TheRetroCritic

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)  was released on Netflix this month after a respectable performance at the Cannes Film Festival. The film stars Dustin Hoffman as Harold Meyerowitz, an ageing sculptor whose children have grown up resenting him somewhat based on their divisive upbringing. Harold constantly confuses his own sons' childhoods since his art was and still is always at the forefront of his mind with his daughter Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) trailing far behind. Danny (Adam Sandler) and Matthew (Ben Stiller) are very different from each other as a result of Harold's lack of interest: the former is a down-and-out musician with a limp, the latter is a successful yet high-strung private wealth expert. The film follows this family as they are forced to reconnect when Harold suffers a significant health scare. These are "New and Selected" stories in that, while the film is mostly linear, it skips through portions of

The Squid And The Whale was Noah Baumbach's first big hit as director and put him on the map as one of the new indie filmmakers to look out for. The film, which was co-produced by Wes Anderson, was a short-and-sweet look at a dysfunctional family in the 80's. This was obviously a personal story for Baumbach to tell and he puts the awkwardness of having your parents go through a divorce and having to grow-up during that time across extremely well. These characters are, in part, cruel and selfish and, in part, likeable and naive so you can't help but identify with them a little bit, even when they're at their worst. As the pretentious loser father Bernard, Jeff Daniels is spot-on: the character's sheer inability to not think about himself for one second, the fact everything he says to his kids is wholly inappropriate, that he doesn't even treat his son's new girlfriend to lunch and his questionable relationship with Anna Paquin's student makes him pr