From 'Girls' to Frances Ha, NY Girls Just Can't Seem to Grow Up.

Smoking and drinking on the fire escape. Definitely a part of my EARLY 20's, not my LATE 20's. Go on the damn balcony. You know what Virginia Woolf book this reminds ME of? None of them!

Finally watched Baumbach's minimalist mumblecore women-constantly-on-their-period flick Frances Ha (2013) and I have no idea how it's appealing at all. Greta Gerwig, although a great actress is reduced to playing a woman whom if I was in college with I would make fun of every day just for not having her shit together. Which might have been cute at like 22 but she's like what 28 in this film?

They still use words like 'd-bags' 'omg I love you', and smoke on the fire escape without the fear of it buckling underneath them and falling to their deaths. It's like seriously enough. Move in with your ugly hipster boyfriend who doesn't shave, make a five year plan, and get a mother-effing job. We're in a recession and don't have time for your menstrual bullshit.

Baumbach can write great characters, no one is questioning that. But can he write relevant ones. The only time that, in my not-so-humble opinion, in which he has done that was in The Squid and the Whale (2005) because he wrote about his own family and the struggles didn't seem pretentious and pointless, they seemed existential and sincere.

Even with a desk job, Hannah can't help from pouting.

Back in the 90's we had middle-aged white man anger and frustration, I guess today's trend is 'twenty-something New York hipster chick in limbo'. That's the giant cash cow. Lena Dunham's pile of Golden Globes is getting larger and larger and likely to continue growing after this Sunday. And perhaps I'm biased but ever since I moved to Los Angeles, I get seriously tired of people in New York who do nothing but to complain about living in New York...here's an idea, fucking move! 'I can't afford Tribeca/NoHo/Morningside Heights' then maybe find some job that pays more than 10$ an hour.
Oh and your ugly, good-for-nothing slacker, jobless boyfriend is giving you a hard time? Break up with him and join eHarmony like the rest of us, or go hang out at a bar near Wallstreet. It's time to stop dreaming and start doing. My life is hard too and don't get me wrong, I'm unhappy. But when I try to complain to my mother she tells me to do two things; 'shut up, and grow up'. (But that could be just her Soviet upbringing talking). Also, the most fascinating thing about a man should not be whether or not he smokes indoors kay?? 

After a while of Frances Ha (2013) I felt like one of those poor souls at that dinner party that she goes to that have to politely nod and smile as she talks nonsense endlessly and ends it with 'blah..I sound stoned, but I'm not stoned'. It's like thank god she's leaving. 

Dear Frances and Hannah, try living my life for one minute. Yeah, I might complain about it with a box of Chardonnay on a Friday night,  I mean who knows what I say then? But I'm not going to film it and pitch it to HBO...or to Baumbach for that matter (always had my heart set on Gus Van Sant myself). :P Anyway, seriously, enough. My ears are bleeding. Is this really what Gloria Steinem and the rest fought for and burned their bras for? For privileged white girls to whine about nothing for hours? Just remember what Tina Fey says to Noelle Welles portraying Hannah Horvath in the 'SNL' parody of 'Girls'...'You're 24? What the fuck is wrong with you?'.

I'll Have A Serving of Steve Coogan with a Side of His Michael Caine Impression

banner for the film Steve Coogan on the left and Rob Brydon on the right.

I haven't been able to watch too much lately, too much shit going on, not enough time, also I care about my tan in the Summer, anyway! I finally took advantage of my Hulu+ account for something that doesn't have anything to do with Bradley Cooper and watched The Trip (2012). I didn't know much about it except the fact that it was made by a director I loath; Michael Winterbottom (a pretentious hack with a flair for nothing happening in his films aside from stares and graphic fucking) and that it had a scene where the two principals Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon do a hilarious competition of who's got the better Michael Caine impression, something which I've incorporated into my dinner parties believe me. 

The crisis of being middle aged. Steve sans family, stability, and hapiness and Brydon possessing all of those things leads to rivalry between the two.

So here's the story Steve Coogan is feeling very middle aged. He's of course playing himself, and is somewhat depressed after his smokin' hot girlfriend decides they need a break and moves back to the states. Before doing so she had planned a trip for the two of them of the best places to eat in Northern England because she's a huge foodie. 

The reluctant bad-ass.

Let's back track a little bit and give you a bit of Coogan history. He's been a staple of the British tabloids who's exploits are rivaled only by the Royals at this point. Courtney Love herself blames him for turning her on to 'the dark side', and that's saying a fucking lot, and he's always been somewhat sexy-weird and seriously fucked up but not in the oh-god-no kind of way, more of in a that's pretty cool kind of way. And through it all he's maintained somewhat of a serious cool-factor, and a sense of unique British-ness in just letting everything shed right off him no matter how lascivious.

So that's why we still love him in a devil-may-care kind of way, and I find him shamelessly attractive. I want his snide, sarcastic babies, I really do. 

So he decides to take an old friend, Rob Brydon (playing himself as well) along with him, and true to Michael Winterbottom fashion, nothing extraordinary truly happens. Steve laments around being depressed and hitting on random chicks, Rob always tries to one-up Steve in his obsession of being the perfect impressionist which leads to some polite British humor, it's all very genuine, and somewhat depressing for a comedy, but for a film in which nothing happens or changes, I was actually entertained and if not for the two male leads, I don't think I would have been. It's a great existential experience. I'd recommend it, I mean it's free, give it a try.

Below trailers and clips: