Focus Features

About FocusFeatures.com

Hi, I'm here to help. I'm keeping my eye on the blogs and message boards. I would love to hear what you think about the site and try to address any problems you may be having.

More About FocusFeatures.com »

Member Profile | FocusFeatures.com

Member Since August, 2008 |

Subscribe RSS

MY BLOG | ABOUT ME | FRIENDS

« Previous Post

L.A. from Every Angle

Updated April 01, 2010

As Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg shows, there are many different L.A.s inside the city limits. Joel Bleifuss takes us on the tour of how artists imagine Los Angeles.

Slide 1: Greenberg and Baumbach at Musso & Frank

Slide 7: L.A. against the Communist Muralists

Slide 20: L.A. of the Mexican-American Writers

Slide 21: L.A. of the Singer/Songwriters

Slide 29: L.A. for the children of the rich and famous

Slide 30: L.A. for the children of the rich and famous, Part 2

Slide 1: Greenberg and Baumbach at Musso & Frank

Speaking of his latest film, Greenberg, Noah Baumbach told Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times, “I don’t know which came first—wanting to set a movie in L.A. or wanting to do a movie about a forty-something guy who can’t get out of his own way.”

Here is forty-something Ben Stiller as Roger Greenberg sitting in the Musso & Frank Grill.

Baumbach’s wife, the actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a hometown girl. He attempted to make the movie as realistic as possible by shooting the film in local landmarks, like the Musso & Frank Grill, founded in 1919 and as such the oldest restaurant in Hollywood.
Mark Olsen reports: “[Baumbach] was sitting recently in the Hollywood landmark Musso & Frank Grill for a photo shoot. He used the location in Greenberg, including the actual wait staff and some of the establishment’s regulars, to add to the lived-in authenticity of the film. The restaurant was closed, and the strange stillness of the place seems in tune with the Los Angeles of Greenberg, a mix of the eerily disturbing and comfortingly homey.”