Notes on Marriage Story
Tags: 103.2 FM, Adam Driver, Alan Alda, Dublin City FM, Laura Dern, Marriage Story, Noah Baumbach, Scarlett Johansson, Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle
Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story was the catch-up film of the week much earlier today on Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Michelle Quance/VARIETY/Shutterstock (10404629aa)
Noah Baumbach and Adam Driver
Variety Studio at Toronto International Film Festival, Presented by AT&T, Day 3, Canada – 08 Sep 2019
Adam Driver's fourth collaboration with Baumbach this decade is a film that is very good, and yet also very hard to recommend. It is a film which will stay with you, from the unusual narrated opening montages, to Driver's astonishing one-take delivery of a Stephen Sondheim song, to the absurdity of a court appointed observer silently judging a parent without ever having observed how parents handle raising their children. When it is funny it is hilarious, but the emotion and financial agony of a divorce is represented in excruciating detail where throwaway comments are weaponised and Driver's character ends up accepting the fiction that he has always lived in LA when he has never lived in LA because that's the narrative the court wants to hear.
Miscellaneous Movie Musings: Part XXIII
Tags: Adam Driver, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Frances Ha, Greenberg, Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Marriage Story, Mistress America, Noah Baumbach, While We're Young
Contours of the Decade: Noah Baumbach
In the continuing struggle to perhaps impose some sort of order and coherence on a decade of cinema in time to produce a Top 10 list at the end of the year it's interesting to consider how Noah Baumbach has fared as director. Greenberg, Frances Ha, While We're Young, Mistress America, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Marriage Story. Six films as writer/director is a pretty good decade's work by anybody's estimate, and more so when you realise that only one of those six is not top drawer. It's been a decade of collaboration, four films with Adam Driver in some capacity, two films with Greta Gerwig as co-writer and star as well as one with her in a supporting role, and three films with Ben Stiller rediscovering his talent. Perhaps most interestingly while critics seemed to shape a narrative that, after the exhaustingly abrasive Greenberg, Baumbach's films had been given soul by Gerwig, that demonstrably was not the case. Even after While We're Young it was clear Baumbach was more optimistic even without Gerwig than he had been previously. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) made clear that in fact the change in Baumbach was one of maturity. Where Gerwig without Baumbach stuttered with the cliched and sour Ladybird, Baumbach without Gerwig was operating on a new plane. Compare the fathers played by Jeff Daniels in 2005 and Dustin Hoffman in 2017 and you will be struck by the notion that this is essentially the same character, but now viewed by an older artist with a correspondingly more mature and therefore forgiving eye.
Tags: 20th Century Women, Christopher Nolan, Damian Chazelle, Dunkirk, F Gary Gray, Fast & Furious 8, Ingrid Goes West, La La Land, Logan Lucky, Matt Spicer, Mike Mills, Noah Baumbach, Olivier Assayas, Personal Shopper, Steven Soderbergh, Taika Waititi, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Thor: Ragnarok, Top 10 Films of 2017, Tye Sheridan, Wind River
10) The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Old Dustin Hoffman
Grumbles so loquaciously
His kids just despair
9) Thor: Ragnarok
Marvel does funny!
Or Taika Waititi
does Marvel, more like
8) Ingrid Goes West
Aubrey Plaza mad
Aubrey Plaza not bad though
Instagram's to blame
7) La La Land
They sing and they dance
Might they fall in love perchance?
Well yes, all that jazz
6) Wind River
Two cold Avengers
Can't believe it's not Longmire
Till the hymn to wolves
5) Logan Lucky
Soderbergh returns
'Ocean's 7-11'
Hoot and a holler
3) Personal Shopper
Hip Kristen Stewart
Sees ghosts, shops for clothes, and waits
but who's haunting her?
