'Lady Bird' Picked Up by A24

By Spencer Coile

After stellar performances in Greenberg, Frances Ha, Mistress America, 20th Century Women, and countless indies in the past decade, it was only a matter of time before Greta Gerwig got behind the directorial seat. Her debut film, Lady Bird, the story of a Sacramento teenager (Saoirse Ronan) who prepares to go to college in New York City has officially been picked up by A24 and is looking at a fall release. Co-written with frequent collaborator Noah Baumbach, Lady Bird also features Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, and Tracy Letts. 

With any luck, Gerwig's debut will begin generating Oscar buzz already -- A24 has seen some great success in the past few years (one notable example being 20th Century Women and recent Best Picture winner, Moonlight). And although it is too soon to call the film's Oscar chances, one thought remains abdundantly clear: Greta Gerwig's career is at a steady trajectory, and we are just lucky enough to be witnessing it firsthand. 

Noah Baumbach Heads to Netflix

Chris here. Consider me outright clamoring for whatever Noah Baumbach does next, even if Mistress America (and for that matter his DePalma doc) wasn't as long ago as it feels like. Time is a slow beast when you're waiting on beloved writer/directors. His next, The Meyerowitz Stories, is his most star-studded and it just got picked up by Netflix.

The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson (all hippied out to the left), Ben Stiller, and now Netflix mainstay Adam Sandler as a family reuniting in New York to celebrate their artist father. Baumbach's work has been an evolving array of comic tones, so where on his spectrum it will land from bitter pill Margot at the Wedding to the farce of Mistress America is anyone's guess. If nothing else, this could be his largest platform yet - especially if this noteworthy cast is also met with Baumbach's less misanthropic side.

Netflix, for what it's worth, already has confidence in the film: this will be one of their few titles that will also receive a theatrical release, along with this year's Oscar hopeful Mudbound. 

Baumbach's films have only been outside shots at best, aside from a screenplay nomination for The Squid and the Whale and some Globe-nominated performances. But if this could even be a comedy contender at the Globes, I suspect Netflix will need to put more than a toe in the theatrical waters to clearly mark its theatrical/television territory. Are you excited for Noah Baumbach's latest?

Emma Thompson's Category is: Hippie Chic Realness

Manuel here. I'm gonna keep it short and sweet and let wonderful being all around Emma Thompson do all the talking since her outfits for the upcoming Noah Baumbach film Yen Din Ka Kissa are loud! 

The film, as you may know already, stars Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, and Ben Stiller (three actors whose gifts for dry humor and acerbic comedy one hopes Baumbach will mine to great effect; he's done it before with Stiller, at least). But really—and I know I'm breaching Actor Month rules here at TFE—it's Thompson who I'm most looking forward to since her pairing with Baumbach (and with those outfits) is pretty promising. That she's described her character as a "dreadful, passive-aggressive alcoholic" is just icing on the cake, and has me thinking we may be seeing the bawdy side of Thompson we so often get on red carpets but so rarely on screen. Which boho look is your favorite?

NYFF: De Palma

Brian de Palma. The man behind: Passion, Mission to Mars, Body Double, Scarface, Carrie, Sisters, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, and many more.Jason reporting from the New York Film Festival.

Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's documentary De Palma is, at a basic level, just a sit-down walk-through with the director Brian De Palma across the length of his entire movie career. The co-directors had previously gotten this tour on a personal level, having weekly dinners with the man, and decided, for awesomeness' sake, to capture for future generations of movie-geeks' sake. I saw De Palma only a week and a half ago, and I feel like it needs to be known that not only have I been forced, literally forced, in the wake of it to go and watch three of De Palma's movies in the time between watching the doc and writing this review, but it's also colored every single thing I've written in the time since, and if you follow my hyperactive blog then you know I write a whole lot in a week and a half. A ton. And Brian De Palma, he done swallowed me whole. I can only see things through his eyes now.

I mean, I'm an easy mark, the easiest of easies: I've vigorously defended the likes of Snake Eyes or Femme Fatale at dinner parties; I've drunkenly slurred out verbal love-letters to Fiona Shaw's three miles passed the mark performance in The Black Dahlia; I've had more nightmares scarred by Angie Dickinson's elevator experience than most people have had nightmares, period.

Paltrow, de Palma, and Baumbach

I love sleaze and I love Hitchcock and in Brian De Palma the twain they meet and they meet like fireworks bursting over a triumphantly dead Nancy Allen, and it's like roadhouse whiskey to me -- I like it, I like it!!!

He is New York's Verhoeven -- fun and dirty and adult, dumb and genius in equal gasping measure. I'll go down with his ship, lapping up every red drop. And De Palma, The Film, captures the the man's madness in glorious measure. It is indeed like sitting down to dinner with the man who could dream up both Holly Body's cum speech and "Say hello to my little friend" and poking him in the belly for more. He is ready able and willing to spill more or more still for us, and it's this geek's idea of paradise. I could've watched fifteen full hours of De Palma.

De Palma is screening at the NYFF on Wednesday, September 30th and will eventually be distributed by A24.  Previous NYFF reviews here. For more Jason De Palma love, you need to visit My New Plaid Pants.

Beauty vs Beast: Thoroughly Modern Mistress

Happy Monday, everybody -- Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll here for you to ponder. I've been trying to use older films for this series lately since it's more likely you'll participate if you've, you know, seen the movie at hand, but this week it just couldn't be helped; we have to go current. Not only is it director Noah Baumbach's birthday later this week (he's turning 46 on Thursday) but just yesterday Nathaniel admitted (MUCH TO MY HORROR) that he didn't much like Baumbach's new film Mistress America. What what what? I... disagree. (Here's the review I wrote.) While I can't say MA kicked my beloved Frances Ha to the curb or anything quite that psychotic (it would take a miracle or a nuke to come close) I reveled in Mistress' heady mix of madcap silliness and sadness - nothing's made me feel quite so simultaneously goofy and gallant in some time. What a script; what a sharp-edged choreography of words and full-screen wiliness. Anyway hopefully you have seen it by now, and can judge this week's contest for yourselves...

PREVIOUSLY Yesterday the 1954 Supporting Actress Smackdown put that year to bed for this month at TFE, but wait, one last thing -- who successfully won Sabrina, says y'all? It was a shockingly close battle between the brothers, but in the end William Holden's, well, William-Holden-ness, beat out Bogie. Said Leslie19:

"All William Holden, all the time. Who else can sit down on champagne glasses with such aplomb?"