While We're Young Movie Review

Whatever stage in life he’s at, Noah Baumbach has not stopped writing characters who fret about their own lives, where they’ve been, and where they’re headed. I get the feeling he’s a man who is always in tune with some level of dissatisfaction with his life. One shouldn’t confuse that with unhappiness. I think it’s probably natural to wonder about what you’ve done, the choices you’ve made, and whether you could be doing something better or more important. What separates Baumbach from most other people is that he’s attuned to those feelings probably in everyone around him. That’s why he’s so good at writing dialogue and characters that so precisely and concisely sum up complex emotions.

25 Years Ago This Month: December 1987

Movie release schedules were not all that different 25 years ago. Studios saved their best films for the very end of the year, just like they do today, in order to be fresh in awards voters' minds. The result is that a lot of deserving films released earlier in the year are largely ignored. The December 1987 film releases garnered a combined total of 28 Academy Award nomination. If we add The Last Emperor, which had a limited release in late November followed by a wider December release, that makes 37 nominations spread over ten films.

In Empire of the Sun, Steven Spielberg returned to WWII, subject matter that has been at the crux of no fewer than six of the films he's directed. Christian Bale starred in the film about a boy from a wealthy British family living in Shanghai who finds himself in a Japanese internment camp after the occupation begins.

Flirting with Disaster Movie Review

One of the most criminally undervalued comedies of the 90s was written and directed by a man was an Oscar nominee this year for the critically acclaimed The Fighter. But back in 1996 he made a modest comedy, his follow-up to the indie hit Spanking the Monkey. Sporting a great cast and some fantastic comedy writing (combining situational comedy with great one-liners), Flirting with Disaster deserves a lot more notice than it has gotten over the years.

Along Came Polly Movie Review

This review was originally written and published in January 2004 for a website that no longer exists. The unusual structure is a remnant of that site's requirements.

Synopsis: Ruben Feffer (Ben Stiller) plays a risk analyst for a firm that deals with insurance companies. He marries the woman of his dreams (Debra Messing) only to discover her in bed with another man (Hank Azaria) on the first day of their honeymoon. After returning to New York he bumps into an old schoolmate, Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston), and begins a mismatched romance between his compulsive neurotic and her non-committal free-spirit. His best friend, Sandy (Philip Seymour Hoffman), gives him worthless love advice from a man drunk on his own ego.

In the meantime, a subplot involves Ruben assessing the risk factor of Leland Van Lew (Bryan Brown), an Australian in the market for a million dollar life insurance policy. The problem is that every time Ruben meets with Leland, he’s busy engaging in some life-threatening activity such as base jumping from the top of a skyscraper.

Scoop: I have complained for years that sitcom characters cease to be funny when they cross the line between real people in funny situations and cartoonish buffoons reacting in exaggerated ways to the circumstances around them. This is one of many problems in Along Came Polly.

Greenberg Movie Review

If writer/director Noah Baumbach’s latest feature, Greenberg, feels a bit directionless, that’s probably because the title character, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), has lost focus after a breakdown and brief stay in a psychiatric ward. Come to think of it, Baumbach sort of specializes in directionless characters beginning with his first film, Kicking and Screaming, about four recent college graduates unwilling to go forth and take their places in the world. Roger Greenberg could be any one of those characters fifteen years later.