Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson” is the second film at this year’s festival with poetry as its central theme, though unlike Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surrealist extravaganza “Endless Poetry”, “Paterson” deals in the so-called poetry of the everyday and the ordinary, or prosaic poetry – and I spent the entire film unable to figure out if Jarmush was pulling …
The fifth season of HBO’s Girls aired its two-part finale this past weekend, and rather than feeling like a show that had run its course, it demonstrated a renewed creative potential. Although Girls has remained a reliably interesting show for its duration, the last two seasons suffered from an occasional lack of direction. It wasn’t …
Jeff Nichols’s new sci-fi thriller, ‘Midnight Special,’ is like a masterclass in mood and style.
Joel and Ethan Coen, supported by an extraordinarily complex performance from Oscar Isaac in the title role, craft a moving, thoughtful, and, in a peculiar way, stimulating film.
‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is a welcome return to the franchise’s space opera roots
Though well-acted and capably directed, the heavy-handedness of Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young makes it one of his lesser efforts. Baumbach tries to anticipate the impending clash between Gen X bitterness and Millennial entitlement, but the execution feels uncomfortably Braff-ish. You’ll probably leave the theater smiling, but we’ve come to expect something a little more substantial from an observant filmmaker like Baumbach.
Noah Baumbach’s last few films have been about protagonists doing nothing, or at least trying to give the illusion of doing something. Ben Stiller’s Greenberg said as much, even while slowly building a doghouse for his brother. Greta Gerwig’s Frances Halloway was a professional dancer who didn’t dance to the point that it made her “undateable”. Baumbach’s latest film While We’re Young is about yet another form of stagnation: middle age. A married couple of forty-somethings encounter a married couple of twenty-somethings, and that illusion that they’re doing everything they’re meant to be doing at this age quickly fades away.
With “Home Birth”, Lena Dunham and the rest of the Girls team end what has been a strong, but somewhat disjointed season in peak form, delivering a fantastic season ender that could have easily, and satisfyingly, served as a series finale. The episode is creative, moving and laugh out loud rewind-the-DVR-repeatedly-and-belly-laugh-each-time funny (more on Ray later). Even better, it services all of its main characters, putting them in moments of crisis and forcing them to make what could easily become life-altering decisions, all while feeling natural to the characters’ journeys.
Hannah and Adam’s relationship has been a staple of Girls. Even when they’ve been broken up or dating other people, their connection has defined much of their individual journeys. Given its significance, “Sit-In” wisely devotes its entire runtime to the dissolution of the pairing, following Hannah through a very long day as she tries to process and accept that Adam’s moved on. Just as much importance is put on the audience’s reaction, with writers Paul Simms and Max Brockman holding viewers’ hands throughout, easing Hannah and everyone watching at home through an unexpected and potentially painful transition. On the whole, they’re successful, though with Marnie and Hannah’s late-episode conversation, the subtext becomes text in the show’s most glaring and least successful meta scene yet. It’s the end of an era on Girls, or so the writers would have us believe, and “Sit-In” is a wonderfully elegiac and fitting goodbye to what has been one of the series’ most significant relationships.
One of the most anticipated films of 2015 is Martin Scorsese’s Silence. Although that anticipation was under the presumption that Silence would actually come out this year, let alone be made. The film has been in pre-production for ages, by Marty’s account, nearly two decades, but the film is finally coming together with funding from Fábrica …
At age 45, it feels like writer-director Noah Baumbach is getting soft. Best known for his caustic tragicomedies like Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg, and Margot at the Wedding, he took a turn in tone for his 2012 feature Frances Ha, which starred and was co-written by Greta Gerwig. So, though the warmth of that film might surprise someone familiar with his work, that it’s a collaboration with Gerwig explains at least part of that tone. While We’re Young, though, Baumbach’s newest film which premiered at TIFF this year and made a surprise appearance at the New York Film Festival, manages to carry that affection. It’s hard to top Frances Ha, but his newest is pleasant and impressive all the same.
