Why Greta Gerwig (hopefully) Won't Be the Next Big Thing

Tim here, hoping that we're all okay with talking about Greta Gerwig a little bit more. The 29-year-old actress and her career has been discussed to the point of distraction throughout the internet ever since she erupted onto the indie scene in 2006 and 2007 in a pair of Joe Swanberg films, LOL and Hannah Takes the Stairs, but on the eve of her new collaboration with director Noah Baumbach, Frances Ha, it seemed the right moment to take stock of where her short but impressively-stocked career has taken her so far. It's also a great moment to look head-on at the question that has hung around the new film like a shroud: is Frances Ha going to be Gerwig’s “breakout” film, the one that finally makes her a movie star?

My feeling, without having seen the movie (where I live in Chicago, it's not opening for a while yet) is that it almost certainly won't. And that's not something that people who love the actress need to feel very bad about, either.

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Yes, No, Maybe So? Greta Gerwig in 'Frances Ha'

Hey lovelies. Beau here with a look at the newest indie darling. 

It’s hard to pin down Noah Baumbach. While most of his nineties peers have vanished from the cinematic landscape or are reaping all the glory on the mountains, he’s that curious anomaly that no one is quite sure what to do with.

Since his resurgence and critical coup in 2005 with The Squid and the Whale, (a coming out party for Jesse Eisenberg post-Rodger Dodger) he’s only made two films in the seven/eight years after. Margot at the Wedding is an enormously divisive picture, but even that couldn’t prepare audiences and critics alike for his follow-up, Greenberg featuring a particularly acidic turn from Ben Stiller. It’s not many films that could inspire such vitriol as to warrant something like this on theater’s windows nationwide. 

Eek.

Yes, No, Maybe So breakdown after the jump.

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Amir's Best of 2012

Amir here. Nathaniel has invited TFE contributors to share their top ten lists along with his own. Drawing up this list is a real dilemma every year. Not that I’m under the illusion that a list like this bears any significance on my personal affection for the films I leave out, but I still want it to be representative of the whole picture. This year was particularly tough. It’s been a terrific year for cinema, possibly my favorite since 2007. Even with five honorable mentions I still couldn’t find room for Moonrise Kingdom, Queen of Versailles, Silver Linings Playbook, The Grey, Damsels in Distress, Anna Karenina and so many others that I thoroughly enjoyed. But these lists are never definitive. Ask me on a different day and I might give you a whole different set. At this moment, this is where I stand.

Honorable Mentions
We don’t get to see films as unique and original as Beasts of the Southern Wild very often so it pains me to leave it off. It moved me to tears and its images are etched in my memory all these months later. Magic Mike was a real highlight, a fully realized screenplay that dug beneath the flesh of its stars to explore universal themes and it had a few career-best performances to boot. As a big documentary buff and in such a banner year for the form, I find myself surprised that no doc made it to the top ten but three of my favorites were left just off: Sarah Polley’s brave and engrossing Stories We Tell in which the young Canadian filmmaker had the audacity to reveal the deepest secrets of her family through her poetic vision; Searching For Sugar Man, where the incredible story of a gifted, but largely unknown artist takes a twist that is as heartbreaking as it is heartwarming; and The Gatekeepers, an unprecedented exposé of the politics of the Israel-Palestine conflict and undoubtedly the most important film of the year. 

top ten after the jump

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NYFF: "Frances Ha" Dazzling Brooklyn Snapshot

Michael C. here to report on the first home run I've seen at the New York Film Festival. Frances Ha is the type movie experience I’m hoping for every time I plunk down my ticket money. It knows exactly what it wants to do and how it wants to do it and as a result it grabs you by the sleeve and pulls you right in. It is Noah Baumbach’s finest film to date and the big breakout due for Greta Gerwig for some time now. 

Frances (Gerwig) is a dancer who shares a Brooklyn apartment with her bestest buddy Sophie (Mickey Sumner). Pushing thirty and stalled professionally and personally, she is right at the age when spending her nights flitting around the city getting wasted with her girlfriend stops being cute and starts being a cause for concern. When events transpire to threaten Frances' holding pattern the wheels quickly come off her cushy existence.

With this film Baumbach has not expanded his style so much as smashed it into a thousand pieces and arranged them into a collage. [More...]

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TIFF: Charmed by Ewan McGregor and "Frances Ha"

Toronto International Film Festival reports. Amir is already on the scene...

Amir here. The first couple of days at the festival have been so fantastic, surreal even, that I fear there’s no way to go from here but down. There’s been quite a lot of star gazing: Ryan Gosling, Snoop Dogg Lion, Selena Gomez, Abbie Cornish and the impossibly gorgeous Greta Gerwig. I also happened to run into the super lovely Ben Whishaw and most significant of all, had a one on one interview with William H. Macy for The Sessions. It was an amazing experience as Macy’s long been one of my favourite actors and to get to meet him in person was more than I could ask for. (The interview is forthcoming.)

The most unexpected of my encounters with the celebrities, however, happened at the screening of Noah Baumbach’s exquisite Frances Ha. Those of you following me on twitter have already seen my picture with the man in question but the story went as such: prior to the film, my friends and I were discussing which celebrities we most wanted to see and my pick was Ewan McGregor, who’s in town for the premiere of The Impossible; he's probably my favourite actor working today. Then, as we settle in our seats in the theatre, I look to a few rows ahead and lo and behold, McGregor – who is in no way involved with the film and is only there to see it – is sitting there, just chatting with a friend.

And then this happened...

me and McGregor!

Having worked behind the scenes at TIFF for so many years, I’ve seen a good share of celebrities but this was something truly special.

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