I remember a coupla months ago seeing Ben Stiller and Noah Baumbach on
The Charlie Rose Show, talking about their latest movie,
Greenberg, and marveling at their own genius
(on an even more serious level than Carrell/Rudd.) Now that I've seen the movie, I see that's it's just the latest in a now-long line of movies about a guy who is a complete asshole, very much aware of and in fact in love with his own neuroses, disliked greatly by his own "friends," possesses no trait even remotely redeemable, somehow STILL gets the woman in spite of his best efforts to prove what a complete douchebag he is, and yet we're supposed to give two shits whether he lives, dies or grows shrooms out of his crack.* But hey, maybe they really are just too smart for me.
* whoever knows where this quote comes from wins
7 Minutes in Heaven with Xmastime!!!!!!.
2 comments:
My own take after having seen it:
I saw Greenberg, a film about a dysfunctional and barely interesting person. It is another filmic form of torture from Noah Baumbach, who has made quite a career of making movies about unpleasant, self-centered wretches (Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney in "The Squid and the Whale"; Nicole Kidman in "Margot at the Wedding"). The sad center of Greenberg is Ben Stiller, a just-out-of the asylum condescending dick who is house-sitting for his brother in L.A. Thankfully, unlike the prior films, Baumbach doesn't put children front and center for the abuse he finds so illuminating.
To give credit where it is due, Stiller does well with his appointed tasks, which is to squeeze a little humanity out of such a creepy, crappy character. Greenberg ends up coyly ambivalent. But really, do we care that an asshole like Stiller may find love at the end of the day?
We do not.
exactamundo
Post a Comment