More Damsels in Distress

MISTRESS AMERICA (D+) - Thud.

We had deep reservations about this second 2015 offering from Noah Baumbach (this one with girlfriend Greta Gerwig). We've loved every one of his offerings since "The Squid and the Whale," but we feared that this tale of a free-spirited 30-something and an impressionable college gal would play more like Whit Stillman's tone-deaf "Damsels in Distress,"  which we memorably walked out of.

Our fears were realized.

Baumbach has consistently scored high grades here with "While We're Young," "Frances Ha" (with Gerwig), "Greenberg," and "Margot at the Wedding." He also co-wrote "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox." But with this inane comedy, his streak comes to a crashing halt.

Here, Gerwig flits around as shallow New Yorker Brooke, who meets up with her future step sister, young Tracy (a comatose Lola Kirke from "Gone Girl"), as they romp through some fantasy sorority night life before heading to the suburbs to confront Brooke's nemesis, the tweely named Mamie-Claire, who stole both her schlubby Goldman-Sachs boyfriend (the painfully unfunny Michael Chernus), and her stupid idea for a T-shirt. They are surrounded by cardboard characters, none of whom bring depth or humor to the party. All the while, Tracy is taking notes for a short story that she seemingly crafts overnight.

The script is spine-tingling in its ineptness. It plays like a rough draft taken straight from a week's worth of diary entries that Baumbach scribbled in a notebook while sipping lattes at Starbucks, and then expanded on improv-style by Gerwig, who is aged out of her edgy hipster phase in a blink. The one-liners fly quickly, but they generate winces rather than belly laughs. Baffled, I wrote down a bunch of the cranky, grumpy quips that you can just hear emanating from Baumbach's self-satisfied thoughts. Here is the parade of gross generalizations and middle-aged aphorisms that riddle the script like fatal bullet holes:

• "No one meets friends in classes."
• "We need a sleepover party!"
• "Must we document ourselves all the time. Must we??"
• "People can be not in the mood."
• "People wait in cars."
• "Everyone in high school is an asshole."
• "Rich people always give out bad Halloween candy."
• "Records are so warm."
• "Sometimes I don't know if you're a zen master or a sociopath."
• "I'm so impressed by you and worried for you at the same time."
• "You're funny 'cause you don't know you're funny."
• "I'm the same. I'm just the same in a different direction."
• "Stop calling her these old-timey names."
• "I just learned what 'case-sensitive' meant, seriously, like, yesterday."
• "You can't really know what it is to want things until you're 30."

At other times, Baumbach bombards us with intellectual babble disguised as class discussion or deep thoughts from random living-room study groups that seem to populate his world. Is he mocking these confabs or celebrating them? It's impossible to tell, and either way, he's whiffing more than riffing.

Meantime, the attempts at slapstick are embarrassing. Gerwig not only does a lame imitation of a person rewinding her actions on video, but she then comments on her clever maneuver -- and then does it again. Ugh. There is actually a scene of chess instruction, where one character (a young man, naturally) sets out to give another (a young woman, but of course) her first lesson, only to find himself in checkmate during their very first match! Has that gag worked (or even been attempted) since the Nixon administration? Oh, and that young woman is so irrationally (and inexplicably) jealous of her beau that Mel Brooks and Woody Allen would roll their eyes at the caricature.

As the characters pile up and the lunacy spins out of control -- and the credulity just snaps -- Baumbach and Gerwig crowd each scene with as many characters as possible, who spew one-liners with the timing of a Disney teen sitcom. At times you can almost hear Baumbach patting himself on the back and blurting out, "Look, I can write dialogue for seven people at once. Aren't I a clever boy?" You can actually notice actors walking into the frame, delivering a line, and then looking confused as to where they should step next.

And the acting cannot be defended. What worked flawlessly in "Frances Ha" comes off here as a retread at best, and screeching and mugging by Gerwig at worst. Kirke sounds like she's reading an operations manual throughout. The others would be best served to just leave this one off of their IMDb resumes.

Maybe this is all a big joke, Baumbach's wink at Stillman and Allen and others who live in their ridiculous literary/academic bubbles. "Mistress America" traffics in a good amount of stuck-up snooty types; it's a world where budding writer Tracy taps out her prose on onionskin, and when she submits an entry to the literary journal, rather than (in 2015) emailing or uploading a PDF, she daintily places one (1) pristine hard copy into the quaint inbox affixed to the exterior of the group's door, which is left playfully ajar.

If only Baumbach's script had been subjected to the red pen of an assiduous editor, or, better yet, crumpled into a ball and tossed in the direction of a wicker wastebasket that is theatrically littered all around with similarly scrunched-up discarded pages.
 

Nothing Like a Good Book

WHITE NOISE (B-minus) - It's often a neat trick adapting a novel to the screen. It's not like Don DeLillo's '80s novel White Noise is impossible to translate to cinema; but Noah Baumbach just doesn't have the ear and the eye for this particularly attempt. The result is a sloppy, choppy undercooked film that drags past two hours.

First things first:  Adam Driver remains undefeated. Last time he knocked out Scarlett Johansson in Baumbach's "Marriage Story"; this time he TKO's Greta Gerwig, as they play a couple who have a blended family and who must guide their brood through an environmental crisis (a mysterious "airborne toxic event"). Driver leans into the lead character Jack (which he styles as J.A.K.), a Hitler studies professor at an elite college, lumbering behind a middle-age paunch and peeping suspiciously from behind blue-tinted eyeglasses. He somehow nails the unique cadence of DeLillo's dialogue and wonderfully unfurls the exasperation of Jack among both his colleagues -- including a chipper Don Cheadle as a pop-culture academic -- and his precocious, ever-curious children.

Gerwig, however, can't find the right pitch as Babette, who has turned to the experimental drug Dylar to fend off her existential fear of death. A critical scene in the second half cripples the movie, as Babette breaks down while confessing the Dylar mystery to Jack, and Gerwig, beneath of bundle of '80s curls, blubbers and stammers in a desperate search for authenticity. It's a rare misstep for her. I much preferred the natural ease of May Nivola as the youngest daughter, a sage counter-balance to Jack's elusive, shape-shifting parental theories of the world and this crisis. The couple's kvetching about death becomes tone-deaf to the point where I started to wonder, "What are Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver so worried about?"

But this is Baumbach's baby, and ultimately his fault.  He flails with a big budget, well outside of his normal indie-intimate comfort zone. For the first time, he offers us grand fireball explosions and hectic car chases and manic mob scenes, and it's all a messy melange of cinematic styles. You can find elements of Wes Anderson's whimsy, Steven Spielberg's gummy morality tales, Brian DePalma's suspense, and Robert Altman's overlapping line readings. The latter style is the only one Baumbach nails occasionally. He even spends a good seven minutes or so presenting an absurdly choreographed musical number in a supermarket over the end credits (to a thumping LCD Soundsystem romp). Who kidnapped Noah Baumbach and replaced him with Baz bleedin' Luhrmann? (A hat tip to the crew who stocked the colorful, pristinely organized supermarket, an important '80s symbol of American culture for DeLillo. The endless credits list 61 names in the production's Art Department alone. Remember that era's generic-brand packaging?)

Baumbach's devotion to DeLillo is admirable.  He picked at the author's themes but failed to fully explore them. As the movie unfolds, a viewer can sense Baumbach having to hack away chunks of the novel in order to adapt it -- like a jet dumping fuel -- yet, somehow the movie still feels at least 20 minutes too long. 

DeLillo is nothing if not a keen observer of male-female relationships, especially the verbal dance between man and woman. But the dialogue spreads across a page differently than it falls on our ears. Driver is best at slipping around the nuance of lines that can sound stilted when read aloud. He gives it a droll delivery and figures out a way to create a fully realized character. Of the demise of an obese colleague, Jack marvels at the enormity of the event and casually intones: "To be so enormous, then to die."

