Frances Ha

Frances Ha is a very good film. And It's almost indisputable that Frances Ha resembles Woody Allen oldest works. The satire against the so-called intellectuals, the satire of a - perhaps ridicule aspect of society, that is the obsession with organization and patronizing, and the fact that the character - the protagonist - is an allegory, each one of these aspects are present in Frances Ha. Of course, there is some originality on here. The black and white choice, the occasional 80s beat which pops out of nowhere and ends fitting perfectly the scene, the great acting by Greta Gerwig - all of these are aspects which makes Frances Ha an unique film. And the dialogs are nothing like in Woody's films - sure about that. There is some surreal dark- humor on them, and adds to the uniqueness of the film in general. Overall, very well written, acted and directed. Certainly recommended. 8.5/10

Baumbach is the Bed, Bath, and Beyond of indie, his newest film resembling the tacky ten dollar pre-framed black and white photos of vague French "bohemian" cityscapes that you buy and hang in a dirty insurance office's bathroom to distract you from the smell and the crack in the wall. Films whose "bitter, angry characters" are stick-figure caricatures embodied by actors neither complex or talented enough to make their character's bitterness or anger anything deeper than a mere external affectation, directed by a clever hipster con artist hiding the heart of his arch conservatism. Anyone who would hire Ben Stiller ("Greenberg") to play an embittered intellectual railing against the corporate mediocrity of modern life should be, at the very least, highly suspect. Gerwig now stands as the latest media-manufactured "it" girl, an unthreatening and perfectly insipid creature made-to-order for a dead and non-existent counterculture. Still, Baumbach and his muse are very necessary these days to convince an already euthanized and brainwashed Generation ZZZ that their spiritual, moral, and political malaise is a livable, "charming" and tolerable one, so that they can really, really forgive themselves for not roaring back like a million untamed lions against the state-sponsored execution of their hearts, minds, and souls as previous generations once did, for better or worse. In that sense, Baumbach may become the most cherished of contemporary cinematic frauds, a directorial eunuch as safe and as impotent as the audiences who flock to the flattery of his films rather than by those individuals perceptive enough to be thoroughly repulsed by them. And put aside those desperate comparisons to the French New Wave, or 70's Woody Allen. What you're seeing on screen is the rotting carcass of a nation's exhausted cinema .... pointless, empty triviality posturing as wry social observation, spewed from the wealthy pockets of a talentless hack with too many inside connections and Taschen art books piled up onto his conspicuously displayed Eames chair.

So, incidentally, Frances is an apprentice dancer for a professional dance company in NYC at the age of 27. This is absurdly out of touch with the realities of the dance world. If she were so fortunate to be associated with a professional dance company, she would have had to be focused and disciplined enough to endure a physical regimen that would have trumped all of this silly girl's petty indulgences. The movie is a fantasy about an ignorant and condescending, wannabe charmer who has no idea nor any interest in the art of dance or the daily struggles of anyone anywhere. Please, who cares what happens to this phony, self- indulgent poseur and her gang of narcissistic friends. No mention of the harsh realities that prevail outside her bubble world. A movie that inadvertently but perfectly indicts the superficial sensibilities of these spoiled children and the makers of this movie. Americans are pretty much reviled amongst much of Europe these days. Self-indulgent, destructive and oblivious certainly. Charming? In a word, no.

It's official. I hate this director's movies. I've been wondering why, and I have been wondering why I feel so angry about them, and it finally dawned on me: it's about class. See, I grew up working class, not indulged, and I had work for a living starting at age 16. I understand the value of hard work, sure, but I also understand the necessity for it for people like me. When I and my relatives have problems, they are real problems: cancer, loss of job that may result in homelessness, bearing for years an awful boss with 40 IQ points less than us because we need the boring job, alcoholism and no money to go to tony recovery resorts, having to eat beans and rice not from some eating disorder/fad but because that's all we can afford, living with dental pain for five years because we can't afford basic dentistry (much less teeth bleaching) and the grinding, endless truth of being stuck in our class because the uberwealthy won't allow us to move from it, no matter how well we follow the rules of careful education, careful savings, and hard work. So when I see these movies by overly indulged people and about overly indulged people, I get so angry I see red. I don't care about these people and their petty, self-invented "problems." I wish for them that they get hit by a truck and lose a leg or two and earn a real problem so they understand what BS this BS they make films about is. (not that such a thing would be a real problem for them like it would be for people of my class who can't afford good health care, but at least it wouldn't be more of this non-problem crap they get so whiny about in their whiny movies.) Movies like this make me wonder, and not for the first time, why there isn't a violent class revolution. Hey, we'd like just a year or two of experiencing these non-problem "problems," too. "Gee, I can't decide what upper middle class artsy thing to be after my trip to Paris. Gee, my parents don't love me perfectly in just the way I want to be loved." Yeahyeahyeah. Poor you.