Maggie’s Plan Written by Rebecca Miller Directed by Rebecca Miller USA, 2015 Is it sexist, or at the very least unfair, to compare Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan to the works of Noah Baumbach and Woody Allen, but with a tone of derision? Either way, it’s hard to divorce Miller’s manic wit and preoccupation with middle-class …
One of the indie queens is set to get behind the camera on her own for the first time. Deadline reported that Greta Gerwig, wife and frequent collaborator with Noah Baumbach, is set to direct her first feature film based on a script she wrote herself. The movie will be called Lady Bird and is …
In 2009, New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani referred to Philip Roth’s novella The Humbling as “an overstuffed short story, […] a slight, disposable work about an aging man’s efforts to grapple with time and loss and mortality, and the frustrations of getting old.” In 2015, that sentiment rings just as true of Barry Levinson’s adaptation of the same work. The Humbling runs too long, dawdles too much, makes hollow caricatures of its women, and muddles its intentions. Its most redeeming features are its performances; Al Pacino is in top form, with Greta Gerwig playfully keeping up. But neither can elevate this failed attempt at pathos above what it is: bland.
After the success of 2013’s Frances Ha, it looks like writing/directing team Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig will be joining up again for another feature. With the film expected to be screened at Sundance in January, Fox Searchlight has jumped on distributing the film, which will be Baumbach’s second film of the year. The third …
In Ti West’s The House of the Devil, an earnest college student tries to get rent together by taking on a last minute babysitting job. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue of The Burrowers and The End of Love) willfully ignores the inherent danger in going out to a remote house to provide care for complete strangers. Her clients are incredibly desperate for help but the promise of fast cash is far too enticing for the young woman. Samantha’s job provides a quiet, creeping evil that makes the audience hold its collective breath for a protracted time before the action kicks in. It’s effective in sustaining a lasting dread of harm of the unknown and accomplishes what most movies associated with the Devil fail to do- convince us that followers of Satan and their ultimate goal are a genuine threat without edging into cheesy or overwrought territory that is well-worn.
Few films sprawl like Hansen-Løve’s latest, which spans twenty years, surveying the landscape of garage, techno, and house music, bumping into the likes of Daft Punk. It’s a film that is packed with an incredibly energy, specifically through music, but what is critical about this idea is that the energy is attached to that music. It would be far more frivolous and forgetful were the energy to simply exist as the de facto atmosphere of the film, but Hansen-Løve understands the power of music in a singular manner. In one scene, Paul will be at a party or DJ-ing one, the music and the party’s attendants both turned up. She’ll cut to another scene after the party, and immediately there’s a sense of loss and melancholy. The energy doesn’t just dissipate, it disappears. The deflation of energy in a film is a dangerous thing to attempt and often regarded as a weakness, but since the film is very much about Paul and his connection to music, it’s crucial to understand that that is his escape. The film even names the second of its two “parts” “Lost in Music”. It understands that this escapism and submersion into one’s passion as a way to avoid life is a double-edged sword, only workable and usable up to a certain point before it becomes a risk itself.
Frances Ha Directed by Noah Baumbach United States, 2012 Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to 2010’s Greenberg, shot on the sly in New York City, has all the feel of the (sometimes) dreaded mumblecore tag in its first 15 minutes, but quickly shakes the comparison to be a sweet, funny film that leans heavily on …
By now, young people scratching and clawing their way towards adulthood is a quintessential, clichéd story. The wide-eyed dreamer trying to make it in the big city is one of the hoariest tricks in the book, but Frances Ha is a welcome new variation on this theme, a striking and beautiful ode to youth and its many flaws. Headlined by Great Gerwig, Frances Ha is nothing short of a triumph, an endearing, unforced, and honest story of failures and frustrations.
The Greta Gerwig Charm Offensive continues unabated. Following her star turn in Whit Stillman’s agreeably eccentric Damsels In Distress, Gerwig once again toplines a quirky, affectionate comedy, this time sharing a writing credit with her director, Noah Baumbach.
Filmmaker Noah Baumbach has, over the years, garnered critical acclaim from many quarters, both for his own efforts, such as Kicking and Screaming and The Squid and the Whale and for his collaborations with fellow auteur Wes Anderson, on efforts such as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. With his …
To say that none of the 40 + films on our staff-voted list is universally beloved is putting it mildly; but then, that’s the nature of polls like these. Every year we’ve run this poll, there’s been a runaway winner; this year, the top film crossed the three-hundred-point threshold, a first here at Sound On …
Damsels in Distress Directed by Whit Stillman Written by Whit Stillman U.S.A., 2011 Oh, the hoards and hoards of films which try valiantly to dissect and study teenage and young adulthood, those formative years when boys and girls learn so much of themselves while at school. There are dramas, horror films, the not so cleverly …
The Dish and the Spoon Directed by Alison Bagnall Written by Alison Bagnall USA, 2010 Dipping in and out of insanity and steeping in imagination, The Dish and the Spoon is an intimate snapshot of a short-lived romance between two unlikely characters. When we meet Rose, played by the charming and quirky Greta Gerwig, she …