3) Dunkirk
Nolan does Dunkirk
Ticking clock horror movie
Don't need words, just feel
2) Fast & Furious 8
Fire will not burn Vin
Bullets will not pierce The Rock
They forgive The State
1) 20th Century Women
Ode to older mums
The past lived as the present
Miss You Already
Tags: Castle, Catherine Hardwicke, Danny Boyle, Dominic Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig, Headstuff, Headstuff.org, Jacqueline Bisset, Judd Apatow, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Miss You Already, Mistress America, Morwenna Banks, Noah Baumbach, Paddy Considine, Sunshine, Thirteen, Toni Collette
Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore are thirty-something BFFs whose bond is sorely tested when Collette's reformed wild child loses her way while battling breast cancer. Here's a teaser of my review for HeadStuff.org.
The film opens with a quick gallop through the lives of Milly and Jess, from Jess' arrival as an American kid to an English school, to hanging out with Milly's actress mother Miranda (Jacqueline Bisset), to being groupies until an unplanned pregnancy sees Milly marry roadie Kit (Dominic Cooper) and settle down to a PR career while Kit embraces the business side of music. Jess meanwhile works for a Green NGO and lives on a houseboat with Jago (Paddy Considine), a builder and oil-rig worker. And then Milly is informed she has breast cancer. So begins debilitating bouts of chemotherapy and the psyche-destroying hair-loss before the emperor of maladies unleashes the full arsenal of horrors. As Milly's condition deteriorates it takes a heavy toll not only on her marriage, but also drives a wedge between Jess and Jago as Jago becomes increasingly aggrieved at IVF being put on hold for the sake of Milly; especially as Milly becomes increasingly unbearable.
Click here to read the full review on HeadStuff.org with Judd Apatow, Greta Gerwig, and Mia Hansen-Love in the mix.
Filed under: Talking Movies (Reviews) — Fergal Casey @ 10:59 am
Tags: Adam Driver, Adam Horovitz, All About Eve, Amanda Seyfried, Beastie Boys, Ben Stiller, Brady Corbet, Charles Grodin, Crimes & Misdemeanours, David Bowie, Dree Hemingway, Eye of the Tiger, Frances Ha, Golden Years, Greenberg, Greta Gerwig, Henrik Ibsen, James Murphy, Maria Dizzia, Mysterious Skin, Naomi Watts, Noah Baumbach, NYC, The Master Builder, While We're Young, Woody Allen
Frances Ha director Noah Baumbach returns to the NYC art scene, but loses Greta Gerwig as co-writer and reinstates Greenberg cohort Ben Stiller as protagonist.
Josh (Ben Stiller) is a documentarian. He's married to Cornelia (Naomi Watts), a film producer, whose father is the legendary documentarian Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin). Josh and Cornelia's best friends Fletcher (Beastie Boy's Adam Horovitz!!) and Marina (Maria Dizzia) have just had a kid. Indeed the misleading opening finds Josh and Cornelia gazing at the baby while a mobile playing a cutesy version of Bowie's 'Golden Years' hangs over the cot. Having lost Fletcher to the children cult Josh is receptive to a hipster couple he meets after one of his New School extension lectures. Jamie (Adam Driver) is a would-be documentarian, his wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried) makes home-made ice cream, and they live in a Brooklyn flat with friend and occasional band-mate Tipper (Dree Hemingway). Josh is enchanted, and soon so is Cornelia, but can this rejuvenation end well?
While We're Young is less sunny than Frances Ha, but thankfully not as bitter as Greenberg, and, from the opening hilarious quotes from Ibsen's The Master Builder, is always engaging. Some montages of Josh and Cornelia's rediscovery of their youth thru hip-hop and hats equal Frances Ha's use of pop, and Baumbach also mocks 'Eye of the Tiger' motivational status ("I remember when this song was just bad"). But Frances Ha was about being lost and aimless. This is about a couple who have everything, and are jaded, meeting a couple who have little, but are liberated. Josh has spent 8 years not finishing a documentary, and laments "I only have two moods: wistful and disdainful." For Jamie making a documentary is a free and easy process, as whimsy-driven as choosing to not know a factoid rather than google it.
