Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's "Frances Ha"

don't forget Cybill did a Cole Porter MOVIE for Bogdanovich

(that finished a whole buncha things)

Who is their Orson Welles?

― tokyo rosemary, Sunday, May 12, 2013 9:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bogdanovich, no? Apparently Baumbach is also tight w/De Palma (he interviewed him for a featurette on the CC Blow-Out, which included allusions to them hanging out). However BDP is still working regularly, so...Captain Ascot it is!

rosie bogdanovich is their orson welles :(

every millenial is their own orson welles

wow so i'd heard bogdanovich ran a 'letter of apology' after at long last love flopped but i never knew it was THIS (pretty far from apologetic):

http://www.thelmagazine.com/images/blogimages/2011/06/17/1308330989-bogdanovichloveletter.jpg

what a fucking schmuck

btw anyone w/ any curiosity about at long last love, thinking a fiasco that legendary must be somehow inadvertantly entertaining, do not bother. it is one dreary turd of a movie. can't even begin to imagine what his daisy miller was like.

this is great

i really liked it

how much dancing?

Oh, I hope Bogdanovich moves in with them and starts ranting about Fudgesicles.

really loved the trip to paris part.

Bogdanovich should endorse a line of celebrity ascots.

Yeah, this was pretty great; think I liked it even more than Damsels in Distress.

yeah... yeah!!! suck it johny crunmch

*farts*

This is a ridiculously charming movie, which means that some people will find ridiculously irritating but screw those people.

I can see why they wanted to emphasise that it germinated before Girls because the territory's very similar except the characters are 10x more likeable.

i've seen bogdanovich's 'daisy miller,' it's as boring as you'd expect, tho cybill s. is pretty well cast.

except the characters are 10x more likeable.

kind of a low bar there, but point made.

2 very different takes on this I read:

Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha achieves something that is rare in cinema. It creates a distinct, internally consistent world, fully populated with vivid characters. Unfortunately, those characters are fucking hipsters.

“I Internet-acquired three very rare Ray-Bans. I had a great day.” I don’t know anybody who talks like that, and I have to give props to what may be the film's most almost-likeable character, but this is the world Baumbach delivers. From The Squid and the Whale (which I liked) to Greenberg, the director tends to fill his movies with insufferable boors. Many hail this new film as a delightful mid-career course correction. But from the movie's opening frame, the spoiled man- and woman-children of Frances Ha operate in a precious, blinkered milieu, selfish and largely unsympathetic even when they aren't urinating in public. http://dcist.com/2013/05/out_of_frame_frances_ha.php

versus:

Baumbach has created a fey, sneakily charming generational touchstone on a par with “Annie Hall” and his own Gen Y col-grad comedy “Kicking and Screaming.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/frances-ha-movie-review/2013/05/22/93746ee2-c115-11e2-8bd8-2788030e6b44_story.html

in what universe was kicking and screaming gen y

this is so much better than Kicking and Screaming.

what balls said

anyone who actually complains about "fucking hipsters" doesn't deserve to write for a living

when i hear the word 'hipster' i reach for my...

think the first reviewer might have missed the intended ridiculousness of the ray bans comment, and also that there's no way that guy is the films most almost-likeable character

Sigh at people who dislike films because 'uh I didn't like the characters'.

i haven't read this thread but is this movie mumblecore

I know a mumblecore movie when I see one, by the title. this is a mumblecore movie.

so why ask

#mumblecore

i think the answer tells you what kind of an excuse you have to look at greta gerwig

After a cringe-y start, it was okay.

http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/frances-ha/

Eh fuck it -- it was good, better than his other films except Squid.

Indie dreamgirls are feminized versions of their male indie writer-directors. Julie Delpy of the Before series is the most successfully realized, I think: her insecurities are her own.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, May 11, 2013 5:39 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure whats going on up here but gerwig seems decided not an indie dream girl, shes not super attractive and is generally just way too realistic, anyway this looks p rad im looking forward to it

also she co-wrote the movie and wasn't an object of romantic longing for any character in the film, so the term "dream girl" wouldn't fit, unless she is supposed to be the audience's "dream girl". in this sense idk... i disagree with lagoon because i think she is very attractive and in this film is completely endearing, but not in a way that seems to cater to any sort of male fantasy. i don't think frances is obviously a product of a male imagination, directly or indirectly, even though this film is in many ways a millenial update of Manhattan.

She's arguably an object of romantic longing for Benji, but I agree that she makes good on her plea of "undateable" and bravo to her, et al.

fwiw not trying say gerwig is hideously disfigured or anything just shes in the normal attractive person range not the zoey deschanel/natalie portman special professional beautiful actor one

natalie portman is meh

i can totally get not being into her, she doesnt personally really move me, but she is obviously perfectly formed

i just think maybe gwyneth paltrow works better in the "special professional beautiful actor"/"perfectly formed" role. i actually sort of RESENT how perfect-looking gwyneth is.

yeah i just mentioned portman and zoey cause they are indie dream girls, anyway i think gerwig is compelling for being a more ordinary person, her acting/general vibe feels realistic too

natalie, zooey, gwyneth, and greta are all perfect-looking to me tbh although i can see how greta doesn't conform as perfectly to contemporary beauty standards as the other three. love natalie portman btw... don't get the hate. i might be a bigger fan of black swan than most people though, and more forgiving of garden state.

but yeah... gerwig's shtick is more like diane keaton's in that it is based on the idiosyncrasies of her personality.

Keaton was stunning in a way GG probably won't ever be.

GG's presence in FH is so odd that I'm having trouble thinking whom she evokes or reminds me of.

it occurred to me that the boyfriend (adam?) in "girls" is kind of a manic pixie dream guy, no?

I think he's an indie "it" guy but this movie is the only place i can think of where he was dreamy. On Girls his character can be pretty dark at times, and is always a little "off" and not in a cute way.

baumbach seems obsessed with being an old fogey and his difficulties relating to young folk

check plot of his next (?) movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1791682/

Looks like a good cast. I love Naomi Watts.

Or maybe i just love Mulholland Drive. Either way i can see her working well in a baumbach film.

would watch a whole movie of Frances and Benji bullshitting

"the spoiled man- and woman-children"

Really very bored of this complaint. I feel like I've read a thousand generic hipster/privilege moans in recent years. If he finds the characters unsympathetic then that's his problem. Maybe he shouldn't watch any movies about middle-class twentysomethings.

This is wrong too. "The most devastating example of this is also the most class-unconscious. How many of us can afford to make the kind of weekend mistake she makes mid-way through the film?"

It's made clear that she hardly has any cash and puts the Paris trip on her Visa, against Benji's advice. And there's an explicit exchange with Benji where he points out that her idea of "poor" isn't poor as most people would understand it.