To quote a friend, Baumbach makes movies that are "suspiciously pleasurable for me.” It’s for the same reasons as Vadim (“faultless punchlines,” pared-down scenes, fragmentary editing, etc.), but I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit we both essentially come from the same overeducated liberal arts milieu. I don’t share his family-of-the-arts pedigree, and the class privilege differs in key ways, but the references and the hyper-specific strain of anxiety and the petty dysfunction are more or less comparable. It’s basically guaranteed…

Second viewing. Despite its raucous reception at TIFF, I wasn’t sure this was the slam-drunk crowdpleaser many assumed it would be once it made its way to theaters. (Even correcting for reach and access, that honor goes to Parasite, which film-agnostic normies have enthusiastically praised in my presence.) For one thing, the ways that Johnson engages with “the political climate” are bound to set many-a teeth on edge, especially when he employs the forced political phrases designed to appeal to…

I think it’s easy to forget that much of this movie’s climax hinges on the independent decisions made by female characters, i.e. Jules’ sobriety and Becca getting shitfaced on her own, both of which spotlight the boys’ insecurity and the shortsightedness of “their plan.” Though Superbad’s premise—a Homeric odyssey for booze in part to loosen up objects of affection so they’d consider hooking up with dorks—is probably no longer kosher for good reasons, the way that it eventually wraps up…