But when Jamie uses a remote control to zoom-in for a close-up on his face during a 'spontaneous' tearful scene when interviewing old school-friend Kent (Brady Corbet), Josh realises Jamie's directing is as affected as the love of vinyl and VHS… Then things get All About Eve as Jamie supplants Josh in the affections of Leslie (veteran Grodin on fine comedic form). It's a bit silly, not least as it draws attention to Baumbach's own idol-supplanting. Josh is Woody Allen in Crimes & Misdemeanours: a film-maker unable to finish a documentary showcasing an aged academic proffering arcane wisdom. It's as odd as James Murphy's music and Baumbach's staging creating an oddly sinister intercutting of a valedictory speech and an ethical confrontation, almost as if Baumbach is parodying his own concerns: Woody's stakes were life and death, his, just passé ethics.
While We're Young has moments of genuine sadness, like Cornelia (who's miscarried repeatedly) freaking out a baby music class, but Baumbach opts for an all too pat comedy ending.
JDIFF 2015: A Chair with Wings
Tags: A Little Chaos, Alan Rickman, Aleksandr Sokurov, Apres Mai, Barry Lyndon, Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Brenda Fricker, Bret Easton Ellis, Brian O'Malley, Cinderella, Cineworld, Cloud of Sils Maria, Conor McMahon, Danny Huston, Dare to be Wild, Don McKellar, Eileen Gray, Faust, Force Majeure, Francois Ozon, From the Dark, Gerard Barret, Glassland, Grainne Humphreys, IFI, In Cold Blood, Ivan Kavanagh, Jack Reynor, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, Jan Harlan, Jason Schwartzman, JDIFF, JDIFF 2015, Jean Renoir, John Carpenter, Julie Andrews, Kenneth Branagh, Kim Cattrall, King Vidor, Le Corbussier, Lenny Abrahamson, Let Us Prey, Liam Cunningham, Listen Up Phillip, Liv Ullman, Love/Hate, Mads Mikkelsen, Mary McGuckian, Matthew Goode, Miss Julie, Movies at Dundrum, Muriel's Wedding, Noah Baumbach, Olivier Assayas, Orla Brady, Partie de Campagne, Pat Murphy, Peter Bogdanovich, Pressure, Red Army, Richard Brooks, Riverbank Arts Centre, Robert Sheehan, Russell Crowe, Ryan O'Neal, Salvation, Sensitive Skin, Stanley Kubrick, Stephen Horne, Stitches, Tana Bana, The Accidental Tourist, The Americanisation of Emily, The Canal, The Crowd, The Decent One, The Last Man on the Moon, The Lir Academy, The New Girlfriend, The Pavilion, The Price of Desire, The Road Within, The Salt of the Earth, The Savoy, The Scren, The Sound of Music, The Water Diviner, Toni Collette, Vincent Perez, Vivienne de Courcy, Volta, What's Up Doc?, While We're Young, White Tiger, Wim Wenders
The programme for the 2015 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival promises a number of international guests, including Julie Andrews, Kenneth Branagh, Russell Crowe, Kim Cattrall, Alan Rickman, Ryan O'Neal and Danny Huston, and intriguing films from diverse countries and eras.
The JDIFF 2015 programme was officially launched this morning by Festival Director Grainne Humphreys, who invoked The Accidental Tourist's image of travel writing as giving the reader a chair with wings. The 'Around the World' programme features nearly 140 films from nearly 40 different countries across 11 days. Humphreys invoked the Festival's mission to amplify and complement the world cinema which is available to Irish audiences, noting that 70 to 75% of the films screened at the Festival will never be screened again in Ireland. And when such one-off screening opportunities have in the past few years included such titles as the riveting Russian WWII movie White Tiger and Aleksandr Sokurov's Faust it only underscores the importance of the Festival.
