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Chicago Tribune
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
‘The Studio' review: A Hollywood satire that skewers the same old targets while ignoring the current reality
Studio bosses have never been viewed warmly. Once mocked as cigar-chomping blowhards, that perception has only worsened with tech moguls elbowing their way in and earning a reputation as highly paid killers of creativity. For reasons unclear, 'The Studio' on Apple TV+ steers in the opposite direction. A satire of the movie business, Seth Rogen plays Matt Remick, a studio executive who isn't cold-blooded but hapless. Recently promoted to the top job, misery ensues (humorously, or at least that's the aim) as he finds himself making one soul-crushing decision after another. He's a cinephile, see. He doesn't view himself as just some empty suit focused on the bottom line, even if that's exactly what the CEO to whom he answers (Bryan Cranston) expects. It's a version of Hollywood where fumbling insecurities and self-induced humiliations are the primary impediments, rather than external forces currently (and radically) reshaping the industry. It took five people to conceive of 'The Studio' — including Rogen and frequent writing partner Evan Goldberg, along with Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez — which is a lot of show creators considering the result is deeply unfunny and little more than a rehash of past Hollywood sendups. But maybe that's just emblematic of (gestures vaguely at everything). The show is also notably ugly to look at, as if everything, especially the studio offices, were covered in a dingy, nicotine-stained haze, even if there's nary a cigarette in sight. Two and three decades ago, Hollywood satires still had some teeth, whether skewering the film business ('The Player,' 'Swimming with Sharks,' 'Bowfinger') or the TV business ('Beggars and Choosers,' 'The TV Set,' 'The Comeback'). These days, there's a reluctance to go for the jugular — even affectionately — despite the twin existential crises of streaming and artificial intelligence. No one in 'The Studio' is especially preoccupied with the troubling shifts brought on by either, and it's not just a missed opportunity, it's conspicuously weird. Back in the real world, people who work in the industry are in a 'fight for the survival of Hollywood and culture as we know it,' entertainment columnist Richard Rushfield noted recently, but 'no one here is acting like we're even in this fight, let alone trying to win it.' It's as if 'The Studio' were manifested just to prove this point. If it weren't for the presence of cell phones, the show could be set in 1994. But instead of 'Swimming with Sharks,' it would be 'Swimming with Guppies.' It's ironic because Rogen appeared on 'The Comeback,' which is a far more ferocious but also empathetic portrait of rancid grasping against a backdrop of celebrity dreams and Tinseltown wishes. By contrast, 'The Studio' feels paper-thin. An episode hinges on the premise that no one has the guts to tell a famous director his latest work needs cuts, so it becomes a round robin of 'not it.' In another episode, an executive observes sourly that directors can manipulate the studio to get their way 'because in this town, they call the shots.' I'm curious how Rogen & Co. landed on the idea of studio bigwigs as powerless nobodies at the mercy of directors. The more widely held perception is that people who run studios are an unholy combination of insecure, wildly overconfident and merciless, which suggests all kinds of comedic possibilities. Instead, Matt is nerdy and puppish; the little guy, despite the millions he's surely paid. It's as if actual executives took the show's creators aside and said: 'We're the real underdogs, tell that story.' In a recent interview, Rogen said they drew influence from 'The Office,' specifically in how 'the boss is the most tragic figure on the show. Just because you're at the top of the power structure, it doesn't mean you're less relatable or funny.' This is a misunderstanding of 'The Office,' but it's also a misunderstanding of workplace power dynamics and whose experience is actually 'relatable' to most audiences. Lest we forget, it was the studio heads who were content to ride out a prolonged Hollywood labor dispute hinging on issues such as pay that reflects the increased cost of living. During the strike, one studio went so far as to cut back all the trees that provided shade to picketers. Rogen is doing quite a number here equating 'tragic' with 'callous' and 'highly-compensated.' Would a floppy guy like Matt even get the top