the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

[Chris Knipp]

BAUMBACH AND BERGMAN.
True, Baumbach's audience is small, unless you count 2012's Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, which he wrote the screenplay, which grossed over $200 million. Ingmar Bergman had a small audience in his early US Janus releases, if big for an arthouse director. It has gathered numbers over the years because Bergman's films are classics worth watching again and again. Not that I'm comparing him to Bergman, but Baumbach will gather numbers over time too. Yes, Meyerowitz Stories is a Netflix release with little theatrical exposure but thereby more people are seeing a Baumbach movie.

The Meyerowitz Stories - I reviewed it at the time - is a warm, mature work that shows a lot of growth and change over the dry, brittle wit of The Squid and the Whale and I'll stand by saying it's "scattershot" but, for Wes Anderson's principle writer, his most Wes Anderson film. But being warm and mature doesn't always make for the most effective art, and The Squid and the Whale is more memorable, I'm afraid.

I hope you're checking out my Rendez-Vous with French Cinema reviews. I suspect you are since you have seemed to be one of my most faithful readers. Thank you!