Noah Baumbach

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The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) Review

Excellent

Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha) is on his way to becoming the new Woody Allen, which is a compliment. This film features an eclectic ensemble of A-listers coming together to play a hilariously neurotic Jewish New York family. The film is episodic and very entertaining as these people collide against each other. And their banter is wickedly funny, even when they're grappling with some very dark themes. It's also a rare chance to see Adam Sandler shine in a non-silly role.

 

He's at the centre of the story as Danny, who has just split from his wife and moved back in with his cantankerous father Harold (Dustin Hoffman) and his loveably goofy fourth wife Maureen (Emma Thompson). Everyone in this family has artistic tendencies, including Danny, his sister Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) and Danny's 18-year-old daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten), who is heading off to university to study film. And then there's younger half-brother Matthew (Ben Stiller), who abandoned art to become a wealthy businessman in Los Angeles. Danny and Jean have always felt ignored in Matthew's presence, and this comes out into the open when they all gather to help take care of Harold when he ends up in hospital.

Continue reading: The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) Review

The Meyerowitz Stories New And Selected Trailer


Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is a celebrated New York artist, whose quick-temper and filter-less conversation has left him estranged from his entire family. But when an event comes up celebrating his work at the Museum of Modern Art, they return to enjoy the experience with him. Of course, he's a particularly embarrassing person to spend time with, given that he's never short of opinions or afraid to speak his mind and thus ends up coming across as the rudest person in the room at any public event. 

Matthew Meyerowitz (Ben Stiller) is his diplomatic son, who has actually had a piece of Harold's art named after him, but there is also his less successful son Danny (Adam Sandler) and his awkward daughter Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), and all of them want to make the most out of their rare time with their father and his alcohol-loving wife Maureen (Emma Thompson).

It's particularly important for Danny to establish some kind of bond again, as his daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten) is about to move away to college; he's proud, of course, because he was never able to get through college himself, but it's forcing him to release that the time he has left with his father is important. 

Continue: The Meyerowitz Stories New And Selected Trailer

Greta Gerwig To Make Solo Directorial Debut With 'Lady Bird'


Greta Gerwig Noah Baumbach

Actress Greta Gerwig will soon be making her solo directorial debut with Lady Bird, a film which she also penned the script for. The 33 year old previously co-directed Nights and Weekends with Joe Swanberg in 2008 and also has co-writting credits on films such as Hannah Takes the Stairs, Frances Ha, and her latest outing Mistress America.

Greta GerwigGreta Gerwig will be making her solo directorial debut with Lady Bird.

Deadline reports that the film will be financed by IAC Films and will begin shooting next March in Sacramento, CA. Producing will be Scott Rudin, who previously worked with Gerwig on Frances Ha, along with Eli Bush and Evelyn O’Neill.

Continue reading: Greta Gerwig To Make Solo Directorial Debut With 'Lady Bird'

Mistress America Trailer


Tracy has just started college in New York, and is finding it super difficult to make friends. But when her mother urges her to call her soon to be stepsister Brooke, she decides to meet up with her. What Tracy thought would just work out as an ordinary friendship, changes her world as this quirky and spontaneous older woman shows her a life of adventure and style, living in Times Square and doing exactly what she wants. But as it turns out, she has her own problems having lost her fiance and her cats to her so-called friend. After consulting a fortune teller, the pair decide to set out to confront this woman, and Tracy and Brooke soon discover how much they need each other's influence.

Continue: Mistress America Trailer

While We're Young Review


Good

Writer-director Noah Baumbach once again taps into a specific point in life with astute observational skill, even if the plot feels oddly forced. The vividly defined characters continually surprise with their awkward honesty, although this comedy-drama suffers from the contrived plotting of Greenberg (2010) rather than the free-spirited joy of Frances Ha (2012). Still, people on the cusp of middle age will find it hilariously, and worryingly, resonant.

In their early 40s, Josh and Cornelia (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) feel like everyone is judging them for not having children. And Josh has the additional pressure that his filmmaking career has stalled: he has nothing to show for eight years spent on his latest documentary. Then they meet 25-year-old aspiring filmmaker Jamie (Adam Driver) and his wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried), who inspire them to recapture their youthful interests in art and culture. Even their sex life begins to perk up. And Jamie encourages Josh to make progress on his movie, just as Jamie gets his own project underway, consulting with Cornelia's well-established filmmaker dad (Charles Grodin). But is this trans-generational friendship appropriate?

