Midway through the first season of “Studio,” Matt Remic (Seth Rogen), a big circle in the film industry, finds himself at the civilian dinner table. He's used to impress people with his work, but his peers are not moved. “If you need art, you watch TV.” “Have you seen a “bear”? ”
To borrow a line from “The Sopranos,” one of the first big series that has drawn muscle in the territory of the film, Matt feels like the guy who came to the end of something. When the 10-episode satire begins on Apple TV+, he gets his dream job. He leads a fictional continental studio when its renowned leader (Catherine O'Hara) was ejected after a series of flops.
The film man, Matt, whose collection of vintage cars embodies his love for the previous showbiz era, is ready to live his Hollywood fantasy. He extravagants money on Auterre and has them shoot in an actual movie. He is known as a “talent-friendly” executive. He will make art.
Or maybe he won't. In seconds of a welcoming talk with the company's CEO Griffin Mill (delicious Batty Bryan Cranston), he received his first mission. Continental landed a born ploy to copy the success of Kool-Aid man, “Barbie.” He dreamed of living in the photographs. Now he's bringing the pitcher to life.
“The Studio,” which premieres Wednesday, is a unique kind of formula project and another project in its long-lived monster movie franchise, “Art vs. Commerce.” But the series is timely, so much so that it is a little unique, and knows the business so well that it makes it ferociously interesting.
Previous Hollywood stories cast the industry as a culturally powerful meat grinder (Cranston's character name suggests “players” which are one of the series' many classic film references), or as wealthy but brainless as “enemies.” But in the “studios,” Hollywood is in deep decline.
They are troubled by TV and high-tech competitors. (The irony that Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck and Frida Perez created this series for Apple is between them and their management team.) Squeezed by drops by Mega-Conglomerate. Is it still a place of art? sometimes. Is it another part of a multimedia support system for brands like Sugar Water Pitchman at the heart of Matt's new movie? oh yeah!
This perspective makes “studio” simultaneously darker and more sentimental than many of its predecessors. Matt's love for new Hollywood films and young men's directors is real, and “studios” shares it. One Caper-like episode is modeled in “Chinatown.” The other is dedicated to filming “Oner,” a single long shot like the “Goodfellas” Copacabana scene. This is the prosperity that is recreated by the filming of the episode.
It appears that the “studio” feels to make this industry and its protagonist completely a savage AV. Matt is too compromised to become a hero, but too poor and weak, and not a monster. Rogen gives Albert Brookssian's performance, self-records and self-hatred across the basic state of anxiety. The direction emphasizes his state of mind with long and unstable things, which builds a sense of frenzy. The soundtrack is a panic attack on drums and cymbals.
Rather than a takedown, “The Studio” becomes a frizzy comedy of foulmouth, like Matt and his lieutenant (Ike Barinholz) court, which inevitably gets mad. Celebrity cameos can be a satirical death. However, most of the options intervene in the story and are well-developed. Among them are Martin Scorsese, Olivia Wilde and the highly oppy-style Ron Howard.
It is the usual cast members who carry the story, like Showbiz Satires, like “The Larry Sanders Show.” Kathryn Hearn is a dynamo as a marketing executive who is not interrupted by Matt's guilt over the sellout. O'Hara attacks the opposite contrast as Matt's high-minded predecessor, who has been fired and turned producer, who may be the luckyest person in the entire outfit.
“The Studio” lives, breathes and makes good use of MoviEmaking, but its true focus is on how films are made and ruined, with marketing meetings, brainstorming and publicity tour casting. Early on, Matt's team pitches the tent pole movie project, with just a video of Kool-Aidman doing a viral dance. If you want a photo of the future of Hollywood, imagine a brand's mascot engraved on Tiktok's movement.
When “The Studio” is funny, it's more interesting than most things on TV now. It has momentum of destiny, and each episode accelerates towards disasters like a golf cart towards the craft service table. When it flags it is the future of the studio hanging in the fate of anthropomorphized beverage containers, and the stakes and patos that follow, as it selects so many targets and chooses spoofing.
But at its best, “studio” is proof that even in the age of algorithmic imitations, movies can bark you with laughter.
