The Grand Budapest Hotel

I’ve had it with Wes Anderson.

The Grand Budapest Hotel looks marvelous, represents a unique vision, and tells its story with wit and creativity.  I hated it.  It’s the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of movies.

Its love interest has a birthmark the exact shape of Mexico running down her cheek because – whimsy! 

Its one honest and noble character meets a horrific end because – unpredictability!

Its paragon of class and carriage is a vulgar buffoon because – honesty!

It concludes with an image suggesting an entire nation living in grateful wonder at its story because – self-indulgence!

I swear to God, I half-expected this movie to pull out a ukulele and improvise a tune about the wonder of dewdrops.  Up yours.  Entertain me.  Blow up a car.

Short Takes

Headhunters

This Norwegian thriller pits an full-time corporate recruiter and part-time art thief against a very angry and implacable would-be victim, Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.  It's taught, surprising, and altogether effective - this movie literally had me on the edge of my seat.

The Dictator

There's a comic bit in Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator involving a severed head, a henchman with rather vague loyalties, and remarkably bad taste.  A masterpiece of timing, the bit took me from incredulous disgust to full-throated laughter to intellectual admiration, all in the stretch of about five minutes.  If I lost you at "severed head," so will the movie.  If I piqued your interest, invest ten minutes: that's all you need to decide whether this film is for you.

Moonrise Kingdom

This seems like the film for which the word "charming" was invented.  Moonrise Kingdom is about basically good people trying to behave basically well, and I found myself rooting for everyone.  The production design is pleasingly eye-catching, the locales beautiful (this one was filmed near my current home in Newport, RI), and the story engaging.  I loved it.

The Expendables 2

The Expendables 2: better than the first, with better action choreography and a more comprehensible sense of the battlespace. Filled with 'splosions, gunfire, and bad jokes, this movie won me over when it devoted a good five minutes to what was essentially one long Chuck Norris joke, punctuated by Chuck Norris telling an actual Chuck Norris joke.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

I like the combination of the real and the fanciful in THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU. Elegance, insight, and grace infuse the (only?) real element of the film, the inner life of Steve Zissou; while the fanciful element shines with vision, creativity, and an edge toward fancy.

Steve Zissou is a man in the process of losing his illusions. His business is crumbling, his partner is leaving, and his crew yearns for the days when he had the energy to make illusions seem real. As the movie pares this character down to his vital core, it creates an increasingly fantastical world for him to inhabit. How fitting that his moment of enlightenment should come in the most fantastical scene of them all.

Holy cow, did I like this movie.