The fact that they even wonder that gives away Baumbach's own perspective, especially as he fills the film with witty contrasts that work a little too hard to make the point. For example, Josh collects CDs and DVDs while Jamie collects LPs and VHS tapes. Continual touches like this add lots of clever observational humour, although they also make everything feel a bit cartoonish and over-constructed. Plus of course the nagging sense that there's a right and wrong way these kinds of things should play out. Thankfully the dialogue is fiendishly smart, delivered to perfection by the gifted cast. And it helps that each of the actors are willing to be fairly unlikeable in his or her role, although Stiller is sometimes sent over the top with Josh's inexplicably harsh reactions to everyone around him.

Continue reading: While We're Young Review

Mad Max: Fury Road - Extended Trailer


Mad Max just keeps on running. With nothing else to lose in his life, his only instinct is to survive the ever more savage climate the world has become. Trapped in the Australian desert where water and oil run low and any resources are precious, he finds living easier when he's alone, occasionally interacting to rescue the odd tribe who have found themselves in serious trouble. When he his captured by power-hungry barbarians intent on claiming the world and its inhabitants as their own, he must escape; though sometimes that means using more force than you ever thought you were capable of. On the way he meets Furiosa, a desperate woman on a mission to re-discover her childhood home and find salvation. There's more sand-soaked stunts and death-defying action as Max hits the road in his most brutal adventure yet.

Continue: Mad Max: Fury Road - Extended Trailer

Frances Ha Review


Extraordinary

This film may look like one of those annoyingly mannered independent films, with its wacky young cast and arty-farty black and white photography, but it's actually a fresh, smart and very funny comedy. It also features one of the most honest female characters in recent memory: Frances is a true original who is awash in optimism as she tries to navigate the obstacles in her life.

Gerwig has made a career of playing quirky goofballs (see Damsels in Distress), and Frances is definitely offbeat. But she's also likeable and real. She lives in New York with her best pal Sophie (Sumner). But their close bond is strained when Frances' romance with her boyfriend (Esper) collapses while Sophie moves forward with her partner Patch (Heusinger). Now Frances needs to find a new place to live, so she moves in with Lev and Benji (Driver and Zegen). She's also pushing her dance company director (d'Amboise) for more work. While everyone around her is growing up and building their lives, she seems to be going backwards. But she never lets that get her down.

Frances is such an engaging character that we can't help but fall for her. Her relentlessly positive approach to life may seem corny, but she also insists on achieving her goals on her own terms. This may make her progress more difficult, such as when she takes a humiliating job at her old university, but at least she has her integrity. Sort of. Meanwhile the film is punctuated with moments of hilarious slapstick, sarcasm and relationships that ring sometimes painfully true. And at the centre is her strained but unshakable bond with Sophie.

Continue reading: Frances Ha Review

Frances Ha Trailer


Frances Handley is a 27-year-old aspiring modern dancer and an apprentice for a dance company, though she has no real talent in the art. She lives in an apartment in New York with her best friend Sophie who is smarter and much more mature with an ambition in publishing. As time goes on, their bond begins to weaken as their lives take different courses and their personalities take different courses. Sophie wants to move out with another friend of hers leaving Frances to work out her own life and take care of herself for once in her life. Will this pair be separated forever by romance, ambition and growing older, or will they find it in themselves to reconcile?

'Frances Ha' is a black and white comedy drama with many similar qualities to a rom com, except platonic. It has been directed by Noah Baumbach ('The Squid and the Whale', 'Greenberg') who also co-wrote the screenplay with the movie's star Greta Gerwig ('Hannah Takes the Stairs', 'Nights and Weekends'). It looks at love in a way that is rarely explored in movies these days and has so far received immense reviews since its premiere at Toronto Film Festival. It is set to hit screens on July 26th 2013.

Release date 26th July 2013  

Continue: Frances Ha Trailer

Amanda Seyfried Wants Her 'Beautiful, Huge Breasts' Back!