You want to cheer for the cast and crew past the halfway point, but then everything falls apart in the final third of the movie. What is a winding diversion in the novel becomes an absurd, tedious head-scratcher of a final reel on the screen. Our patience quickly dwindles, the plot thread unravels, and Baumbach has lost his way, trying to corral too many moving parts. Over-indulged with an estimated $80 million budget, he sprays ideas all over the place and loses touch with the simplicity of a great author's subtle rendering of a fascinating story.

BONUS TRACK

The LCD Soundsystem finale, "New Body Rhumba," at the ol' A&P:

Now & Then: Conscious Uncoupling

We review the latest from Noah Baumbach and revisit one of his classics:

MARRIAGE STORY (A) - Noah Baumbach rebounds all the way back with this searing, insightful analysis of a crumbling marriage. He captures that suffocating feeling when a married person wonders whether any significant part of the relationship was ever valid in the first place.

Adam Driver stews and stalks like a madman, and he challenges the rest of the cast to keep up with him. Scarlett Johansson gamely tries, and she turns in a workmanlike performance as Nicole, an actress and mother liberating herself from the toxic careerism of her avant-garde director/husband Charlie. Baumbach, back in his discomfort zone after a lot of whining in the wilderness in recent years (was it guilt over dumping actress wife Jennifer Jason Leigh for Greta Gerwig?), crafts a script full of stinging barbs between scared, wounded lovers.

Charlie is caught off-guard by what he expected to be the temporary move of Nicole and their son, Henry (solid child actor Azhy Robertson), from New York back to her hometown of Los Angeles to shoot a pilot (apostasy!) and stay with her mom, also a former actress (a welcome return by Julie Haggerty). When Nicole files for divorce and hires a pit bull of a lawyer (Laura Dern, trying a little too hard to be an alpha female), Charlie is flummoxed and tries to be the good guy. He hires a get-along old lawyer (Alan Alda, delightfully daft) before considering his own legal attack animal, played by Ray Liotta, who almost runs away with the entire film in two scenes.

Baumbach knows that these things are not black and white (see Leigh, above), and he expertly gives both Nicole and Charlie a generous dollop of understandable flaws and admirable traits as parents and professionals. The script is both funny and harrowing, sometimes at the same time. The dialogue and the narrative sail along effortlessly, even considering that this exercise clocks in at a hulking two and a quarter hours. It is the sum of "Kramer vs. Kramer" ('80s) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" ('60s), a benchmark for Generation X.

Driver plumbs depths of character and emotion rarely scene on screen. (He even sings a syrupy Sondheim show tune and manages not to make it embarrassing.) The supporting cast nimbly dances in and out of this couple's hellscape, including Merritt Weaver as Nicole's sister; Wallace Shawn as a troupe member; and even Robert Smigel as an in-over-his-head mediator. You may have been through a nasty divorce, but you weren't taking notes like Baumbach was during his. Here, every move he makes is perfect.

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005) (A) - Baumbach's mid-aughts breakthrough still carries the sting of a teenager's view of his parents' toxic marriage and break-up. Jessie Eisenberg landed on the map here too as Walt, the supersensitive son of insufferable intellectuals. Jeff Daniels is beyond acerbic as the bitter writer worried that he is going to be eclipsed by the pen of his wife, played by Laura Linney in a raw performance. Even David Benger as Walt's oversexualized little brother is a carefully realized character. (And would you believe that William Baldwin is spot-on as a randy tennis-instructor bro?)

Walt suffers from idol worship of his father, and he mimics all of Bernard's worst flaws, mainly the pomposity of thinking they know everything about literature and culture. Bernard, a half-assed single parent at best (he lets one his students, played by Anna Paquin, crash with them), toys with Walt's brain, repeatedly suggesting that Walt shouldn't be a doting boyfriend but instead should play the field while he's young. Linney is wonderful as the caring mother who fails to observe normal boundaries with her sons (whom she calls Chicken and Pickle) as she emerges as a hot writer (and desirable MILF).

Deep down, Walt is a good kid (even if he claims authorship of a Pink Floyd song, to the acclaim of his oblivious parents), but these adults are messing with his mind. You ache for him and for Baumbach, the adult trying to reconcile that scarring time in his life. Like "Marriage Story," this one stings and amuses in equal, impressive measures. (For the record, this was my favorite movie of 2005.)

BONUS TRACK
From the closing credits of "Squid," Lou Reed with "Street Hassle":

It's a Wonderful Life

 

SONG SUNG BLUE (A-minus) - For the number of tragedies that occur in this film -- about a husband and wife performing in a Neil Diamond tribute band -- it is tough to call it the feel-good movie of the holiday season. But what a joyful experience it was at the cineplex to behold the fervor that Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson brought to the story of a Wisconsin couple chasing their dreams in the 1990s.

 

Riffing on a real-life tale (and a 2008 documentary of the same name), Jackman plays Mike "Lightning" Sardina, a natural performer who jams in tribute bands but longs to front his own act. He is 20 years into recovery for alcohol addiction, and writer-director Craig Brewer provides a memorable introduction to the character via the AA meeting process (with a bookend to close the movie). Mike stumbles on the idea of being a Neil Diamond "interpreter," and he meets and falls for Patsy Cline interpreter Claire. He dubs them Lighting and Thunder, and they start to gain a following around the Milwaukee area.

Nothing is easy for them. They are divorced parents. (In fact, the kids are one of the best parts of the movie, especially Ella Anderson as Claire's daughter, Rachel.) Money is always tight. Mike, a Vietnam veteran, has a congenital heart condition; Claire suffers an accident that sends her into a spiral of depression and threatens their career. 

With Jackman and Hudson all in, you might not care that the proceedings have a whiff of Hallmark to them at times. The actors sing Diamond's songs, and the movie resounds with Diamond's earnest ballads and jangly rockers. At times I sang along. I laughed, I cried. (I can't remember the last time I heard so many sniffles from a crowd -- and it wasn't just the old ladies.) It helps to have an appreciation for "Cherry Cherry," "Cracklin' Rosie," and "I'm a Believer," and tolerance for "I Am I Said" and, yes, "Sweet Caroline." There is a wonderful running gag about Mike's insistence on opening each set with the obscure Arabic-accented deep cut "Soolaimon." Eddie Vedder was a fan and had them open for Pearl Jam. 

Jackman and Hudson are backed by a fine cast of character actors, including Michael Imperioli (as a Buddy Holly impersonator), Fisher Stevens, and an absolutely over-the-top Jim Belushi. Brewer has a tangible appreciation for quirky denizens of karaoke clubs and the public's yen for the classic radio hits of their youth. He captures the working-class grit of the characters -- down to the dirt under the fingernails of Mike, who is a mechanic by trade, and Claire's very Wisconsin accent (a tad overdone at times by Hudson). 

Brewer wrote the script with Greg Kohs, who helmed the documentary 17 years ago. Whether you like his movies or not, you have to admit that Brewer knows how to put a film together. He broke through 20 years ago with "Hustle & Flow" and "Black Snake Moan," and he recently acquitted himself well with "Dolemite Is My Name." Here he whips his two stars toward passionate performances -- both as actors themselves and the energy of the characters they play. 

I don't really need to know anything about the real Mike and Claire in order to appreciate "Song Sung Blue." I'm sure much is made up and twisted around to make it palatable to the masses. That's the point. It's a movie, fiction. It's 133 minutes of old-fashioned entertainment, and it couldn't have arrived at a better time. 

