talks about the initial meeting with Joel and Ethan where they told him, “They wanted something ‘different, ‘Can you find one scene from the movie for our trailer and not do the traditional trailer structure?’ And then one of them said, ‘Maybe just show the guy getting his head bashed in for 30 seconds.’ I took that suggestion a little more seriously than they expected me to!” adding also“that this is a movie for people who love Coen Brothers films. It was more important for us to convey the vibe, ‘the essence of Coen-ness,’ than the premise.”

Read the whole article, it’s a good read. I was initially a little cool towards the trailer when I first posted it but now that I’ve seen it a bunch of times I really like it.

Since the Coen brothers’ forthcoming movie, A Serious Man, contains a serious amount of Yiddish, Focus Features have very kindly provided us with a glossary of terms we will come across when watching the movie. It’s time to revise…

Agunah (pronounced “ahgoonah”) – a divorced person who has not been religiously sanctioned to remarry

Bar mitzvah – Jewish religion’s important ceremony, held in a synagogue for a young man who has come of age (at 13) and will now be responsible for practicing and upholding Jewish values, morals, and traditions; female equivalent (at 12 or 13) is a bas mitzvah

Bupkes (also spelled bupkis) – nothing; applied with great emphasis, e.g., “And what do I have?Bupkes!”

Dybbuk (pronounced “dibbuck”) – The soul of a dead person, often looking to possess a live person and as such inspiring fear among the living

Gett – ref., agunah (above); a religiously sanctioned divorce, tandemed with the sanction to remarry

Goy – colloquial term for a person not of the Jewish faith (i.e., a Gentile)

Haftorah – Portions of the Hebrew Bible read aloud in synagogue services, including by a bar mitzvahboy

Hashem – means The Name, and is basic Hebrew term/name used for God

Macher (pronounced “mohhcc-er”) – an achiever, a person of importance/influence

Mazel tov! (pronounced “mozzle-tov!”) – Congratulations!

Mensch (pronounced “mensh”) – someone with strength of character/an applied sense of purpose

Mitzvah – good deedor blessing, though mostly used in an everyday and non-religious context, e.g. “Picking up your groceries while you were stuck in bed with a broken leg – that was a mitzvah your neighbor did.”

Nu? – What’s up? What’s the story here?

Rabbi(pronounced “rab-eye”) – Ordained Jewish religious scholar/teacher, often relied upon as community leader

Reb – Formal-address equivalent of Mister, as in “Reb Nudell is coming to visit our family;” or, more colloquially, abbreviation of a prominent rabbi, as in “Which Reb is conducting the service today?”

Shabbas(or, shabbos, from Shabbat) – Judaism’s Sabbath, from Friday evening through Saturday evening

Shtetl(pronounced “shtet-el”) – a small Jewish village, in bygone times, in Eastern Europe

Shiva– means seven, and also refers to the participatory seven-day mourning period for the recently deceased; e.g., “We are sitting shiva for my wife’s uncle, who passed away earlier this week”

Shul – a synagogue and its congregation

Synagogue (pronounced “sinagog”) – a Jewish house of worship

Torah – the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, transcribed onto a scroll for use in synagogueservices including a bar mitzvah

Thanks to Bunnie for pointing this out.

That’s right folks- finally the marketing for A Serious Man is hotting up. First the trailer, then the first official image and now the first one-sheet poster! It uses the same image I posted up on Wednesday- Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) on his roof. Click it for a truly giant, hi-res version and make it your new desktop wallpaper.

Also the website address at the bottom of the poster doesn’t do much at the moment (just the trailer but it will very soon I expect. I’ll be keeping my eye on it daily and will alert you all when there’s some action.

The first official image from the Coen brothers forthcoming movie, A Serious Man has been released. It features main character, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) on his roof partaking in his favourite passtime…

Click the image below to see it’s MUCH bigger brother…