job in this economic climate? Doubtful! His former boss (Catherine O'Hara) calls him Mr. Magoo. That's accurate, and the reason why nothing about his promotion is believable, not unless the studio is an elaborate money-laundering scheme. The vice president of production (Ike Barinholtz) is more typically the kind of strategically glad-handing guy who makes it to the top. But it's the bumbling, lily-livered, squishy-hearted Mr. Magoo who somehow finds himself in the cutthroat position of running a studio. Maybe the incongruity of this premise would be funny — maybe — if the results weren't so uninspired and desperate to be 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'-adjacent. Matt is his own worst enemy as he ping pongs from one calamity to another, and if I'm being charitable, it's possible the show's premise is: 'You think these executives in charge are slick? Think again.' Still, it lacks bite. Occasionally, a line will land: 'I've got a script about an Australian chess team that cheats, will you read it?' I also laughed at Matt's habit of referring to the studio's various films as 'my movie,' as if he were the artistic force behind them instead of just the corporate part of the equation. And the show captures the kind of bull — and bullying — that passes for small talk in Hollywood. But more generally, 'The Studio' is missing a point of view that goes deeper than 'the zany absurdity of it all — that's showbiz!' One episode includes a running gag about Matt's preoccupation with what he's wearing to a set visit. Is it funny? No. It's not even an effective jab at a character who suddenly cares about cultivating a 'cool boss' persona. At one point, he does briefly grow half a spine in a showdown with Ron Howard. But it's an anomaly. There is no larger arc. No How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job. Just more swimming with guppies. I keep coming back to Rogen's comments, which are worth putting in a larger context. Look around at our current moment and then ask yourself about the motivations of any story that puts this much time, effort and money into portraying individuals at the top of the power structure as 'relatable.' 'The Studio' — 1.5 stars (out of 4) Where to watch: Apple TV+
BBC News
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Studio: Why you need to watch this 'spot-on', star-studded takedown of modern Hollywood
Launching on Apple TV+, a new film industry satire co-created by and starring Seth Rogen nails the business – and features Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron and others as themselves. A film studio head and his team of senior executives eagerly take their seats in a private screening room to watch the new Ron Howard movie for the first time. This is work for them, but they're also beside themselves with anticipation. "I am so excited about watching this film!" says the boss. It's going to be "perfect". Many critics have responded similarly to the series featuring this scene, Apple TV+'s film industry satire The Studio, which has generated major buzz before it even begins this week. One reviewer has called it "2025's best new show to date". Another said it was "the most entertaining and spot-on depiction of Hollywood since Robert Altman's The Player", hailing its "stellar scripts and an ensemble of actors who are having an utter blast". Yet another praises it as "a love letter to the art of filmmaking". The 10-part comedy stars Seth Rogen as Matt Remick, the beleaguered head of a struggling film studio whose efforts to balance commercial viability with artistic integrity invariably cause problems. The Studio is sharp, funny, stylishly filmed and Rogen is a major draw in his own right, but another reason for the excitement surrounding the show is its extraordinary array of Hollywood A-listers playing themselves. They include, among others, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Adam Scott, Olivia Wilde, Zoë Kravitz, Anthony Mackie, Charlize Theron, Steve Buscemi, Ice Cube, Zac Efron and Dave Franco. Evan Goldberg, who co-created, co-directed and co-wrote the series with his childhood friend and long-time creative partner Rogen, says in the production notes for the show that, except for two who remain nameless, every actor or director they approached to play themselves was up for it: "People's only real question was, 'What's my joke?' 'What do I get to do?'