JAY KELLY (C) - The decline and fall of Noah Baumbach continues. At this point, he is at the hobnobbing-with-George-Clooney stage of his flirtation with the Hollywood in-crowd. This profile of a movie star who wakes up at 60 and realizes that he is isolated from friends and family is trite, cloying and painfully twee.

Maybe it's the curse of his ex, Jennifer Jason Leigh, but ever since Baumbach took up with Mumblecore's ur-gal Greta Gerwig, he has succeeded with "Frances Ha" and not much else. He was revived in 2019 by "Marriage Story," but since then he has whiffed on a Don DeLillo interpretation; flopped magnificently by co-writing "Barbie" with Gerwig; and now he masturbates for 2 hours 12 minutes with "Jay Kelly," a movie that isn't even good enough to be criticized as derivative. 

Clooney plays a thinly veiled version of himself -- suave, charming, talented, faux self-effacing -- as he hopscotches the world battling a late-in-life crisis involving his grown daughters, his loyal manager and his fawning entourage. He seems blind to the true extent of his luck-of-the-draw, and though on the brink of a valedictory tribute from the Italian film industry, he considers pulling the plug on the whole celebrity circus. Even so, he swans in crisp couture suit jackets, slums with his fans, and gets all puppy-eyed as he seeks belated approval from his daughters. (Riley Keough is thoroughly wasted as one of them.) All the while, he is adored and fussed over by rich Italian eccentrics. (Alba Rohrwacher is forced to demean herself as a fawning fan. She edges out a criminally mistreated Laura Dern in that regard.)

 

Jay actually wanders back to his past, George Bailey-like, wistfully observing his most memorable moments, tearing up at these mundane, sepia-toned dalliances. Yes, we've seen this all before, ad nauseam. This is Fellini for Dummies. It is Bargain-Basement Bogdanovich. (The end credits refer to the film, preciously, as a "Noah Baumbach picture.") Running gags and wisecracks get beaten into the ground. (There must be a dozen references to Jay insisting on a slice of cheesecake in his regular rider, even though he claims he never liked cheesecake. It was unfunny the first time.) And speaking of hang-dogs, Adam Sandler (from Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories") hams it up as Jay's mensch of a manager, going around affectionately calling people "puppy" and ironically wearing a neckerchief simply as a glaring plot invention that fails to pay off in the end. 

The film is full of cutesy touches by Baumbach that threaten to rot your teeth they are so treacly. Gerwig's steep decline continues in the role of Sandler's hectoring, scatter-brained wife, featured exclusively through phone calls involving their kids, which is as interesting as it is in real life when parents think their children are fascinating subjects of discussion. In my "Barbie" review, I predicted that Baumbach and Gerwig might "become the beloved it-couple in front-row seats at awards shows, head-nodding toward Wes Anderson in the back." We're getting closer.

It has been 20 years since "The Squid and the Whale" and 15 since "Greenberg." Like Jay Kelly, Baumbach had a great run. Maybe, like Jay, Baumbach is surrounded by sycophants who don't want to rock the boat and tell him to snap out of his fantasy world. 

BONUS TRACKS

I'm pretty sure this was the first time I danced in the aisles to a song over the closing credits of a movie. The hymn "Holly Holy":  

Mike and Claire initially rehearse to a rollicking version of "Cherry Cherry," celebrating that giddy piano riff. Here is Diamond in the mid-'90s working it out on David Letterman's show:

 

The very first episode of MTV's "Unplugged," when it was hosted by Jules Shear, put together a hootenanny circle to perform Diamond's composition "I'm a Believer," which had been a hit for the Monkees:

 

"Song Sung Blue" was our annual Christmas Day outing.  For the record, here is our full list from previous years, in order of preference, updated:

  1. Up in the Air (2009)

  2. Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004)

  3. Dreamgirls (2006)

  4. Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

  5. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

  6. Little Women (2019)

  7. Song Sung Blue (2025)

  8. Babygirl (2024)

  9. The Fighter (2010)

10. Licorice Pizza (2021)

11. American Hustle (2013)

12. The Shape of Water (2017)

13. La La Land (2016)

14. The Wrestler (2008)

15. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

16. Young Adult (2011)

17. This Is 40 (2012)

18. Anyone But You (2023)

19. Holmes & Watson (2018)

20. Into the Woods (2014)

I See What He Did There

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG (B+) - I know what Noah Baumbach was going for here, and it's admirable. If he had pulled it off, he would have crafted a masterpiece. As it is, this battle of generations -- X vs. Millennials -- is smartly written and well acted.

But Baumbach's past films from the last decade really stick with you -- "Frances Ha," "Greenberg," "Margot at the Wedding," "The Squid and the Whale." This one seems ambitious but fizzier and fuzzier. It's funny but just a tad scattered.

Ben Stiller is wonderful as Josh, a 40-something documentarian obsessing over his own egg-head masterpiece (years in the making and still not nearly finished) and toiling in the shadow of his mentor/father-in-law, Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin), a legend in the field (known for such Mayslesian works as "Boy in the Bathtub"). Josh and his vivacious wife, Cornelia (Naomi Watts, back in form), live a happy child-free existence in a clean, well-lighted section of Brooklyn.

Josh soon is befriended by up-and-coming filmmaker Jamie (Adam Driver, starting to wear his shtick thin already), a hipster in a fedora whose wispy wife Darby (a spot-on Amanda Seyfriend) makes ice cream in a loft they share with a random roommate, Tipper (Dree Hemingway). Jamie and Darby seem to have furnished their loft with everything the older couple tossed out in the early '90s. They play vinyl albums and earnestly shun other modern conveniences. The ones who obsess over their phones -- you may have noticed this -- are the older Gen Xers. Here that's Josh and Cornelia's friends Fletcher and Marina (Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz and Maria Dizzia), sadly convinced that they are only following new social norms with that classic ironic detachment.

So Josh feels like a kid again. He and Cornelia start hanging out with Jamie and Darby and shunning Fletcher and Marina and their drag of a newborn. Josh, decked out in fashions borrowed from a Hipster Bingo card (fedora, hoodie, etc.), feels re-energized about finishing his opus, and Jamie has a line on his own project, inviting Josh to participate. But something's not right; Jamie seems to be working an angle. Ah, here comes the generational divide; these kids with their reality shows and YouTube don't follow the same rules we've surrendered to!

Baumbach is nimble with his narrative here. He throws in a few twists that Stiller pulls off impressively.  Baumbach has got more on his mind than bashing Gen Y. Or Gen X. Or popular culture in general. He has a Big Idea. (What is authentic? Which truths are worth pursuing?) You can see him mapping it out with postcards on a bulletin board and some thick philosophy books stacked on his desk. He just doesn't quite pull it off. It's a two-dimensional rendering of a three-dimensional brainstorm. At times it's quite funny, and the jokes are never cheap. A few sight gags (a chicken as a house pet; a cut to Josh in his new horn-rims) land perfectly. An extended sequence at a drug party, however, drags during a key section.

Thankfully, Stiller is strong, playing a more successful (though still stunted) version of his "Greenberg" man-child. Watts and Seyfried take a back seat to the men here, but they manage to give depth to their characters. Driver tosses in physical tics (Jamie does a Gleason-like flourish just getting out of a chair) but whereas he was refreshing in "Frances Ha," here he seems to be trying too hard to make Jamie quirky and mysterious. The glue holding the movie together is Grodin, the referee between the generations. Breitbart oozes the familiar father-in-law disdain toward Josh, and he seems genuinely charmed by Jamie despite the phoniness.

That wise, open-minded elder is Baumbach's ace up his sleeve. It's a reminder that he had a great, complex movie right at his fingertips. Just because he came up a little short doesn't mean that he failed. Like Mozart (and Josh), he just couldn't convey to the rest of us precisely what he had in his head.

