Noah Baumbach isn’t exactly the first name in a list of directors that comes to mind for a documentary about renowned filmmaker Brian De Palma. With Baumbach’s own work as of late revolving around young and somewhat hip New Yorkers (Frances Ha and his recent release Mistress America), it’s not what anyone might naturally expect him to take on as his next project.
One of the indie queens is set to get behind the camera on her own for the first time. Deadline reported that Greta Gerwig, wife and frequent collaborator with Noah Baumbach, is set to direct her first feature film based on a script she wrote herself. The movie will be called Lady Bird and is …
While We’re Young finds Oscar-nominated writer-director Noah Baumbach delivering some of his funniest lines through some of his most relatable characters. With a star-studded cast at its center, his latest film stars Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Amanda Seyfried and Adam Driver; and promises to be one of the filmmaker’s biggest hits to date. Baumbach (The …
Though well-acted and capably directed, the heavy-handedness of Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young makes it one of his lesser efforts. Baumbach tries to anticipate the impending clash between Gen X bitterness and Millennial entitlement, but the execution feels uncomfortably Braff-ish. You’ll probably leave the theater smiling, but we’ve come to expect something a little more substantial from an observant filmmaker like Baumbach.
Noah Baumbach’s last few films have been about protagonists doing nothing, or at least trying to give the illusion of doing something. Ben Stiller’s Greenberg said as much, even while slowly building a doghouse for his brother. Greta Gerwig’s Frances Halloway was a professional dancer who didn’t dance to the point that it made her “undateable”. Baumbach’s latest film While We’re Young is about yet another form of stagnation: middle age. A married couple of forty-somethings encounter a married couple of twenty-somethings, and that illusion that they’re doing everything they’re meant to be doing at this age quickly fades away.
After the success of 2013’s Frances Ha, it looks like writing/directing team Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig will be joining up again for another feature. With the film expected to be screened at Sundance in January, Fox Searchlight has jumped on distributing the film, which will be Baumbach’s second film of the year. The third …
At age 45, it feels like writer-director Noah Baumbach is getting soft. Best known for his caustic tragicomedies like Kicking and Screaming, The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg, and Margot at the Wedding, he took a turn in tone for his 2012 feature Frances Ha, which starred and was co-written by Greta Gerwig. So, though the warmth of that film might surprise someone familiar with his work, that it’s a collaboration with Gerwig explains at least part of that tone. While We’re Young, though, Baumbach’s newest film which premiered at TIFF this year and made a surprise appearance at the New York Film Festival, manages to carry that affection. It’s hard to top Frances Ha, but his newest is pleasant and impressive all the same.
Witty, insightful and unapologetically New York, are just a few ways writer-director Noah Baumbach has been described. Born and raised in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Baumbach made his writing and directing debut with Kicking and Screaming, immediately drawing comparisons to both Woody Allen and Whit Stillman. Through his seminal film, he’s received an Academy Award nomination for …
We are now officially half way through the year and so I’ve asked our staff to vote for their favourite films released thus far. Hollywood blockbusters may have disappointed us, but thankfully we can always rely on independent filmmakers to create some truly inspiring films. Rounding out the special mentions is Terrence Malick’s To The …
While I’ve never had trouble identifying with the bulk of male roles across film and television, I cannot deny that I do delight in finding gems wherein the women get lines, and maybe even their own narrative. It’s no secret that women are grossly underrepresented in films and television, both onscreen and behind the scenes. …
Frances Ha Directed by Noah Baumbach United States, 2012 Frances Ha, Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to 2010’s Greenberg, shot on the sly in New York City, has all the feel of the (sometimes) dreaded mumblecore tag in its first 15 minutes, but quickly shakes the comparison to be a sweet, funny film that leans heavily on …
By now, young people scratching and clawing their way towards adulthood is a quintessential, clichéd story. The wide-eyed dreamer trying to make it in the big city is one of the hoariest tricks in the book, but Frances Ha is a welcome new variation on this theme, a striking and beautiful ode to youth and its many flaws. Headlined by Great Gerwig, Frances Ha is nothing short of a triumph, an endearing, unforced, and honest story of failures and frustrations.
Filmmaker Noah Baumbach has, over the years, garnered critical acclaim from many quarters, both for his own efforts, such as Kicking and Screaming and The Squid and the Whale and for his collaborations with fellow auteur Wes Anderson, on efforts such as The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. With his …
To say that none of the 40 + films on our staff-voted list is universally beloved is putting it mildly; but then, that’s the nature of polls like these. Every year we’ve run this poll, there’s been a runaway winner; this year, the top film crossed the three-hundred-point threshold, a first here at Sound On …
Greenberg Directed by Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach has made another movie ostensibly about sad white people, but what he shows us is just plain human. It’s about how we change, or don’t, when the world changes around us. It’s about how we react to tenderness, and how we perceive, or don’t perceive, ourselves in those moments. Roger and …
Greenberg Directed by Noah Baumbach Ben Stiller has spent the most lucrative part of his acting career refining his screen persona as a sullen, narcissistic pratfall factory. History has suggested there is more to him–both as a comedian and as a dramatist–but history also suggested that he did two Night at the Museum movies and something called Meet …