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Jay Kelly

Noah Baumbach’s  Jay Kelly  Review: The Cost of a Fading Stardom I have only seen a handful of Noah Baumbach's films— The Squid and the Whale ,  Marriage Story , and  While We're Young . I’ve noticed that his films all carry strong autobiographical touches, especially  The Squid and the Whale  and  Marriage Story , which deal directly with his parents' divorce and his own. As a result, the performances and settings always feel incredibly authentic. Baumbach easily attracts A-list talent like Scarlett Johansson, Ben Stiller, Laura Dern, and Adam Driver—whom Baumbach cast early in his career and who has continued to collaborate with the director as his stardom rose. Yet, the stories and characters are never outshone by these massive names. In  Jay Kelly , however, Baumbach turns his lens toward megastardom itself. For a project of this nature, he teamed up with a perfectly cast George Clooney. Clooney is a superstar who, like his character, immediat...
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The Departed

The Overdue Masterpiece: Reevaluating  The Departed  on its 20th Anniversary Martin Scorsese is, in my eyes, the best working director today. Even though I haven't caught up with every single title in his massive filmography—classic gaps like  The King of Comedy ,  After Hours , and  The Last Temptation of Christ  are still on my watchlist—his unmatched enthusiasm for the medium of film shines through every frame of his work. Scorsese notoriously prepares his casts and crews by having them watch classic films to evoke a specific mood or feeling. His movies are loaded with sumptuous, period-accurate detail. Lately, his films have grown into massive epics—both  The Irishman  and  Killers of the Flower Moon  push well past the three-hour mark. Yet, if I am watching them in a cinema, I will rarely take a bathroom break. I simply cannot take my eyes off the screen. As a film fan, it often feels like  The Departed  suffers from a lin...
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