Link and Response

Neill Cameron the A to Z of Awesomeness. This is so fun
Sunset Gun Kim Morgan recalls her time on the now departed At the Movies
Twitpic Tom Hanks tweets the casting of his new film. He's reuniting with Julia Roberts for Larry's Crowne. Let's hope it's better than Charlie Wilson's War
Empire Bryan Singer will oversee but not direct X-Men: First Class. I haven't seen this much craziness for "young" versions of things since the Muppet Babies craze in the 80s
popbytes Dennis Hopper gets his Walk of Fame star


Celebitchy on Jude Law's hair and the "naughty Adonis" vibe
CHUD announces the best back-to-back filming news I've heard in years and years: Viggo & Cronenberg will follow filming of Talking Cure with Eastern Promises 2. Yay!
The Awl Clash of the Titans "Adventures in Mimicry"

Here's the trailer for The Lovely Laura Linney's Showtime series The Big C which co-stars Gabourey Sidibe and Oliver Platt. They seem to be attempting to jam all the TLLL trademarks into one series...



Acerbic wit, sympathetic mortality drama, half-assed romance and of course... the sister act. It's all there. And nobody does the sister act better you must admit.

he said / he said
Salon on the continued might of French cinema and...
.......The Guardian responds. Do Brits measure up?
Todd Alcott details A Serious Man's true protagonist and...
.......Scanners responds to this reading and more
New York Times sings the praises of Greta Gerwig and...
.......My New Plaid Pants joins in for the chorus

uh, I guess I should see a Greta Gerwig movie right quick. I'm still a Gerwirgin and I hate being late to actress parties. I'm used to starting them!

Honk If You Like Greenberg

Adam of Club Silencio with a post as aimless as Roger Greenberg, and as soured as as he would be by the L.A. Starbucks in which I write this.

"Are you going to let me in?" A response to L.A. traffic that becomes an oft-repeated anthem for the lovelorn and aimless, and the perfect intro to Noah Baumbach's latest, Greenberg.

Florence (Greta Gerwig) runs errands with some direction as a personal assistant, but is stuck with the same small errands of life offered to Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller); a by-choice drifter and house guest who's freed from the shackles of his self-induced stint in an asylum. He's taken to building dog houses and writing angry posts on Pakistan and commercialized coffee in aims of doing absolutely nothing, admirably. Roger and Florence come together with that same anthem - "Are you going to let me in?" - as love and connection springs from their occasional psychosis, awkwardness, indifference, and general dread of that very same love and connection.


Greenberg seems often of a familiar mold. A downtrodden and dismal male character falls for a forlorn woman who's still bafflingly out of his league; she's persistently "just gotten out of a long relationship," while his relationships consist of certifiable anxiety and outlashings of lust that are appropriately confused with verbal abuse. The film even finds a similar (albeit more sour) finale to Alexander Payne's Sideways; a means for our sadsack male's direction without significant signposts. The difference here is that Baumbach's indifference is so astutely fixated and his characters so brittle and weary that love isn't necessarily the destination we want for these people. A goal, a hint of whimsy, the glimmers of passion they've resigned themselves from; any change is a good change. It's a caustic piece steeped in its detailed dialogue and a strong sense of place. It's almost Baumbach's trademark at this point: to throw himself into human flaws and frailties, and hope to find charm in what remains. It's offputting, funny and filled with novelistic precision, even while the film's arc is small enough to seem straightforward.


An auto shop's streetside windbag becomes a startlingly adept image of Greenberg's own flailing. It tosses about amidst the traffic, human-like arms outstretched in outrage or confusion: basically Roger's full time job whilst unemployed. Roger can't drive and he can't swim, but boy can he complain about both with remarkable skill. He's like someone from Baumbach's last film, Margot at the Wedding, with an unknowing ability to wound because he's wounded. "Hurt people hurt people," so says another of the film's key anthems, spoken by the harmlessly wounded Florence. Gerwig's goofy, nervously sexy self is a charm here, complimenting Stiller's cold but compelling Roger in ways that make the union the believable detour for these characters. In Baumbach's world misery not only loves company, it needs it to thrive and provide more fodder for the misery. Thankfully, this time the company's feelings are mutual.

JA Gives Thanks...

... for the weirdly discomfiting scene at the pizza place early on in Ti West's terrific horror-throwback The House of the Devil. It cements everything that the film does so well, from the uncannily spot-on period detail to the off-kilter hum of dread throbbing below the most banal of surfaces. Greasy pizza will murder us all!

Plus Greta Gerwig's hairstyle is just flippin' rad.
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[Editor's Note: the official site says this is now available VOD if you're curious]