." The stars taking part do have some excellent jokes and several of these big names are sending themselves up mercilessly. If there was an Emmy for "best sport", Kravitz would be a shoo-in for her antics in one episode when she accidentally gets high on drugs. The hero's dilemma Rogen's Remick is an executive who has worked at the fictional Continental Studios for 22 years. He's a movie nerd; the sort of cinephile who will bend your ear about the incredible funeral shot in 1960s political epic Soy Cuba or wax lyrical about the "magical" properties of real film stock. He relaxes by watching Goodfellas for the millionth time. He yearns to make the next Annie Hall or Rosemary's Baby. He loves being around actors and directors and is desperate for their approval but as a studio guy – a suit, a bean-counter – the creatives only ever want to keep him at arm's length. Instead of hanging out with Hollywood's coolest, he has to take meetings with the Rubik's Cube people and the Jenga people because Continental is focused on making trashy popcorn movies with "known brands". When the Continental head is fired after a string of box office bombs, the unpredictable CEO, Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston), selects Matt to replace her. Mill has secured the movie rights to Kool-Aid, the soft-drink mix. He reasons that if a Barbie film can make a billion dollars for Warner Bros, Matt should be able to make money from a movie about the Kool Aid man, the drink's animated marketing mascot. Matt sets to work in the belief that prestige films and box office hits are not mutually exclusive but in a world where TikTok trends dictate film-making decisions, he's quickly forced to question that ideal. He has a major problem in that he can't square his admiration for cinema legends with the need to make hard-nosed business decisions. He can't bring himself to tell Ron Howard that the last act of his latest movie sucks. He can't break it to Martin Scorsese that the studio won't be making his script about cult leader Jim Jones. The Studio is actually exactly the sort of show that a movie nut like Matt would love watching. There are enough easter eggs and in-jokes to delight the most knowledgeable of film fans. For example, the episode about Olivia Wilde making a neo-noir detective film which one character says "sounds like a rip-off of Chinatown" features several references to the Roman Polanski classic. The instalment that revolves around director Sarah Polley's attempt to capture an elaborate "oner" – a long, single shot – is itself cleverly shot to look like one long take; indeed, much of the series is shot in long takes, giving it a fly-on-the-wall feel. Griffin Mill is also the name of the main character in another Hollywood satire, Robert Altman's aforementioned 1992 film The Player. The inspiration for the show It was while rewatching beloved TV series during lockdown that Rogen had the idea for a series similar in tone and style to the hit 90s sitcom The Larry Sanders Show, which was set behind the scenes of a late-night talk show, but about the film industry rather than television. Rogen and Goldberg and the rest of the writing team (Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez) drew on their own experiences in the business as fuel for the storylines. According to the production notes, key to Matt's character was Rogen and Goldberg's memory of a studio executive telling them: "I got into this business because I love movies, and now my job is to ruin them" – a line that has made it into the show almost unchanged. Another classic show Rogen rewatched during lockdown was The Sopranos. Matt Remick does not have a huge amount in common with mob boss Tony Soprano but they do share one thing – a fear that they've arrived at the party too late. In the opening episode of The Sopranos, Tony, who has been suffering from panic attacks, tells his therapist of his "work": "Lately, I've been feeling that I came in at the end. That the best is over." Similarly Matt worries that the golden age of cinema has passed. In episode one, he tells the boss he's replaced, Patty (Catherine O'Hara): "I'm anxious, I'm stressed out, panicking pretty much all the time." The Continental office was built as a temple to cinema but, says Matt, "it feels much more like tomb". Matt's film-loving assistant Quinn (Chase Sui Wonders) thinks she's "30 years too late" to the industry. More like this:• 10 of the best TV shows to watch in March• This new WW2 TV drama is 'stunning'• How Snow White became 2025's most divisive film The decline of cinema in the form of the old-school film studios, as the streaming services become ever more successful, is an underlying theme throughout the series. There's a danger that Continental is going to be bought by Amazon. Ted Sarandos, the co-head of Netflix, has a cameo, stealing the limelight at an awards ceremony. An exasperated