![]() ![]() Follow him on Twitter and Facebook you can also listen to him on his weekly podcast: Maltin on Movies. (Or was it Carmela consulting his Movie Guide on an episode of The Sopranos?) Perhaps the pinnacle of his career was his appearance in a now-classic episode of South Park. He has been the recipient of awards from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Telluride Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and San Diego’s Comic-Con International. He hosted and co-produced the popular Walt Disney Treasures DVD series and has appeared on innumerable television programs and documentaries. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, is a voting member of the National Film Registry, and was appointed by the Librarian of Congress to sit on the Board of Directors of the National Film Preservation Foundation. His books include The 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, The Great Movie Comedians, The Disney Films, The Art of the Cinematographer, Movie Comedy Teams, The Great American Broadcast, and Leonard Maltin’s Movie Encyclopedia. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and appears regularly on Reelz Channel and Turner Classic Movies. Stiller’s Josh Srebnick isn’t the total asshole this time. He is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, now in its third edition, as well as his thirty-year run on television’s Entertainment Tonight. While We’re Young, which finds humor in the broken places, reunites Baumbach with his Greenberg star Ben Stiller. Leonard Maltin is one of the world’s most respected film critics and historians. The filmmaker’s attempt to balance social satire and farce doesn’t always work, but While We’re Young is smart and funny enough to overcome its flaws. When they meet a free-spirited young couple, Josh and Cornelia throw aside friends their own age to trail after the uninhibited hipsters. ![]() Stiller’s role is tailor-made and Watts delivers yet another impressive performance-with a lightness of touch that’s rare in comedies these days-as a woman at a crossroads.īaumbach pokes fun at his characters’ pretensions but allows us to empathize with them at almost every turn, until Stiller goes off the deep end. Josh and Cornelia, happily married middle-aged creatives in NYC, have given up on starting a family. This aspect of the story becomes a bit heavy-handed but is rescued by the humanity in Stiller and Watts’ characterizations we never lose sight of the fact that they love each other. Soon Watts catches her husband’s fever as the 40-ish couple make a desperate stab at recapturing their youth.Īs writer and director, Baumbach casts a keen eye on the absurdities of urban life as well as the issues facing traditional filmmakers at a time when anyone and everyone can create “media” on the spot. Driver insinuates himself into Stiller’s life, personally and professionally. Though Baumbach lets his themes run off course as the film progresses, he sure as hell touches a raw nerve.Into his life steps an outgoing young man (Adam Driver) and his wife (Amanda Seyfried) who seem to represent everything he isn’t: glib, assertive, and spontaneous. His scenes with the gifted Driver, playing a careerist in hipster’s clothing, escalate into generational comic warfare of a high order. Stiller is killer at blending wit with physical comedy. But compassion also seeps through the cracks. Baumbach scores many a caustic laugh at the expense of watching Josh and Cornelia try to recapture their youth. What to do? Fraternize with twentysomethings in the persons of Jamie ( Girls‘ Adam Driver), a wanna-be filmmaker who kisses Josh’s ass at every opportunity, and his wife, Darby (Amanda Seyfried), who takes Cornelia to hip-hop dance classes. But as Josh labors over the umpteenth edit of his cerebral new film, it’s plain that he has hit a dry patch and that something is still missing. They tried to start a family and were unable to and have decided they’re okay with that. Cornelia and Josh have adjusted to being childless. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are Josh and Cornelia Srebnick, happily married middle-aged members of New Yorks creative class. Josh and Cornelia feel alienated from their age-appropriate, kid-focused BFFs, played by Maria Dizzia and Adam Horovitz. The Coercive World of No Jumper’s Adam22: ‘He Exploited Me From Day One’īut the real threat in the mind of fortysomething Josh is youth, expressed in a quote from Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder that opens the film. ![]()
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