BONUS TRACK
When Jamie plays Josh Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" to pump him up for a meeting with a potential financial backer, Josh notes that back in the '80s "I remember when this song was just considered bad." Baumbach pays it backward to the boomers by including a little cheesy McCartney on the soundtrack:


  

Pinker and Prouder Than Previous

 

BARBIE (D+) - I. Can't. Even. This was by far the worst experience I had watching a movie in the past year. It's a pompous pop-art swipe at the patriarchy and shallow consumer culture. But, like the dolls it depicts, it can't wipe the smug smirk off its face over the course of two -- yes, two -- hours.

I am now regretting the union of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, who separately have been responsible for some of the best films of the past two decades,* and not because it ruined his marriage, but because it has derailed their careers. Indulge them with bigger and bigger budgets, and their worst instincts get vomited up on the screen, like this technicolor yawn that they wrote together and she directed. "Barbie" is by turns dumb, boring and insulting. Here's a neat trick: waste Margot Robbie's acting talents while somehow rendering Issa Rae, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon and Michael Cera unfunny. 

You can feel Gerwig and Baumbach patting each other on the back (or him patting her on the head) with each clanging line of dialogue or wince-inducing sight gag. Nobody dared tell them how brutal this turned out. That is some sort of privilege.

But then, how tone-deaf am I? This made a billion dollars and has been held up as a profound work of staggering genius. Don't mind me. The culture passed me by years ago; I'm cool with that. At one point -- thankfully watching this on HBO Max and not trapped in a theater -- I started folding laundry to pass the time and to tell myself I wasn't shedding critical brain cells. And I can report that the household task felt more intellectually challenging than this movie. Admittedly, I did have to match socks.

So, if it was so infuriating, why didn't I turn it off? I couldn't look away from the fast-paced slow-motion wreck. (It does have a great punchline at the end.) I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Ryan Gosling was occasionally amusing as Ken (at least he fully committed to the concept). But the rest of the Keystone Kops here with their cartoon car chases and sophomoric satire? Bumbling amateurs. I literally groaned aloud more than once at either the dialogue or the ideas. (The filmmakers' concept of a defining trait of all men is that they all love ... horses. Huh? Are they thinking of 12-year-old girls?) The songs are tuneless and dreadful. Brace yourself for a lecture on the rigors of motherhood.

It hurt watching Robbie celebrate -- yet try to winkingly sabotage -- an iconic doll and the impact that toy has had on our understanding of women for six decades. In the movie, girls mock Barbie as fascist and irrelevant, and you're not sure which insult stings more. Gerwig and Baumbach are, of course, self-aware that they are misusing "fascist," so they follow it up with some tone-deaf meta analysis. At some point, though, if you're not careful (or if you get greedy), no amount of ironic detachment will save you from becoming the thing you mock.

You might think that I'm not the target audience, and it's perhaps not my place to weigh in on ... whatever this is supposed to represent. Fair point. And only 12 people read what I write, anyway, so the joke's on us. But, ah, I am a key demographic data point here. Who else are the former doyenne of Mumblecore and the hipster indie filmmaker (who goes back to 1995) speaking to than this middle-aged student of cinema for the past three decades? 

They tried this same crap a year ago with author Don DeLillo and their adaptation of "White Noise," a self-satisfying pretension to artsy storytelling. (Baumbach directed; Gerwig sleepwalked through it.) That featured a bloated budget, an interminable running time, and intellectual belches that must smell like peppermint to each other. Just wait for them to become the beloved it-couple in front-row seats at awards shows, head-nodding toward Wes Anderson in the back.

The whole exercise made me deeply question pop culture in general and my love of movies in particular. If Gerwig and Baumbach want to be rich and famous and pretend that they are doing so ironically, I wish them all the best. Be in love. But don't assault me with some imperious parade of platitudinal ... ugh, this is tiring. I'll never get the pink bubblegum out of my hair. 

Time to shave my head, proceed to a zen monastery, and clear out my mind. Will seven years of penance and contemplation cleanse my soul?

---

* - Baumbach and Gerwig have been hit-and-miss together. "Frances Ha" was brilliant. "Mistress America" was a disaster.

BONUS TRACK

Our title track, or at least title album -- and a reminder that I'm an old white guy from the suburbs -- Nick Lowe with "Lovers Jamboree":

Unhappy Families Are All Alike

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (B+) - If this were the first Noah Baumbach film we had ever seen, we might think it was brilliant. But this deep into his career, Baumbach is trading on his reputation and merely updating previous themes, in particular his wonderful family piece "The Squid and the Whale" from 2005, making this feel like a warmed-over sequel at times.

He also leans on Dustin Hoffman in the patriarch role (handled in "Squid" by a wonderfully neurotic Jeff Daniels), and Hoffman -- dimmed in our regard by tales of decades of piggishness on movie sets -- never finds the right pitch as the haughty artist who has twisted his adult children into knots of doubt and anger. Baumbach does coordinate these offspring -- played by Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Elizabeth Marvel -- with expert timing. It's a shame they spend so much of the movie trying to bounce off Hoffman's broad caricature as Harold Meyerowitz, spurned sculptor and largely forgotten instructor at Bard College in the Hudson Valley.

Anger issues are established early on as a Meyerowitz tradition. Scenes often end abruptly in the middle of a tirade, starting in the opening moments with the parking adventures of Danny (Sandler), a failed musician, at the end of a failed marriage, shepherding his teenage daughter off to college. Eliza (Grace Van Patten, a "Sopranos" alum) is the great family hope, heading to Bard to study filmmaking and revive the creative juju of the clan. She makes raunchy short films in which she is often nude and in "sexual situations," to Danny's shock and chagrin. The family rallies around her art, which apparently is another jab at familial delusion, because, from what we get to see, Eliza's films seem pretty crappy. Danny, a pathetic, limping 50-ish shlub, is more directionless than his poised daughter. His claim to fame consists of hokey Tin Pan Alley novelty tunes that only his loved ones know and abide.

Matthew (Stiller), the product of Harold's second marriage (and thus Harold's obvious favorite child), has escaped this dysfunction by moving to the west coast and quashing any pretension of an artistic life by working as a successful financial planner. Despite his exulted status, he has a hair-trigger when dealing with his father, not above shouting grievances at the old man in the middle of the street. Jean (Marvel), meanwhile, is a beaten-down wallflower with a drone-like job who hacks out spoof videos for co-workers. Jean, like Danny a product of the first marriage, wallows in resignation, barely registering a personality, going along with the family shenanigans in a monotone delivery.

Baumbach gets a lot of the details right. Stiller, as the successful financial planner Matthew, is the alpha sibling who is inclined to refer to Danny as his father's other son rather than as his own half-brother. And an awkward conversation between Matthew and Danny -- struggling to bond but having no clue about the fundamental aspects of each others' lives -- stings if you've ever tried that with an estranged sibling. A running gag about the kids' boxes of childhood belongings features an amusing dispute over whether a pair of sunglasses belong to Matthew or Danny. Other lines echo nicely throughout the script, bouncing among the family members (if not wearing out their welcome) as pet phrases are wont to do. (For example, the men are fond of staging nominal "McEnroe protests"; yet more anger issues.) Characters talk past each other as often as they talk to each other.

Conflict arrives in the form of Matthew's plan to convince Harold and his latest mate, a wine-soaked aging hippie named Maureen (a delightfully ditzy Emma Thompson), to cash out their Manhattan apartment as well as his artwork and retire to the countryside. Danny, even though he lived there for only a short time as a teenager, resents Matthew's power play. When Harold ends up in the hospital, with a bleak prognosis, the siblings are tossed together, for better and for worse. They feed off each others' insecurities, especially in the way they all cling to a charge nurse and doctor, both of whom get called away to other duties, thus abandoning Danny, Jean and Matthew like a certain someone they know did long ago.