The Hype Cycle is News Editor Brian Welk’s roundup of industry news, reviews and predictions of everything Oscar, boiled down into weekly power rankings of the buzziest and most likely contenders in this year’s awards season. This article is Part 2 of this week’s Hype Cycle column. Read Part 1 from yesterday. 7. Foxcatcher and …
This Is Where I Leave You Written by Jonathan Tropper Directed by Shawn Levy USA, 2014 This Is Where I Leave You is an odd duck. Its haphazard combination of broad sit-com humor and quirky indie earnestness leaves you feeling a bit punch-drunk. On the other hand, a superb ensemble cast wrings just enough …
Once again, Noah Baumbach’s taken to contemporary twenty-something culture. With Frances Ha he painted an apt portrait of a meandering young woman struggling to identify herself in a sea of expectation and pressure. Now, the gloves are off, as Baumbach zeroes in on the terrible and vaguely infectious character traits of the Me Generation. Narcissism and pretention are the order of the day, and we’re not talking about flippantly calling your ‘frenemy’ a narcissist: actual, clinical narcissism.
What If Written by Elan Mastai Directed by Michael Dowse Ireland/Canada, 2013 While the new indie rom-com, What If, has a serious aversion to conflict, it’s also inescapably charming. A strong cast delivers enough laughs and cheeky irreverence to elevate this otherwise breezy tale to more delightfully cynical heights. You probably won’t remember it in …
Adapting such a real life story into a piece of cinema brings with it a series of extraordinary challenges. For starters, the walk itself lasted a mind-boggling 9 months. How does one communicate the length of a near 3,000-kilometer long walk to modern audiences with boring them to death? Short of pulling off a Béla Tarr Satantango-esque epic, judicious decisions need be taken in order to pack the essentials into a reasonable running length whilst conveying the harrowing experience in gripping manner.
Girls, Season 3, Episode 12: “Two Plane Rides” Written and Directed by Lena Dunham Airs at 10 PM EST on HBO In “Two Plane Rides”, Lena Dunham manages to capitalize on last week’s big reveal where Hannah (Lena Dunham) finds out that Marnie (Allison Williams) and Ray (Alex Karpovsky) have been sleeping together for most …
In “I Saw You”, the penultimate episode of Girls Season 3, writers Lena Dunham and Paul Simms manage to balance plot and characterization for Girls’ ensemble cast while commenting on the show’s overall themes. The episodes sheds light on the characters’ strength and weaknesses and exposes and accentuates the tension in their relationships. Adam (Adam Driver) is growing apart from Hannah (Lena Dunham) as his play gets closer to premiere and begins to bond with Ray (Alex Karpovsky). Marnie (Allison Williams) gets to meet one of her art heroes, the photographer Beadie (Louise Lasser) while preparing for a big open mic night with Adam’s cast-mate Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Director Jesse Peretz uses timely scene transitions to show how the different “girls” rise and fall. “I Saw You” does a great job balancing the various characters’ plot lines while still having room for keen observations about them and several funny moment.
Girls Season 3, Episode 10: “Role-Play” Written by Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow Directed by Jesse Peretz Airs Sundays at 10 PM on HBO All the tension building up from Adam (Adam Driver) getting a part in a Broadway play to Hannah’s (Lena Dunham) mom’s offhanded comment about “keeping the job, not the guy” last week …
Girls Season 3, Episode 9: “Flo” Written by Bruce Eric Kaplan Directed by Richard Shepard Airs Sundays at 10 PM on HBO In “Flo”, Bruce Eric Kaplan ditches the entire main and supporting cast, except for Hannah (Lena Dunham) and Adam (Adam Driver), and decides to show her, her mother (Becky Ann Baker), aunts, and cousin …
Girls Season 3, Episode 8: “Incidentals” Written by Lena Dunham and Sarah Heyward Directed by Richard Shepard Airs Sundays at 10 PM on HBO With the exception of the storyline involving his sister, Adam (Adam Driver) has been on the margins of Girls Season Three. Much of the focus has been on Hannah’s (Lena Dunham) writing career …
Girls Season 3: Episode 6 – “Free Snacks” Written by Paul Simms Directed by Jamie Babbit Airs Sundays at 10 PM on HBO In “Free Snacks”, Girls gets to flex its comedy muscles, and writer Paul Simms sticks hilarious words in the mouths of Hannah (Lena Dunham) and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet). But he also crafts those two …
Girls, Season 3: Episode 5 – “Only Child” Written by Murray Miller Directed by Tricia Brock Airs Friday nights at 10 PM EST on HBO In “Only Child”, Murray Miller moves the season’s overall plot along and creates a lot of tension between the characters of Girls. While trying to save her “dead” book, Hannah (Lena …