Noah Baumbach is officially On Blast

Who is letting Noah Baumbach direct films still? Who is putting up the money or acting in them or avidly going to see his films. Somebody must, because he's still writing and directing films. Kicking and Screaming came out in 1995, 15 years ago! After seeing it, I came to the conclusion that talent isn't always involved in the making of a film. I was curious to see how far he's come and we watched Margot at the Wedding.

Kicking and Screaming - I knew this film would be bad when the opening title apeared, telling us that it was just after graduation. Then the scene proceeding to show us...just after graduation. Through the film there are segment titles that tell you what time period it is, which follows the structure of the school year. Through the film it makes sense, but seeing that opening title card just rubbed me the wrong way, like an unnecessary narrator. There's no plot to the film, so the title cards end up being needed as place markers in an otherwise meaningless and wandering story.
The film revolves around 4 guys who just graduated college and don't want to move on. They still live around campus in a house, go to the same bar they went to while in school and occasionally go back to campus. It's kind of a charming and funny idea, but there's nothing charming or funny in the movie.
This films just screams that it's a director's first film. It was like I was back in freshman screenwriting, listening to dialogue written by an 21 year old trying to be ironic, writing characters that talk about nothing while doing nothing. I've said it before, but nowhere does it apply more; Pulp Fiction has taught us that if you're characters are going to talk about nothing...they have to either be interesting, out of place or actually doing something while talking about nothing. Here, the characters are doing nothing and talking about nothing. That leaves us with nothing. Movies where nothing happens and where nothing interesting is happening are STUPID. (Jarhead is a war movie about not actually fighting. It's boring.)
Baumbach must think his dialogue is so clever that he can get away with having no plot. The scenes go no where, there's hardly any room for real emotional acting, and there's no building drama or plot. There's just 4 guys talking about pop culture and using big words they learned in their literature classes. But not only is the writing horrible, the directing is atrocious. There's just a bunch of awkward standing around and talking. The only reason I finished this was to be able to give it a bad review. I hope Noah Baumbach eventually reads this. This was a bad, bad movie. The person that made this should not have been able to make a second film, let alone still be making films 15 years later.

Margot at the Wedding - But yet here we are. This film was overall an improvement, and I came close to liking it. Still with this film, nothing really happens. There's barely any plot. (Though compared with Kicking and Screaming this is Moby Dick.) No likable characters. Hardly any interesting scenes. Lots of elitist moments. In fact, I started making an Indie Film Checklist which I believe Baumbach had on set to make sure he hit all the points.
Indie Film Checklist
- a train ride
- masturbation
- a face licking/awkward sexual advance
- lots of psycho babble
- lots of talking to kids like they're adults
- No conclusions to things
- Constant state of leaving the audience in a "what's going on?/where are they?" state/no sense of time
- Comedic actor in a drama (Jack Black)
- ending....?
It opened with a train ride, then a ferry ride. Holy crap, a double whammy. Nicole Kidman goes to town on herself. A female masturbation scene, another double whammy! Kidman gets her face licked by some dude, super weird and as we all know super weird means super Indie! There was so much psycho babble, that should have been the title of the film. It's kind of funny that Kidman thinks every kid is retarded. Everyone in the film has some major emotional problems, so I guess it makes sense that there would be plenty of that going on. And mix that with the way they talk to the kids. That's a big part of the film, Kidman and her smothering of her son while criticizing him and hating when he criticizes her.
A big problem of the film is that it's unclear what exactly is going on at times. It jumps a lot, which can be fine, but there was no conclusion to anything. Like when the son gets bitten by the weird kid. Nothing ended up happening, and we never saw those people ever again. This is bad, horrible writing. It's just another example that Noah Baumbach is a bad writer. Anyone can write characters like his, but it takes good writing to give them arcs and growth and making sure that everything ends up tieing in together in some way. It's not that it has to be tied into a perfect bow, but at least have two scenes where there's some conclusion to something. The only conclusion was that the tree got cut down.
Then the movie ended. Nicole Kidman drops her purse and runs after the bus she just put her son on, and gets on herself. Then fade to black. I guess it's showing that problems continue or something. I saw it coming. As soon as the bus kept moving after she was on it, I thought, "Ah crap, that's the end of the film, it's going to end like this."
And that's how it will end for me and Noah Baumbach's film career. Greenburg looked promising, but oh well. I gave him all the chance to convince me that he can direct a film. In my opinion all he's capable of is assisting Wes Anderson in some of the writing of his films. Goodbye, Noah. Your directing career is permanently ON BLAST.