SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped
ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
yerrrr Without a doubt the most tedious, pretentious, mind-numbingly boring movie I've ever seen. I can't stress this enough, everything about it is awful. It almost seems like the writer went out of his way to bore the viewers to death.
There are no interesting characters, from the neglectful and useless artist played by Dustin Hoffman, to the bizarre and cringey pornographic filmmaker played by that girl that looks like another popular actress.
Oh and that spinster was a stupid character too. Worst movie I have ever seen.
saraccan Characters are relatable and likable, which i think is an important element in this genre. ben stiller and adam sandler are just playing themselves while dustin hoffman portrays a grumpy old artist dad. its about this dysfunctional family, their relationship among each other and how they deal with their father.
Moviecritic I like slices of life, but it has to feel like a slice of life. This felt totally overly written. You say this, then you say that, then you say this etc (repartee), but in a way that was over thought, unnatural and not believable. Then the subject matter just seemed uninteresting. I watched an hour and had to turn it off. You can't just make a movie about what you perceive to be authentic dialogue from your loved ones and then expects others to care. I didn't and Woody Allen, which is clearly Noah's influence, usually have added plots, clever dialogue and deeper philosophical meaning, which Noah seems to lack unfortunately. I like some of his other work, like Frances Ha (another Woody Allen derivative film of Manhattan), Greenberg, Squid and the Whale.It felt to staged. This has to have been his worst film so far.
jdesando Plant an academic-artistic Jewish-American family in contemporary Manhattan, and you have neurotic conversation, bruising relationships, and repentance all learned from Woody Allen if not for real. Even more than Woody's endearing situations, this one is bloodier but more forgiving. Noah Baumbach's Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected),a Netflix original, is touchingly funny about two Meyerowitz sons, musician Danny (Adam Sandler) and financier Matt (Ben Stiller) celebrating their mediocre-sculptor-professor father, Harold (Dustin Hoffman), and their constant jockeying for position with him and themselves. It's not a hilarious comedy, but the nerdy-New-Yorker motif shows it is still satisfyingly amusing.Baumbach perfectly tunes us to Danny's alienation from Dad and Matt's clueless realization of his role as favored one. Danny's opening sequence trying to find a parking spot in the East Village is an emblem of his consistent failures and the disintegration of the fractured family holding on to hopes about the deed for Dad's apartment.Most of what happens is off-center from the truth of things, as is probably true of most families whose perception of each other is skewered by family culture and parental politics. The dialogue is both banal and profound, just the way we all live except that few of us are Jewish or live in Manhattan, two invaluable elements that provide subtle hilarity. When feelings are exposed, the dialogue turns almost Eugene O'Neill-like.Most touching about these stories, which are chapters partly devoted to the three males, are almost seamless revelations about the family and their unspooling in a leisurely but sometimes devastating way. About the daily dialogue, Baumbach can't be bested, maybe except for Allen in his prime and Baumbach's girlfriend, Greta Gerwig, whose wispiness is gone from Baumbach here, but all the better for this urbane grit:
"Brian and James, who you've met..." Matthew
"Very charming interracial, homosexual couple, and smart about the work. They were familiar with Gilded Halfwing [Harold's prized but ignored sculpture]." Harold
