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I think I will watch anything Naomi Watts is in, so I found myself in the matinee show of Noah Baumbach’s latest film, While We’re Young. The film is about Generation X and Millennials.

Ben Stiller is an older documentary film maker in a rut in his 40s. His latest film has been in work for years, and he makes excuses for finishing it up. His hot wife, Naomi Watts, is just hot.

Adam Driver is a young, hip videographer who styles himself after Affleck. His hot wife is Amanda Seyfried, and she makes ice cream. Unfortunately, I don’t find her hot. I wish it was Greta Gerwig.

Charles Grodin is in it, and he plays Watts’ father. He is also a successful documentary film maker and represents the Baby Boomers. Ad Rock is in it. He plays a new father friend of Stiller’s. He’s meant to symbolized the adult Gen Xer. He’s got old, too.

Stiller and Driver become friends after a film lecture by Stiller. They are soon going out on couple’s dates and block parties together. Stiller is enamored of the young man’s inhibitions. He even goes out to a ridiculous new age, peyote ceremony. He is liberated from his stodginess.

Unfortunately, the final third of the film tries goes into old man mode: ‘Get a hair cut, ya hippie!’ The film creates conflict just to indict Millenials: Driver isn’t as genuine or truth striving as Stiller. It is rather shallow, but it does throw out the good cross generational feelings as done in the earlier bonding scenes. Perhaps it just goes to show that when you’re old, the young suck.

I’ve seen two and a half Noah Baumbach movies. Most of them I did not like because they made me uncomfortable. I did like his collaboration with Gerwig in Frances Ha. This film really is his most accessible. As a Gen Xer without kids, I liked it. The slight jabs at Millenials remind me that you can hate the young, but that was you at that age, too. Youth is wasted on the young

4 of 5 stars.

It’s been so long since I’ve written a blog post. I was stuck in Hawaii and Los Angeles for a few weeks. Now I’m back and needed to post these reviews of the movies I saw while shipped out to Marinette on work. I don’t remember much, so I’ll just blurb these three films.

Cinderella is the live action Disney flick. Someday your prince will come. It’s the film that only Disney can make. It made me want to puke, but that’s what a Saturday in Marinette would do to you: go see Cinderella.

2 of 5 stars.

The Second Best Marigold Hotel is just as good as the first one. It’s serviceable for a Sunday afternoon. It was more of the same, but with more Bollywood dancing.

3 of 5 stars.

Get Hard made me dumber after I watched it. Plus, it had a lot of gay-tred in it. It was trying to make pretend that it was scary being gay. Not sure why, but it was the worst. Please, don’t watch this movie ever even if it comes on Comedy Central. You will be dumber afterwards.

1 of 5 stars.

Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) had opened in my neck of the woods last October/November. It was only playing in 2 or 3 places around town; down at the arty theatre and its off shoot, the slightly well to do theatre uptown. Then it was showing at the whitey mall in the suburbs near me. I was planning to catch a viewing when I took the day before Thanksgiving off. When I checked the listing on that Wednesday morning, the film was gone. I was unable to catch it. I believe it played for only a week there, and I was unable to catch it.

It won the Oscar for Best Picture last month.

Now its on BluRay and DVD, but I had to watch it in theatre. In the last few weeks, its been playing right next door in its victory lap. I went this past weekend. I was finally able to catch it.

The film revolves around an actor whose starred in a trilogy of superhero films about Birdman some years ago. He wants to be a more legitimate actor, so he writes, stars, and directs an adaptation of a Raymond Carver story on Broadway. Except his past haunts him as well as the present difficulties in staging the play. His cast gains a “ACTOR.” His show is lacking funding. The critics are readying to rip the show to shreds. And he’s only hearing Birdman egg him on. Is he crazy?

Maybe, he was. The story suggests it isn’t reality, but a figment of the lead’s imagination. The Birdman follows him around. He floats in the air in his tight-whiteys. He exhibits telekinesis. He was crazy!

This one winning the Best Picture fits the trend of ‘meh’ that the last few have been. It doesn’t knock you out as a film. It doesn’t scream classic. Let’s give it another few years and re-evluate if it is any good. Maybe in a decade.

All I know is I saw 2 of the 8 Best Picture nominees and this was the worst of the two.

3 of 5 stars.