Scorsese wants Matt to give him back his script so he can go sell it to Apple "the way I should have done in the first place". Of course, the demise of Hollywood has been predicted almost since the first studio opened its doors. Legendary screenwriter Ben Hecht recalled walking around Hollywood in 1951 with David Selznick, the movie mogul who made Gone with the Wind, as Selznick insisted that movies were over and done with. "Hollywood's like Egypt," he told Hecht. "Full of crumbled pyramids. It'll never come back." And yet three quarters of a century later, it's still there. Several of The Studio's exterior scenes pointedly frame the iconic Hollywood sign in the background of the shot. Hecht had been lured to Hollywood from New York by his friend Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter of Citizen Kane, who telegraphed him to say: "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots." The Studio leans into the notion that idiots are over-represented in Tinseltown. Matt's team – Quinn, studio exec Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz), and marketing maven Maya Mason (Kathryn Hahn) – are all lovable dolts. Griffin Mill is a lunatic of the first order. But Hollywood has always been happy to poke fun at itself. Barton Fink (1991), The Player and Get Shorty (1995) are among the hits that have sent up Tinseltown. HBO's show Entourage satirised the industry and The Studio comes hard on the heels of another HBO series, The Franchise, about the making of a Marvel Cinematic Universe-style movie. However, The Franchise, although hilarious, was scathing and it was cancelled after just one season. It's difficult to know exactly why it failed to connect with a large enough audience although one reviewer found the show's "constant cynicism" very wearing. In contrast, The Studio is affectionate. It has us rooting for Matt and Continental and maybe even for film-making as an artistic endeavour. After all, as Patty tells Matt: "One week you're looking your idol in the eye and breaking his heart and the next week you're writing a blank cheque for some entitled nepo baby in a beanie. But when it all comes together, and you make a good movie… it's good forever." You could say the same for TV shows. The Studio begins on Apple TV+ on March 26 --
Los Angeles Times
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘The Studio' lampoons the Hollywood showbiz machine with a deep bench of stars
'Millions are to be grabbed out here,' Herman J. Mankiewicz wrote Ben Hecht in 1926, 'and your only competition is idiots.' Here was Hollywood, in particular the picture business, and Hecht, a former journalist and already the co-author of 'The Front Page' and other plays, would take him up on it, writing or co-writing the screenplays for 'Scarface,' 'Nothing Sacred,' 'Twentieth Century,' 'Notorious' and 'Wuthering Heights.' But he always had a bad word for the movies. The idiots are in something not very much like control in 'The Studio,' a terrific new series from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg ('Superbad,' 'Pineapple Express,' et al.) along with Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez, and directed throughout by Rogen and Goldberg. Premiering Wednesday on Apple TV+, it stars Rogen as Matt Remick, a creative executive who, after 22 years working for the fictional Continental Studios, finds himself suddenly, and one might well say improbably, in charge of the place when his former boss, Patty Leigh (Catherine O'Hara, who has happily decided to stick around television after 'Schitt's Creek'), is fired by newish Chief Executive Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston). The deal rests on Matt's willingness to get behind Mill's new IP acquisition — Kool-Aid — because 'at Continental we don't make films, we make movies — movies that people want to pay to see.' But having told Variety that his goal was to 'revive cinema and make bold choices,' the news about Kool-Aid makes Matt a laughing stock. Griffin Mill is also the name of the murderous studio executive Tim Robbins plays in 'The Player,' though whether he is meant to actually be that character, worse for wear 30 years on, is left to your imagination, if you happen to notice it all. Like most movies about the picture business, 'The Player,' which premiered in 1992 — the same year as 'The Larry Sanders Show,' which shared its strategy of integrating real-world stars upside-down into its fictional universe, an invention much copied since, including by 'The Studio' — casts a jaundiced eye on its subject. To S.J. Perelman, who co-wrote two Marx Brothers pictures and 'Around the World in 80 