Amanda Seyfried Juno Temple Ellen Degeneres Noah Baumbach Adam Driver Ben Stiller Greta Gerwig Naomi Watts James Franco Peter Sarsgaard

Les Miserables actress Amanda Seyfried says she lost her "beautiful, huge breasts" after moving to Hollywood to pursue a career in movies. The 27-year-old - who plays Linda Lovelace in a forthcoming biopic - called in on the Ellen Degeneres show this week to discuss her beginnings.

"I looked way better when I was 15. I had beautiful, huge breasts!" the actress explained, "And then I came to Hollywood and I was like I gotta lose weight. I gotta look thin. I gotta get fit. And I lost them a little bit." It seems she lost more than "a little bit," telling DeGeneres she was an D cup though that she doesn't miss them, "...because they were ... uncomfortable."

Despite her own decisions, Seyfried warned, "I was feminine. I had some nice curves. And I think we should appreciate that instead of trying to get rid of everything."

Continue reading: Amanda Seyfried Wants Her 'Beautiful, Huge Breasts' Back!

Is Noah Baumbach's 'Frances Ha' The New 'Annie Hall'?


Greta Gerwig Noah Baumbach Ben Stiller Woody Allen

Frances Ha, the new movie starring Greta Gerwig as an apprentice dancer in New York, has been critically acclaimed ahead of its release this week. The movie, by Noah Baumbach (Squid And The Whale, Margot At The Wedding), follows a young woman named Frances who lives with her best friends Sophie, until she moves out to live with another pal.

Gerwig and Baumbach first collaborated in 2010's Greenberg, starring Ben Stiller, though decided to work together again and began exchanging ideas which ultimately became the co-written script for Frances Ha. The movie is shot in black-and-white to emulate parts in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979) and the movie is gaining comparisons to the director's most famous work, Annie Hall (1977). The film boasts a 92% score on reviews aggregating website Rotten Tomatoes (Star Trek Into Darkness 81%, Iron Man 78%) and critics have been unanimous in their praise. "An American independent film (shot in luminous black and white by Sam Levy) that feels off the cuff but is in fact exactly made by a filmmaker in total control of his resources," said Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times. John Anderson of the Wall Street Journal said, "Perhaps Ms. Gerwig is the greatest actress alive. And maybe "Frances Ha" is just the ghost orchid of independent cinema."

Watched the Frances Ha trailer:

Continue reading: Is Noah Baumbach's 'Frances Ha' The New 'Annie Hall'?

Noah Baumbach

Noah Baumbach Quick Links

News Video Film RSS

Noah Baumbach

Date of birth

3rd September, 1969

Occupation

Filmmaker

Sex

Male

Height

1.75


Noah Baumbach Movies

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) Movie Review

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) Movie Review

Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha) is on his way to becoming the new Woody Allen, which...

The Meyerowitz Stories New And Selected Trailer

The Meyerowitz Stories New And Selected Trailer

Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is a celebrated New York artist, whose quick-temper and filter-less conversation...

Mistress America Trailer

Mistress America Trailer

Tracy has just started college in New York, and is finding it super difficult to...

While We're Young Movie Review

While We're Young Movie Review

Writer-director Noah Baumbach once again taps into a specific point in life with astute observational...

Mad Max: Fury Road  - Extended Trailer

Mad Max: Fury Road - Extended Trailer

Mad Max just keeps on running. With nothing else to lose in his life, his...

Mad Max: Fury Road Trailer

Mad Max: Fury Road Trailer

With the world first running out of oil, water soon followed. Planet Earth is now...

Frances Ha Movie Review

Frances Ha Movie Review

This film may look like one of those annoyingly mannered independent films, with its wacky...

Frances Ha Trailer

Frances Ha Trailer

Frances Handley is a 27-year-old aspiring modern dancer and an apprentice for a dance company,...

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted Movie Review

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted Movie Review

Instead of developing the characters or situations for comedy gold, the filmmakers instead just crank...

Greenberg Trailer

Greenberg Trailer

Watch the trailer for Greenberg Roger Greenberg is a middle age man with not a...

The Squid and the Whale Trailer

The Squid and the Whale Trailer

Set in Brooklyn in 1986, The Squid and the Whale captures with extraordinary immediacy the...

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