📺 The Studio is both a love letter and a middle finger to Hollywood. Seth Rogen and Apple TV+ have crafted a satirical take on moviemaking that feels both timely and timeless — an ode to the Tinseltown filmmaking industry that isn’t afraid to point out all its warts.

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Hollywood, heal thyself. When we meet Matt Remick (Rogen), he has just been promoted to head Continental Studios after his mentor Patty (Catherine O’Hara) gets unceremoniously ousted. Matt fancies himself a champion of cinema — the kind of executive to greenlight the next The Godfather. But reality crashes immediately when CEO Griffin Mill (Bryan Cranston) demands he develop a Kool-Aid Man movie to rival the USD bn success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

What follows is Matt’s desperate tightrope walk between artistic integrity and commercial demands — a balancing act he’s hilariously ill-equipped to handle thanks to a chronic need to be liked. Rogen brings a perfect mixture of neediness and neurosis to the role — he wants to be the hero of Hollywood’s story while lacking both the spine and conviction to actually be one.

Stars playing themselves (but better). The parade of celebrity cameos could easily have become insufferable, but The Studio utilizes these famous faces with surprising effectiveness. Even with the titanic (yet restrained) appearances of Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, Paul Dano, Charlize Theron, and Greta Lee, each cameo feels purposeful rather than gratuitous. None of the celebrities overstays their welcome.

A technical tour de force: Rogen doesn’t shy away from flaunting his (surprising) directorial prowess, with each episode attempting a meta feat of cinematography directly tied to the content. In the second episode, Matt continuously disrupts director Sarah Polley’s movie set as she attempts to film a one-shot scene — and it itself is entirely filmed in one take.

The core conflicts are universal: The tension between art and commerce, the desperate need for validation, and the challenge of managing egos (including your own). These themes make the Hollywood-specific comedy accessible even to those who have never heard technical terms like “put pictures” and “above the line.”

For all its punchlines, The Studio carries an underlying melancholy that gives it unexpected depth. Matt’s love for 70s cinema and his refusal to accept the reality of a once proud industry that now views artistry as an unfeasible pipe dream is what stops the show from being a soulless parody. Instead, it is a complicated love letter to an art form that no longer has a place in the industry it created.

WHERE TO WATCH- The Studio is streaming on Apple TV+, with the season finale dropping tomorrow, 23 April.

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