The cast, aside from Hoffman, settles into a tight rhythm. A few cameos click, too, including Judd Hirsch as Harold's much more successful (and well adjusted) contemporary, L.J.; Rebecca Miller as L.J.'s daughter and a potential love interest (savior) for Danny; and Candice Bergen as Matthew's mother, the aging trophy wife Julia. It's an entertaining world that is created here, albeit an insular east coast one.

The result is a movie that is often merely amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny, but that's not really a criticism; Baumbach is wise to keep the humor low-key. You either know a clan like this -- egotistic, faux creative, delusional, passive-aggressive -- and you get it, or you don't. In the latter case, you might be more annoyed than entertained. Baumbach here is returning to the grievance-based character studies of "Squid," "Margot at the Wedding" and "Greenberg" (where he really clicked with Stiller) and thankfully emerging from the skid that produced the sloppier recent efforts "Mistress America" and "While We're Young."

You get the feeling, though, that this brand is played out, finally. "The Meyerowitz Stories" comes off like a nice little career capper for a director pushing 50. Assuming he's emptied out his notebooks from his family histories, he's poised to begin a new phase of storytelling.
 

A 'Ha'

Here's my favorite movie of the year so far:

FRANCES HA (A) - This is what movies are supposed to be. Funny, clever, real, insightful, a mix of dread and playfulness, full of sharp performances. Just like life itself. And here, it's all resting on the shoulders of the eminently capable Greta Gerwig, who emerges as the physical comedienne of her age.

"Frances Ha" -- a play on Gerwig's character's name, which only fully reveals itself in a memorable final shot -- is joyous, disconcerting, and just a little heartbreaking. Relationships come and go and curl back again, and connections are often missed. Characters end up in cities and situations in which they don't belong. Frances represents her fellow 27-year-olds making their way through the world. Here, that world, like in "Girls," is in New York and has its privileges (mostly, parents with money). Ask any New Yorker, and you'll find that it's not easy to meet people and make connections in a teeming metropolis of 9 million people.

The relationship that holds this movie together -- and it's a marvel -- is the friendship between Frances and Sophie (Mickey Sumner), college pals who are still rooming together when the movie opens. It's a complicated relationship, with obvious lesbian undertones that play out in anything but an obvious way. Credit Noah Baumbach, who directed and wrote the screenplay with Gerwig, for not taking this story anywhere near the place that more two-dimensional films venture into. Sophie is crushing on Frances, and when Sophie moves on (with other female friends and with her fallback fiance, Patch), we're not sure what Frances is thinking or feeling.

Meantime, Frances -- who is struggling to hang on with a dance troupe and to make enough money to pay the rent -- seems to be going through a painfully gradual nervous breakdown. She is socially awkward, and a lousy roommate. She makes sarcastic comments, mostly for her own comprehension and amusement, and then quickly points out that she's not serious. It's like a nervous tick of someone existing in her own protective bubble. Her observations reminded me of a "Saturday Night Live" character played by Kristen Wiig, a fast-talker who follows every sentence with "Just kidding." But whereas Wiig and a few other gifted physical and verbal female comics (such as Melissa McCarthy, Patricia Heaton or a young Amanda Bynes) play things broadly and to a TV audience weaned on Carol Burnett, Gerwig adds an extra layer that commands the big screen. This is a performance more worthy of Isabelle Huppert than of Jennifer Aniston.

There is definitely a masculinity to Gerwig and her character. Besides the obvious situation of being the target of another woman's affections, she is also accused at one point of walking like a man. (I wouldn't go that far, but she does have an amusing loose-limbed galumph.) I'm sure Baumbach's perspective looms large here. We saw a similar social pariah in his last film, "Greenberg," in which Gerwig played a key supporting character. Here, there's still hope for Frances, and we cheer for her to succeed and to avoid ossifying into the hardened misanthrope that Ben Stiller's character withered into. Will Frances make it? Thanks to Gerwig and Baumbach, we care deeply about that question, and "Frances Ha" zips along toward an ending that matters.

Baumbach's career has built toward this moment, finally producing a flawed masterpiece -- after a career full of efforts that merely passed as brilliant films. "Frances Ha" has more depth than those other films that earned A grades, such as "Kicking and Screaming" and "The Squid and the Whale." He pays black-and-white homage to his forebears, principally Francois Truffaut's "Small Change," classic Jim Jarmusch, and Woody Allen's late 1970s output. Gerwig certainly helped him capture the cadence of 20-something-speak, and she and Baumbach have created an awkward verbal environment, part smart writing and part improvisation worthy of Cassavettes.

The screenplay is full of seemingly mundane but deceptively insightful millennial-speak. Describing a random guy she doesn't care for, Frances says, "He's the kind of guy who buys a black leather couch and is, like, 'I love it.' " Or, stuck working a demeaning job that involves following a rich patron around at an event and pouring wine for her, Frances finally deadpans, "She's my ward." Of course, these lines work better in context. You can hear the connection to Lena Dunham (who had her own older man to collaborate with, Judd Apatow), but I can't imagine any "Girls" episode that I would want to last 90 minutes. (Speaking of "Girls," we're treated here to Adam Driver's alternate take on that show's Adam character, and we wish there were more scenes with his Lev, a winning riff on Richard Edson's hipster from "Stranger Than Paradise.")

The film isn't perfect. A few lines clunk (I'm thinking of Grace Gummer's throwaway line at the dinner party), but no one bats 1.000 in the big leagues. Scenes don't always flow gracefully into the next, but the herky-jerk editing adds to the jangle that is Frances and her neuroses and her friends.

I went into this movie with unfairly high expectations, and I was prepared to watch a smug vanity project unspool and unravel. Instead, I savored this lovely character study throughout, and I walked out of the matinee and into the sunshine with a bounce in my step and a smile on my face. Ha!

Wedding Crashers

Sense a theme?

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (2008) (A) - Anne Hathaway explodes all over the screen and graduates from her earlier girly roles in Jonathan Demme's searing portrait of a family ravaged by grief. Hathaway stars as Kym, the recovering drug addict big-footing her sister's wedding, and struggling to come to grips with a family tragedy that haunts her.

Orbiting around her is an impressive ensemble cast, some of whom are musicians, not actors, led by Tunde Adebimpe ("7 Chinese Brothers") from TV on the Radio as the groom, betrothed to Rachel (the winning Rosemarie Dewitt), whose patience for sister Kym long ago wore thin. Bill Irwin is perfect as the agreeable dad, who tries too hard to appease Rachel on her wedding weekend and enable Kym. Debra Winger shows up as Rachel and Kym's icy estranged mother.

Demme has mostly focused on documentaries over the past 20 years, and this was sort of his narrative comeback (and it certainly has a documentary feel, with hand-held cameras and improvisation filmed in real time). The music of the band (endlessly rehearsing) is organic. The dialogue singes. (Kym asks at one critical point, "Who is it I'm supposed to be now?") The drama builds impeccably, and it feels like real life could just implode at any moment.

MARGOT AT THE WEDDING (2007) (A) - Again with the Noah Baumbach. Here is another searing family drama, this one pitting Nicole Kidman in the title role, crashing the impending marital bliss of her sister, Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and the loser fiance, Malcolm (Jack Black). Kidman does her typical cold-hearted slow burn as the arrogant writer with a compromised moral compass. Pauline is a bag of insecurities, and Margot loves to throw verbal punches that land below the belt.

Black is a joy as the emotionally unstable man-child. Zane Pais is surprisingly assured as Margot's adolescent son, Claude, a stand-in for Baumbach as a youth (like Jesse Eisenberg in "The Squid and the Whale").