Days,' Hollywood was 'a dreary industrial town controlled by hoodlums of enormous wealth, the ethical sense of a pack of jackals, and taste so degraded that it befouled everything it touched.' In a strictly monetary sense, Hollywood was good to Perelman — it also gave him subject matter for his comic essays and playlets — but it has been very good to Rogen and Goldberg, who seem to have little trouble getting pictures made. Their mischievous, vulgar entertainments are essentially mainstream, though this may just be because their movies have redefined what is mainstream — 'movies,' not 'films.' As these backstage movies and shows are made by insiders, one assumes there's some truth to them, though the implication is that, in seeing things how they are, the creators somehow float above the fray. It's also true that ego and incompetence are well-established tropes in movies about the movies, and that in a comedy, ego and incompetence count for more than selfless competence. (My own inside experience of the picture business stops with sitting in an office and being asked if I'd like something to drink. That, and the Universal tour. Both experiences are quite pleasant.) If we regard Matt's promise to Mill to play to the lowest common denominator as a Faustian bargain, it's not one that seems to have any long-term consequences, only scrambling in the moment to keep his job and a modicum of self-respect. Not at all sure he's the man for the job he so desperately craved — or that this is the job for the man, spiritually speaking — Matt is lonely and anxious and needy to the point of embarrassment, trying to ensure he gets thanked at the Golden Globes by monkeying with the teleprompter. (You will cringe.) He lives in fear — of being humiliated, of not being liked, of disappointing his parents, of confrontation — his disinclination to give Ron Howard a note on the length of his movie occupies one episode. The artists don't trust but only humor him; he is merely a bag of money, or a boulder that stands in their way, or a golden retriever pawing at their leg while they're trying to work. Aiding and abetting Matt are the continually buzzing, buzzed Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz), formerly in imagined competition for studio head but still the closest thing he has to a friend; Quinn Hackett (Chase Sui Wonders), the young, hungry assistant Matt promoted into his old job; and Maya Mason (Kathryn Hahn), the profane head of marketing, and the person who most understands what can and can't be done. All throw themselves into their parts as from a high balcony; O'Hara is especially brilliant in her first scene, distraught and angry and sad but still capable of improving on Matt's offer of a production deal. Real Hollywood people include Howard, Martin Scorsese, Sarah Polley, Charlize Theron, Anthony Mackie, Paul Dano, Greta Lee, Adam Scott, Zac Efron, Ice Cube, Dave Franco and Zoë Kravitz. Rhea Perlman plays Matt's mother. 'The Studio' wants to celebrate the movies even as it lampoons the circumstances of their creation; this is a loud, fast, knockabout comedy that charges along like a Mack Sennett two-reeler, much of it shot in long continuous takes as tribal drums pound on the soundtrack. The seasonal arc might be described as 'cumulative episodic,' in which discrete stories incidentally detail the assembly of a slate of pictures. Matt, dating a pediatric oncologist, goes to a fundraiser where he defends the movies against outsiders who declare, 'It's all superheroes and fighter pilots' and ask, 'Have you seen 'The Bear'?'; Sal and Quinn war to get their pictures made; the gang goes to the Golden Globes; casting the Kool-Aid movie raises the question of not wanting to be or, at any rate, 'seem' racist; the mystery of a missing reel of film is presented as film noir, with Rogen in a fedora and trench coat, 'narrating' into a tape recorder. (I didn't notice whether the episode itself was shot on film, though in the spirit of metafictional self-reference, it should have been.) It all comes together in the two-part finale, a breakneck farce set at a Las Vegas trade show, where the studio's upcoming films are teased and in which everyone goes to extremes; Kravitz and Cranston are especially hilarious, and 'hilarious' is a word I save for special occasions. Irony gives way — partway — to sincerity as Matt will come to understand it's not all about him and the series goes out on a closing number that will mean something special to those who remember Disney's Carousel of Progress. We know this is cheesy, but we choose to believe in it, to be moved by it. Which is, after all, just what the movies do.
