In yesterday’s Jay Kelly thread, HE commenter “We’re Totally Fine” said the premise of this upcoming Noah Baumbach film seems to belong to a favored sub-genre — films about Hollywood guys who’ve run out of gas, are going through a bad patch or have otherwise lost their way.
HE additions to this list:
(a) Vincente Minnelli’s Two Weeks in Another Town (‘62), which is about an alcoholic, burnt-out actor (Kirk Douglas) trying to get back into the swing of things while assisting an old director friend (Edward G. Robinson) in Rome.
(b) Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 (‘63)…obviously. I don’t want to even glancingly mention Rob Marshall’s Nine (‘09), but it’s closely wedded to the Fellini so I haven’t much choice.
(c) Paul Mazursky’s Àlex in Wonderland (‘70) — another 8 1/2 descendant.
I’m not including Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (‘93) because except for that one gloomhead scene with Orson Welles in Musso and Frank’s, Johnny Depp’s titular protagonist doesn’t behave like a filmmaker who’s lost his way — he’s actually a relentless optimist.