Baumbach's ancestral turmoil is leavened with his trademark dry wit and dark sense of humor. He uses a giant ailing tree as an obvious symbol for the family history, but places it at the center of a feud with the creepy New England neighbors next door. Baumbach unpeels an onion here, exposing secrets, big and small. And his ending for Margot (and her hurting inner child) is an exquisite take on the best of American New Wave cinema of the early '70s.
 

New to the Queue

A head start on a new year ...

From the director of the original version of "The Kindergarten Teacher," the tale of an Israeli ex-pat in Paris, "Synonyms."

We're apprehensive about our former favorite Noah Baumbach ("The Meyerowitz Stories") -- and who needs two brooding elder Millennials moping through yet another movie about divorce? -- but maybe Baumbach truly is on the comeback trail with "Marriage Story."

We're not much for horror, blood and gore, but we like the sound of the love-triangle-at-sea escapade, "Harpoon."

A feature, with a documentary feel, about Sengalese migrants, "Atlantics."

A documentary about one woman's compulsion to create a library of recorded TV shows, "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project."

The latest from Trey Edward Shults ("Krisha"), another analysis of family, "Waves."
  

The Best of 2025: It's Not Me, It's You

 

Generation X is in a millennial slump. 

There is no need for a grand essay this year, or a diatribe. As usual, you may jump down to the lists and you'll find dozens of movies to stream right now. But I do want to address Gen X's midlife malaise. So this year we are going to offer a sort-of anti-list upfront. 

As a Gen X elder (let's not debate this), I'm saddened to see so many filmmakers lose their mojo as they trail me into middle age. Some of my all-time favorite directors have lost me with their releases in recent years.  

I believe in chapters, and I learned early on that it's not easy to sync with an artist throughout their career. The three-album rule was invented for a reason, and feel free to apply it to filmmaking. I had my quarter-life crisis after college, realizing that some of my favorite bands just didn't thrill me anymore. Now, at the three-quarter mark, I find that it is a parade of filmmakers who leave me disappointed. (By the way, I have long since forgiven Joe Jackson.)

So let's elevate the annual "It's Not You, It's Me" category from below and highlight a list of 2025's offenders, who either outright offended or just fell short in some way:

• Noah Baumbach, age 56. ... His 2025: Back in the day he made a handful of brilliant movies; this time he excreted the maudlin "Jay Kelly" with his new pal George Clooney. Baumbach has made one good film in the past decade. ... His Heyday: "The Squid and the Whale" (2005) and "Frances Ha" (2013)
• Paul Thomas Anderson, 55. ... 2025: He once made a handful of brilliant movies, but he has grown as bloated as his budgets. The latest is his fetishism of fascism, "One Battle After Another," which follows the fun but lightweight "Licorice Pizza" (2021). ... Heyday: "Magnolia" (1999)
• Kelly Reichardt, 61. ... 2025: She was onto something with "The Mastermind," but a bland star (and a blaring soundtrack) under- and overwhelmed her thin plot. ... Heyday: "Certain Women" (2016)
• Wes Anderson, 56. ... 2025: We walked out of 2023's "Asteroid City." We made it through "The Phoenician Scheme," but barely. ... Heyday: "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001)
• Chloe Zhao, 43 (cuspy). ... 2025: She somehow managed a decent final half hour of "Hamnet," but the first hour was nearly unwatchable. For some reason, I did not walk out. ... Heyday: "The Rider" (2018)
• Lynne Ramsay, 56. ... 2025: She produced something powerful and compelling at times with "Die My Love," but she tripped over some tropes and didn't earn the ending. ... Heyday: "Morvern Callar" (2002)
• Rian Johnson, 52. ... 2025: He ran the well dry with a weak third installment of his "Knives Out" series, "Wake Up Dead Man." ... Heyday: "Looper" (2013)
• (We pause, briefly, in honor of our onetime service to the country as a copy editor, for a discussion of commas. Is there an argument for leaving out the comma in "Wake Up Dead Man" and "Die My Love"? Doubt it. "Sorry, Baby.") 
• Yorgos Lanthimos, 52. ... 2025: He continues to botch scripts, this time muffing the last 20 minutes of "Bugonia." ... Heyday: "Alps" and "Dogtooth" (2010-12)
• Francois Ozon, 58. ... 2025: The man is in his own league, but even he is working in a minor key, with 2025's "When Fall Is Coming." ... Heyday: "Time to Leave" (2006) and too many others to list
• Jia Zhang-ke, 55. ... 2025: Even an all-time great could barely hold our interest in his career pastiche "Caught by the Tides." ... Heyday: "The World" (2006)

This doesn't take into account:

• The occasional Boomer -- Rob Reiner's soggy "Spinal Tap" sequel, or Nuri Bilge Ceylan's so-so "About Dry Grasses."
• Or the clouds forming on the horizon for a couple of Millennials: We've struggled twice so far to make a dent in 37-year-old Celine Song's "Materialists" (her "Past Lives" was No. 1 in 2023), and we gave up on "Pavements" from Alex Ross Perry, 41. (We preferred the Pavement doc "Louder Than You Think," about their crazy drummer/producer.) 
• Meantime, Walter Salles, 69, got back on his game with "I'm Still Here," and 73-year-old Boomer Jim Jarmusch is still steady-as-he-goes, maintaining his niche as the zen master, with his latest, "Father Mother Sister Brother."

OK. So I'm in a funk. The good news is that there are fresh voices out there; look below for movies from the likes of Eva Victor, Nina Conti, Isabella Roland, Rungano Nyoni, Michael Strassner, and more. The future remains promising, as the generations churn.

***

Below you'll find a ton of movies to sample, most from 2025, but some that hurtle you back decades (see "The Leftovers" below). Where possible I point out where you can stream them. My main go-to services are HBO, Mubi, Criterion, Netflix, and the library's free Hoopla (or Kanopy in your jurisdiction) or DVDs. Each film citation has a link to my original review.

THE TOP 15 of '25

(For the first five movies, I watched them more than once, confirming them as top picks.) 

  1. Blue Moon. Richard Linklater (a late Boomer with an X sensibility) directs a pitch-perfect Ethan Hawke in "this endlessly clever and charming tale of the bittersweet final days" of songwriter Lorenz Hart. Including Best Screenplay, in fact one of the best of all time. (In theaters; Netflix 2/14) 

  2. The Ballad of Wallis Island. "It is funny and full of heart; it's an earnest labor of love that tells a somber story without wallowing in any emotional muck." (Amazon Prime)

  3. Eephus. The best feature film about baseball ever made, with a tiny budget and a cast full of mostly non-actor ringers. (Mubi)

  4. Sorry, Baby. One of the many quiet indie gems on the list, often starring the writer-director (here Eva Victor), that stuck with us a long time. (HBO)

  5. One to One: John & Yoko. A meticulous, fascinating deep dive into the culture of New York City at the time an ex-Beatle showed up. (HBO)

  6. Sunlight. A buddy-movie road trip across New Mexico full of wit, heart and charm, led by stars Shenoah Allen and Nina Conti, who directed. (Rental on demand)

  7. Sentimental Value. Another mature, thoughtful character study from Joachim Trier (age 51). (In theaters)

  8. Diane Warren: Relentless. A documentary buoyed by the sheer force of the personality of its subject, a prolific MOR songwriter. (Hoopla/Kanopy)

  9. I'm Still Here. A tale of bravery and endurance from Walter Salles, whose exploration of Brazil's secret police will feel hauntingly relevant. (Netflix)

10. The Alabama Solution. A searing indictment of a state prison system, from the prolific Jarecki family. (HBO)

11. D(e)ad. Isabella Roland's family, working with a tiny budget, helped produce this clever comedy, one of the funniest movies of the year. (Rental on demand)

12. Song Sung Blue. When was the last time -- if ever -- you danced in the aisles in joy after a movie? The most fun at the theater in 2025. (Coming to Peacock)