The Festival, in response to audience feedback, is expanding into new venues Movies at Dundrum, The Pavilion, and Riverbank Arts Centre, and introducing some double screenings. It is also ramping up its Picture House outreach project in hospitals and care homes, a project whose patron is Oscar-winning actress Brenda Fricker. A final new venue will be the Bord Gais Energy Theatre which will host the finale interview with Julie Andrews. That closing gala screening of The Sound of Music with Andrews, and Kenneth Branagh's unveiling of his latest blockbuster directorial outing Cinderella, is indicative of a desire to make the Festival accessible to the most casual of cinemagoers rather than the intimidating preserve of cinephiles.
Julie Andrews and Kenneth Branagh will both receive Voltas, and there are many other guests in attendance between the 19th and 29th of March. As previously mentioned hereabouts Russell Crowe will be presenting his directorial debut, The Water Diviner, in which his character travels to Gallipoli in 1919 to search for his soldier sons, missing since 1915's bloody landing on the Turkish peninsula. Another actor-director, Alan Rickman, will present his new movie A Little Chaos, in which Kate Winslet attempts to introduce a little anarchy to the gardens of Versailles under the watchful eye of Rickman's King Louis XIV. Actor-producer Kim Cattrall meanwhile will give an acting masterclass to the students of the Lir Academy, and introduce episodes of her new satirical Canadian TV series Sensitive Skin co-starring Don McKellar.
The 40th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's period epic Barry Lyndon is marked by a screening in the Savoy with both star Ryan O'Neal and producer Jan Harlan, with Lenny Abrahamson leading a public interview afterwards, while O'Neal will also be on hand for a screening of Peter Bogdanovich's 1972 neo-screwball comedy What's, Up, Doc? And if all that weren't enough to get you excited a Talking Movies favourite, the effortlessly charismatic Danny Huston, will do a Q&A after his new suspense thriller Pressure, in which he and Matthew Goode are trapped in a deep-sea station where mind-games soon jeopardise survival.
A strong line-up of Irish features encompasses genres from horror to rom-com, biopic to gangster. The Festival will be opened by Mary McGuckian's The Price of Desire, a beatiful and compelling depiction of Irish modernist designer Eileen Gray's collaboration with Le Corbussier on an iconic piece of archiecture, with stars Orla Brady and Vincent Perez in attendence. Love/Hate actor Robert Sheehan will be attending a screening of his new film The Road Within, and will participate in the Actors in Conversation event, part of this year's Screen Test programme. Gerard Barret and Jack Reynor, fresh from Sundance glory, will present Glassland, in which Toni Collette's alcoholism pushes her son Jack Reynor into a clash with the Dublin underworld. Game of Thrones star Liam Cunningham lets rip against the Gardai in Brian O'Malley's tense Let Us Prey, a homage to John Carpenter's ouevre, while Conor McMahon dispenses with the comedy of Stitches for straight horror in From the Dark in which a couple in a farmhouse are terrorised. Also featured in the programme are Pat Murphy's Tana Bana, Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal, and Vivienne De Courcy's colourful Dare to be Wild.
The Out of the Past season is always a Festival highlight and this year showcases Richard Brooks' 1967 version of In Cold Blood starring Scott Wilson and Robert Blake as the killers immortalised by Truman Capote's investigation of their brutal crime, PJ Hogan's 1994 Abba-loving Australian comedy Muriel's Wedding which made a star of Toni Collette, Jean Renoir's Partie de Campagne based on a story by Guy de Maupassant, Arthur Hiller's The Americanisation of Emily starring Julie Andres and James Garner in a tale written by Paddy Chayefsky, and King Vidor's silent classic of urban alienation The Crowd with live accompaniment from pianist Stephen Horne.