Los Angeles Times
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Using one-shots, ‘Adolescence' effectively portrays a powerful story
'Adolescence,' a U.K. limited series premiering Thursday on Netflix, isn't what the title might lead you to expect, and to the extent that it is about adolescence, it's far from the sort of frisky coming-of-age story TV more usually throws up. Growing up in a world ruled by social media and social Darwinism — and an older generation's cluelessness as to what that entails — does, however, form a background to the narrative, such as it is, along with exchanges on the meaning of masculinity and the distorting power of teenage self-image. Though it was inspired by a spate of real-world knife attacks — the sort of material that might invite sensationalism or prompt a heavy-handed lecture — 'Adolescence' avoids both. Told in four chronologically discrete episodes, the series concerns 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper, in an astonishing debut), arrested on suspicion of murdering a girl from his class. In the first, he's taken noisily from his home by an armored SWAT team, trailed to the station by father Eddie (Stephen Graham, also a co-creator), mother Manda (Christine Tremarco) and sister Lisa (Amelie Pease), and interrogated, with Eddie by his side as an 'appropriate adult.' The second episode, set two days later, finds detectives Luke Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and Misha Frank (Faye Marsay) at Eddie's school, interviewing students and teachers. The third, set several months later, is a conversation between Jamie, in custody, and a psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty); and the fourth, set months after that, follows the family through a rough day, Jamie still incarcerated but not yet come to trial. (He's heard only on the phone.) Each episode consists of a single shot; one assumes it's postproduction invisible weaving, because having to retake a scene that goes bad at the 44th minute of a 45-minute episode won't work for the budget and certainly not for the actors, but the footage never smacks of digital trickery. The 'oner,' as a long tracking shot is sometimes called, has a distinguished history: There are the celebrated opening sequences of Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil' and Robert Altman's 'The Player' (which itself celebrated 'Touch of Evil'); the so-called 'Copa shot' in 'Goodfellas.' But Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 'Rope,' which aesthetically split the difference between theater and soundstage, is a whole film in one shot (clunky devices mask the points when the film magazine needed to be changed), as was Alejandro González Iñárritu's slicker 'Birdman' 66 years later. It's a gimmick, or a tool, or an approach that perhaps works best when you're not aware of it, because it can split your attention, and your admiration, between what's happening and how it's been made and take you out of the piece. I didn't notice at all that 'Review,' the celebrated penultimate episode of the first season of 'The Bear,' was a single shot; I only felt the chaos and crowdedness. With 'Adolescence,' the tactic didn't sink in immediately; the police raid that opens the series is a natural for this sort of treatment. But then it continued, traveling to the purgatorial police station, making its way into the institutional warren that represents a new reality for these characters, and the plan became clear, and interesting. It underscores the story in effective ways — when an image never cuts, the viewer, like the characters, is trapped in their world. In the fourth episode, set among the Miller family in their community, it's as if they're trying to escape the series' surveillance. And the choreography of camera and bodies, should you care to contemplate it, is remarkable, navigating crowds and corridors and public places with impossible grace. Long, uninterrupted scenes also allow a superb cast to dive into character and the moment, a luxury piecemeal film production doesn't afford. At times, this can become a little theatrical — Graham wrote the series with playwright and screenwriter Jack Thorne ('Toxic Town') — as in the third-episode, mostly a two-hander featuring Jamie and the psychologist. But more often it supports rather than subverts the reality. Though it involves a crime and the justice system, including a raid, interrogation, shoe-leather investigation and a chase scene — and there is some room to wonder whether we're being given a complete picture — 'Adolescence' isn't in any usual sense a police or legal procedural. It has something to do with process; we get a glimpse of how a person is taken into the system and what happens there in a way that highlights its banality and the strong feelings it is designed to contain. But it's primarily about family, and self-reflection, and especially fathers and sons (Det. Bascombe has one too, who goes to Eddie's school), and if the series doesn't wind down to a traditional conclusion, it achieves a novelistic power in the end.
Los Angeles Times
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Catherine O'Hara has power, Kathryn Hahn wants money: ‘The Studio' team tells all at SXSW
AUSTIN, Texas — With an opening allusion to Robert Altman's 1992 classic 'The Player,' Apple TV+'s new comedy 'The Studio' tees up an age-old subject — how the Hollywood sausage is made — for the 21st century. Starring Seth Rogen as put-upon studio head Matt Remick, who tries to balance his cinephilia with the demands of the job, the series turns topics like corporate intellectual property and meddling execs into high comedy (and high stress) situations. 'The Studio' also features Catherine O'Hara as Remick's recently canned predecessor, Ike Barinholtz as his dissolute colleague and best friend, Kathryn Hahn as the lot's aggressive marketing chief and Chase Sui Wonders as a newly minted member of the studio's development brass. Ahead of the series' March 26 premiere, the team behind the show stopped by the L.A. Times studio at SXSW on Saturday to discuss how the power dynamic between actors and executives has evolved, what the general public gets wrong about studio chiefs and why 'streamers are not the underdogs in today's Hollywood.' Watch the full interview below.