13. Pee-wee as Himself. A filmmaker does a personal exploration of one of the most fascinating artists of the past 40 years. (HBO)

14. Listers. Microbudget DIY filmmaking at its finest; this documentary about birdwatching is the best movie most people never saw. (Free on YouTube)

15. Is This Thing On? Bradley Cooper wrings pathos and humor out of a disintegrating marriage, thanks to his star, Will Arnett. Including Best Director. (In theaters)

JUST MISSED THE LIST

(Honorables mentioned)

• The Baltimorons (AMC+)
• It Was Just an Accident
• Die My Love (Mubi)
• Friendship (HBO)
• Drowning Dry (Mubi)
• Father Mother Sister Brother (Theaters, then MUBI)
• Matt and Mara (Mubi) 

 

MORE TOP DOCS 

This was a particularly strong year for documentaries. Buckle up for a long list of releases, mostly in the B+ range. Many, too, Just Missed the List: 

 

• The music profiles: "Devo" explored in detail the origins of an art collective (Netflix); "Janis Ian: Breaking Silence" was intimate and revealing (PBS); "Becoming Led Zeppelin" gave the old boys their due (including drummer Jon Bonham through archival recordings) (Netflix); "Sunday Best" explored Ed Sullivan's commitment to civil rights on his variety show (Netflix); "Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted" was a total hoot (rental on demand).
• Ben Stiller excavated his family history in "Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost" (Apple TV)
• Raoul Peck powerloaded "George Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5" (rental on demand)
• A fascinating profile of Andy Kaufman, "Thank You Very Much" (rental on demand) 
• "Breakdown 1975" examined not just movies but our fraying culture during a pivotal year (Netflix) 
• "Secret Mall Apartment" had a great little-known story to unpack (Netflix)
• "The Perfect Neighbor" told a tragedy mainly through police body-cam footage (Netflix)
• I enjoyed getting to know comedian/podcaster Marc Maron in the gloomy documentary "Are We Good?" (rental on demand)
• Laura Poitras showed why she is one of the best, with her complicated profile of Seymour Hersh in "Cover-Up" (Netflix)  

 

TOP PERFORMANCES

• Songwriter Lorenz Hart in "Blue Moon" was the role Ethan Hawke was born to play, and no other performance came close this year. 
• Fernanda Torres was riveting throughout "I'm Still Here." 
• Susan Chardy was a well of guarded emotion in the disappointing culture study "On Becoming a Guinea Fowl" from Rungano Nyoni. 
• Jennifer Lawrence, fierce and feral in "Die My Love." Robert Pattinson and Sissy Spacek managed somehow to keep up with her.
• Tim Key walked a tightrope between comedy and drama in "The Ballad of Wallis Island," with an assist from Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan.
• No one can quite do what Renate Reinsve does every time, including this past year in "Sentimental Value."
• Hugh Jackman melted into his character, a Neil Diamond impersonator, in "Song Sung Blue."

 

GUILTY PLEASURES

• The Lost Weekend: A Love Story. The sweet story told by John Lennon's girlfriend in 1974, May Pang. (Amazon Prime)
• Splitsville. Another fun romp from filmmaking team Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. ("The Climb") (Rental on demand)
• Dig (XX). An updated music doc that revisits the aughts "rivalry" between the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. (Leaving Criterion) 
• The Merchants of Joy. A cheesy but effective profile of sellers of Christmas trees in New York City. (Amazon Prime)

 

THE LEFTOVERS

Some 2024 films we caught up with:  The powerful PBS documentary about workers organizing, "Union." ... The fascinating four-hour mystery saga, "Trenque Lauquen." ... We walked out of the Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," and instead went back in time to two classic documentaries about the man. ... The offbeat study of asexual adults, "Slow." ... Anne Hathaway was charming in the rom-com from Michael Showalter, "The Idea of You."

Wayback Machine: There were three of the all-time classics from the American New Wave: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Rosemary's Baby" and "Shampoo." ... We went back to the '80s to hang out with Spike Lee ("Do the Right Thing") and John Hughes and Molly Ringwald. ... We enjoyed Goldie Hawn in Steven Spielberg's "Sugarland Express." ... There were two Rolling Stones-related nuggets, "Performance" and "Gimme Shelter." ... We paid respects to Gene Hackman (R.I.P.) in "The Conversation" and Peter Sellers in "Being There." ... We dove deeper into the oeuvre of Joan Micklin Silver ("Between the Lines"), with "Crossing Delancy" and "Hester Street." ... Then there were the '70s hippie spectacles "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar." ... Along with a documentary about Tura Satana, we screened the Russ Meyer B-movie classic "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" ... And, of course, we sampled liberally from Guild Cinema's annual summer film noir series (here and here).

R.I.P: We paid tribute to David Lynch and Robert Redford. We still have one more Lynch entry to go. ... We owe a tribute to Diane Keaton. ... We sampled "Spinal Tap," then and now, in memory of Rob Reiner, and we have a follow-up to that due in a few weeks. 

 

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME

(Well, maybe this time it is you. 

Some of our favorites let us down.)

 

• (See above)

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Here are a bunch we wanted to see but didn't get the chance:

• The Secret Agent
• The Ice Tower
• Bob Trevino
• Sirat
• Miroirs 3

Join us in 2026 as we track down those titles and more of the finest movies you wouldn't otherwise think of watching.

Idle Chatter

 

KICKING AND SCREAMING (1995) (A-minus) - Going back to the beginning, here is the debut feature from Noah Baumbach, which establishes his ease with banter and fragile male egos surrounded by manic pixie dream girls. It revolves around Grover (Josh Hamilton), who leads a cadre of smart alecks as they are cast adrift after college graduation.

These prepsters can't quit each other as they stumble out of the career gate, preferring to cling to their alma mater, where life remains simple and familiar. Standing out here is the understated Chris Eigeman (who a few years earlier helped launch Whit Stillman's career in "Metropolitan" and "Barcelona") as the sullen Max. We also get the drolly funny Carlos Jacott as Otis (routinely clad in a pajama top) and Jason Wiles as dippy Skippy. These goofballs hang out in the vicinity of perennial student/bartender Chet (Eric Stoltz), the wise Yoda among these rascals.

Olivia D'Abo (transitioning from TV's "The Wonder Years") rocks a retainer as Grover's ingenue who got away (off to Prague, which is treated like a cliche getaway in the mid-'90s), while indie heavyweight Parker Posey (totally in her milieu) and Cara Buono show more of an edge and less patience with these grown boys. The writing is sharp, and the simmering ennui is wonderfully underplayed. This was the emergence of Gen X, and much of the characterizations ring true.

CABARET (1972) (B) - This seems more like a curiosity than a foundational piece of '70s cinema, but it has its moments. Being of the era, this dances around some sensitive issues as it goes back in time 40 years to Berlin on the brink of Nazi rule to filter everything through the lens of a nihilistic nightclub, though it does dare to address (to a degree) free love, homosexuality and abortion.

Bob Fosse recovered from his debut flop (1969's "Sweet Charity") and emerged with his signature visual flair as he mixes in cabaret numbers with the dramatic vignettes revolving around American Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) and her gay British pal Brian (a confident, nuanced Michael York). Joel Grey steals the show as the club's emcee.

The biggest issue here is the refusal to take on the Nazi problem with any depth or sophistication. The brown shirts are a looming menace, but they are treated more conceptually than head-on, depicted more as annoying pamphleteers than bullies. The original source material is to be respected, but the tension between musical decadence and the building political storm results in more affectation than piercing provocation.