The Reel To Reel documentary strand features a trio of intriguing titles. The Last Man On The Moon will see directors Mark Craig and Gareth Doods in attendence for a Savoy presentation of their account of the Eugene Cirnan, the only man to travel to the moon twice. Fellow NHL fans will be as excited as Talking Movies to see the engaging and moving Russian documentary Red Army, about the greatest ice hockey team ever assembled in the 1980s Winter Olympics and their playing careers in North America. From Germany meanwhile The Decent One unveils the private documents, journals and photographs of the SS comander Heinrich Himmler to present an intimate portrait of a family man quietly engaged in genocide.
The bread and butter of the Festival is its eclectic selection of features. The prolific and inimitable François Ozon's latest film is The New Girlfriend, Olivier Assayas follows up autobiographical Apres Mai with the Cesar-winning psychodrama Cloud of Sils Maria, and Wim Wenders returns with The Salt of The Earth. Actor Mads Mikkelsen takes on the Old West with some Refn-like brutality in The Salvation, director Liv Ullman takes on August Strindberg's iconic play Miss Julie, Noah Baumbach addresses the effects of technology on individual lives more successfully than Jason Reitman with While We're Young, Jason Schwartzman antagonises everyone as an obnoxious writer in Listen Up Philip, and another Bret Easton Ellis 2014 favourite Force Majeure makes its debut here.
The full programme will be available on the festival website jdiff.com at 7pm tonight with online booking opening at 7.30pm. Tickets can be booked at the Festival Box Ofiice on 13 Lower Ormond Quay from 26th February, or at Ticket Offices in Cineworld or the Light House from 14th March.
Tags: Adam Stone, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Alec Baldwin, Badlands, Ben Foster, Blue Jasmine, Bobby Cannavale, Bradford Young, Brie Larson, Casey Affleck, Catching Fire, Channing Tatum, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Dave Franco, David Lowery, Destin Cretton, Die Hard, Donald Sutherland, Emma Watson, Evan Goldberg, Fast and Furious 6, Frances Ha, Francis Lawrence, Greta Gerwig, Huck Finn, Isla Fisher, James Franco, Jamie Foxx, Jay Baruchel, Jeff Nichols, Jennifer Lawrence, Jesse Eisenberg, John Gallagher Jr, Jonah Hill, Justin Lin, Kaityln Dever, Keith Carradine, Keith Stanfield, Louis CK, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Manhattan, Mark Ruffalo, Mark Twain, Matthew McConaughey, Melanie Laurent, Mud, Noah Baumbach, Now You See Me, Ocean's 11, Peter Sarsgaard, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Reese Witherspoon, Roland Emmerich, Rooney Mara, Sally Hawkins, Sam Shepard, Seth Rogen, Short Term 12, Take Shelter, The Hunger Games, This is The End, Tom Sawyer, Top 10 Films of 2013, Tye Sheridan, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Vin Diesel, White House Down, Woody Allen, Woody Harrelson
(10) Fast and Furious 6
This falls short of its illustrious immediate predecessor, but director Justin Lin's sign-off to the Vin Diesel franchise he invigorated retained its Ocean's 11 with petrol-heads vibe. A spectacular action sequence with a tank on a freeway, a charismatic villain with an outrageously designed car, and an over-busy finale as outsize as the runway it took place on were all elevated by a pervasive air of sadness. Poor Han…
(9) Catching Fire
Jennifer Lawrence nuanced her formidable Hunger Games heroine with PTSD as she fought a deadly PR battle with President Donald Sutherland and his lieutenant Philip Seymour Hoffman. Confidence oozed from this movie, a quality noticeable in its expanded ensemble. Director Francis Lawrence's trademark held shots and action tracks created a more rounded universe with complex villains as well as tense CGI suspense sequences in which the geography of the action was always nicely legible.
(8) Short Term 12
Newcomer Destin Cretton helmed his own prize-winning script about twenty-something counsellors at a foster-care facility for at-risk teenagers to beautiful effect. Brie Larson is outstanding as the enigmatic lead counsellor Grace, but nuanced turns from Kaitlyn Dever as possible abuse victim Jayden, Keith Stanfield as suicidal rapper Marcus, and John Gallagher Jr as Grace's long-suffering boyfriend all draw us into an unfamiliar world detailed with insight, humour, and a tempered optimism.