Still, Fosse's vision here (his use of distorted images and misdirection are impressive) and the songs of Kander & Ebb (among others) are truly compelling at times, and just try to get some of these tunes out of your head a week later. Minnelli comes across as a lightweight in the first half of the film, but either she grows on you or she simply learned how to act by the end of the production, because she can be affecting down the stretch, leading to the belting out of the title tune and the haunting final visual.

BONUS TRACKS

Let's put together our list, now that we've seen 10, of Noah Baumbach films (as director), in order of preference and with links to reviews:

1. The Squid and the Whale
2. Frances Ha
3. Marriage Story
4. Margot at the Wedding
5. Kicking and Screaming
6. Greenberg
7. The Meyerowitz Stories
8. DePalma (documentary with Jake Paltrow)
9. While We're Young
10. Mistress America

Not seen: Mr. Jealousy

"Kicking's" soundtrack thrums with indie cred of the era, including Pixies, Grant Hart and Freedy Johnston, plus this pivotal number from Jimmie Dale Gilmore, "Braver Newer World." 

The Best of the Decade: 2010-19

To top off our extended retrospective, we somehow picked through the dozens of good movies made the past 10 years and chose the Top 30 films of the Teens. We packaged the Top 30 into groupings.

• Three clear masterpieces sit at the top. 
• The next five are near-masterpieces. 
• The next eight were best or near best in their given year and round out the top 16. 
• We then split the second half between solid runners-up and, finally, great films that we have reconsidered since they first came out and have a special fondness for.

The Top 30 of 2010-19

 

• A Bigger Splash - From Luca Guadagnino: "Old loves, young flesh, gorgeous beaches and a heavyweight bout between Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes."
• The Florida Project - "Master storytelling with a mostly rookie cast. A true feel for the human condition." Sean Baker emerged as the storyteller of the decade."
• A Prophet - "A masterwork of the crime genre from Jacques Audiard ("Dheepan," "Rust and Bone") in the grand tradition of 'The Godfather.'"

Past masters ...

• Appropriate Behavior -"Desiree Akhavan spins a smart, funny, passionate tale of relationships in 21st century Brooklyn."
• A Separation -Asghar Farhadi started the decade with this unassailable film and followed it up with other strong ones, such as "The Past," "The Salesman" and "Everybody Knows."
• Frances Ha - Noah Baumbach's best: "Funny, clever, real, insightful, a mix of dread and playfulness, full of sharp performances. Just like life itself."
• Toni Erdmann - Weird and wonderful, this father-daughter comic-drama is "the epitome of storytelling."
• The Rider - "A heart-wrenching look at a real family, their life dramatized by this bold, poignant film" from Chloe Zhao.

As good as you could expect ...

• Baby Driver - "The most fun I can imagine having in a cineplex. Thank you, Edgar Wright, for the music and the mania."
• Fort Tilden - "The cross between 'Girls' and 'Beavis and Butt-head' is infused with the natural chemistry of its stars, Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty."
• Diary of a Teenage Girl - "This luscious period piece revives that '70s feel of the teen-angst wail, taking a creepy concept and converting it into a meditation on longing, loneliness and self-realization. A feminist howl."
• The Broken Circle Breakdown -"This folk-song ballet elegantly dances the fine line between sweet and bittersweet."
• Birdman -"This is what the wonder of cinema and storytelling is all about."
• Monsieur Lazhar -"A stunning, simple story of students and adults in Quebec dealing with one big tragedy and assorted little ones, with the help of a random kind stranger."
• Polisse -"The cranky characters in a Paris precinct's child-protection division create the best 'Hill Street Blues' episode ever."
• Fish Tank -"A harrowing, suffocating tale of teen angst from Andrea Arnold."

Just missed the top tier ...

• Foxtrot - "An ingenious story, told with grit and whimsy."
• Certain Women - "Three somber tales, barely intertwined, from the American master Kelly Reichardt."
• Tangerine - Another from Sean Baker: "A dizzying day-in-the-life of transgender prostitutes on the sunwashed streets of L.A. on Christmas Eve, an odyssey that never lets up."
• Operation Avalanche - "This is inspired filmmaking by an inspired crew that delights in the art of storytelling. And they do it so well."
• Bisbee '17 - A "captivating historical document."
• Give Me Liberty - "The story they tell is thrilling and heartfelt. It's funny and sweet."
• Ida - A "modest, flawless, gorgeous film."
• The Other Side of Everything - "This mesmerizing tone poem uses one family's story since World War II to catalogue the political history of Serbia and Yugoslavia through the decades."
• Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World - This "heartfelt and technically precise documentary" is "pure joy."

On second thought ...

• Win Win - With powerhouses Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan, "the one movie I could watch over and over."
• Short Term 12 - "A near perfect little gem." Another one that stands up to repeated viewings.
• Zero Motivation - "Like 'MASH,' it mines a war-time support staff for deadpan laughs."
• Inherent Vice - "A shambling mess of a movie that conjures up a distinct time and place, with a mix of hard-boiled storytelling and broad humor."
  
• The House I Live In - "Let's put aside the fact that this is a powerfully crafted polemic; it's simply a great film."

Bonus tracks ...

• The Trip Trilogy - Dueling Caines: "You might enjoy tagging along with these guys every few years to see how things turn out."

Honorable Mention - Features

• The Todd Haynes gem "Carol"
• Luca Guadagnino's earlier film "I Am Love"
• Lena Dunham's splash "Tiny Furniture"
• Baumbach, again, completing the hat trick: "Greenberg" and "Marriage Story"
• Debra Granik's dark and wearying "Winter's Bone," which introduced us to Jennifer Lawrence
• Holy crap, the twin howls of "Donald Cried" and "Thunder Road"
• The dim slogs "Oslo, August 31st" and "The Turin Horse"
• Nicole Holofcener's tales of middle-age privileged angst, "Please Give" and "Enough Said"
• More L.A. neo-noir, "Under the Silver Lake"
• Jay Duplass in "Outside In" and Mark Duplass in "Blue Jay"
• The joy of Sally Field in "Hello, My Name Is Doris"
• The grand silliness of the dracumentary "What We Do in the Shadows"
• The dark, harrowing character study "Foxcatcher"
• Anything from Francois Ozon: "Frantz"; "The New Girlfriend"; "Young & Beautiful"; "In the House"
• The best from Wes Anderson, "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
• The best from Alex Ross Perry "Listen Up Philip"
• The power teen tales "It Felt Like Love" and "The Myth of the American Sleepover"
• A quirky comedy "The Skeleton Twins"
• Pure Americana, "Nebraska"
• The relationship blockbusters "Blue Is the Warmest Color" and "Weekend"
• David Chase's transition from "The Sopranos," "Not Fade Away"
• The Dardennes brothers' haunting "The Kid With a Bike"
• Denzel Washington carrying the high-energy "Flight"

Honorable Mention - Documentaries

• Rockers: "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck" and "Matangi/Maya/M.I.A."
• The singular paean to film itself: "Dawson City: Frozen Time"
• Heartwarming and heartbreaking: "Searching for Sugarman" and "A.K.A. Doc Pomus"
• The powerful political profile "Weiner"
• As entertaining as it gets: "Hail Satan?" and "Fyre"
• Sparring around: "I Am Ali" and "Boxing Gym"
• Urban crime travesties: "13th" and "Let the Fire Burn"
• The joy of "Landfill Harmonic"
• Troubled women: "No Home Movie" and "Finding Vivian Maier"
• Charm to burn in "Exporting Raymond"

Guilty Pleasures

• Escapes
• Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
• Kedi
• Keanu
• No No: A Dockumentary
• L'Attesa
• Get Him to the Greek
• Top Five
• Night of the Living Deb (with my five-second cameo)

Holy Crap

• White God
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Alleluia
• The Lure
• The Paperboy
• We Need to Talk About Kevin
• Buzzard
• Frank
• A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III