(7) White House Down
Roland Emmerich's nonsensical Die Hard movie joyously proclaimed its debt (the villain 'discovered' a connection between the hero and a female hostage), paid off every plant in sight from President Obama Jamie Foxx's Lincoln fandom to what Channing Tatum's daughter's six weeks honing a skill for her talent show, featured an aggressive right-wing news anchor who wouldn't stop crying, and forced a miscast Maggie Gyllenhaal to commit so ferociously she grounded the whole thing.
(6) Now You See Me
This Ocean's 11 with magicians romp was gloriously insouciant crowd-pleasing fun that never flagged, and flirted with cliché but avoided its embrace. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco breezed thru flashily staged sequences of magical revenge against the 1% as their 'Four Horsemen' magicians caused chaos across America while being hunted by Mark Ruffalo (FBI/Scully) and Melanie Laurent (Interpol/Mulder) who began to wonder – can these be real magicks?
(5) Frances Ha
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach combined as writers to potent effect for a film in thrall to Woody Allen's Manhattan. Its monochrome NYC looked incredible, the comedy was superb and clever, it used pop music to amazingly emotional effect, and it was based around an outstanding performance from Gerwig in a richly written part. From her money worries and anxieties at meeting richer people and more successful contemporaries, to her exaggerations about her success to hide embarrassment at her failures, to plain loopy decisions, this was a piercing, realistic insight into failure.
(4) Blue Jasmine
Woody Allen mined a tragic vein as Cate Blanchett's humbled socialite Jasmine stayed in San Francisco with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Jasmine tried to replace Ginger's boyfriend Bobby Cannavale with Louis CK, and to replace her own dead tycoon husband (Alec Baldwin) with a widowed diplomat (Peter Sarsgaard). Two women's romances and mental disintegration recalled Vicky Cristina Barcelona but this was far superior. Fantastic comedy from unsubtle suitors and Blanchett's waspish tongue was combined with her extraordinary expressive portrayal of schizophrenic breaks from reality as she talked intimately to thin air, seeing people.
(3) This is The End
Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg's directorial debut in which Seth, James Franco, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride attempted to wait out the apocalypse in a Hollywood mansion stuffed with drugs and no food was a largely unstructured ramble from one absurd set-up to the next profane bout of self-indulgence, and it was fantastic. Emma Watson's extended axe-wielding cameo was spectacular, the theology of how to survive the end of days was ludicrous, and the use of music reduced me to helpless tears of laughter; especially the final two songs.
(2) Ain't Them Bodies Saints
Writer/director David Lowery's stunning tale of young criminals in love in 1970s Texas played out like Badlands re-imagined by Jeff Nichols. Rigorously under-lit by Bradford Young its glorious darkness created a moody, romantic atmosphere in which the abiding passion of parted lovers Ruth (Rooney Mara) and Bob (Casey Affleck) assumed mythic proportions. Keith Carradine as Bob's mentor and Ben Foster as the lawman Ruth once shot grounded this world, and Lowery built tension expertly around Bob's escape from jail to Ruth to a suspenseful finale which ended with an image of savage grace.
(1) Mud
Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols returned with an Arkansan tale indebted to Mark Twain as a modern Huck and Tom helped Matthew McConaughey's titular fugitive. Teenager Tye Sheridan gave a subtle turn as Ellis, who reacted to his parents' disintegrating marriage by bonding with Mud and his unquenchable belief in true love, despite mysterious neighbour Sam Shepard's warning that Mud was a fool in waiting for unreliable Reese Witherspoon. DP Adam Stone imbued the Arkansan locations with a heavenly sheen, and, while Mud hiding out a river island living in a boat in a tree observing local superstitions gave rise to great comedy, there was also Twain's darkness in blood feuds. Nichols' third film was rich, absorbing, cautiously optimistic, and lit by a deep affection for his characters.