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Tumble
Jun 24, 2003
I'm not thinking of anything!

TrixRabbi posted:

The movie is entirely about Zero and Gustave. Which is why so many other characters simply pop in and out, they're tertiary. The painting is merely a MacGuffin, a spark to get the film going.

Also, I loved that Adrien Brody's costume design made him look like some sort of Soviet assassin.

God that was a great costume, wasn't it? Hilariously over-the-top.



And that is really what this movie, and indeed Wes Anderson films in general, are about. He takes the aesthetic designs that are done subtlely in other movies, and brings them to the forefront - his anachronistic style is overtly sentimental. He creates a world that even when ravished by war, still feels warm, and loved. I really liked older-Zero talking about the Arabian Baths and how even though they were old, and far from their former glory, he still liked being there. His emotional attachment to the hotel really drives home the worlds that Wes Anderson creates, because that's really what Wes Anderson strives for - creating a visual style that says as much as the characters that inhabit them.

Oh, and if it's not obvious... I loved this movie.

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TheBigBudgetSequel
Nov 25, 2008

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.
Older Zero kind of made me emotional. He was a really lovely older man who enjoyed telling his story and clearly loved the world he inhabited, even with all the rough edges.

Optimist with doubt
May 16, 2010

Scoop Lover

:vince:

he knows...
Where I live the theaters don't cary Grand Budapest. Though if you want to see God is not dead you in luck!

Mordiceius
Nov 10, 2007

If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!
My wife and I went and saw this Friday night and this movie is still sticking with me. Needless to say, I loved the hell out of it.

Beach
Dec 13, 2004

No sign of intelligent life on this planet.
I loved this film. In the train Agatha says some poetry about two stars, one from the west one from the east, is that a real piece or was it something written for the film? Can anyone shed some light or perhaps repost some of that dialog here? For my part of the film discussion, I felt like the entire movie came down to and was encompassed by that quick line of dialog from Agatha.

Bloody Holly
May 29, 2007

the George Washington of breadfucking
I am a fan of Wes Andersons aesthetic but find it distracting when dialed up to 11, the relentless symmetry is pretty and makes for lovely stills but it's a white noise that takes me out of the narrative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaU_6l4GBqU

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Bloody Holly posted:

I am a fan of Wes Andersons aesthetic but find it distracting when dialed up to 11, the relentless symmetry is pretty and makes for lovely stills but it's a white noise that takes me out of the narrative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaU_6l4GBqU

I can see this. The first time I saw Moonrise Kingdom I was a little drunk and I remember feeling like I was being beaten over the head with his aesthetic and spent the first 20 minutes of the film just giggling about it. Most of the time I find it charming but in that moment it was just too overwhelming for me.

Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I
Pretty great cinematography in this film, but the outermost layer of the nested narrative was useless artifice, and I think this was the most classist movie I've seen in a long time.

Twiin posted:

Did no one else think it was weird how Zero changed races when he was older?

This was actually pretty much the punchline of the film for me. GBH is a movie which posits that there was great dignity once in being a servant of the ruling class, that both castes benefited from it, and that upward social mobility was possible by being supremely loyal and pure of heart. Zero inherits the GBH, from Gustave who inherited it from a noblewoman for being supremely dedicated to her, and he "changes race", leaving his home country and ethnicity behind. (Note that there is no recovery of his homeland's dignity from Gustave's racist savaging of it, only that Zero himself, the "good one", suffered there and he is stricken by it). It reminds one of places like India and (at one point) Mexico, where the upper class and the working class could be easily distinguished by their skin tones, even within the same ethnicity.

Anonymous Robot fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Apr 3, 2014

cloudchamber
Aug 6, 2010

You know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine
You seem to be confusing the social conditions of 1930s Europe with things that the film was actively advocating.

Anonymous Robot posted:

This was actually pretty much the punchline of the film for me. GBH is a movie which posits that there was great dignity once in being a servant of the ruling class, that both castes benefited from it, and that upward social mobility was possible by being supremely loyal and pure of heart.

The film doesn't do that though. The main character's reward for doing what you describe is to be framed for a murder and get chased across Europe by an aristocratic family's psychotic manservant. The point of the movie is that the world Zero is nostalgic for is not quite as good as his recollection to the writer makes it out to be. The movie hints at this in several ways. Like the fact that Zero's paramour's illness could easily have been cured in the present day. The clear message of the film is that Zero's nostalgia is, at least in some ways mistaken. What you're saying entirely ignores how what you've called the useless artifice of the nested narrative interact with one another and are instead making some kind of Tumblr post style condemnations of the film where none are needed.

RandomPauI
Nov 24, 2006


Grimey Drawer
I was absolutely certain that Agatha would die during the caper so when they found a head in a basket I braced myself for the worst. Seeing the head of the clubfooted sister was both a shock and a relief.

Moxie
Aug 2, 2003

I liked the sequence early on when Zero gets the morning papers and is spurred to urgency by a headline. The audience is allowed to see the word WAR. It seems like an accident but is of course a calculated detail, the start of a joke that ends with Zero's revelation to Gustave.

Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I

cloudchamber posted:

You seem to be confusing the social conditions of 1930s Europe with things that the film was actively advocating.


The film doesn't do that though. The main character's reward for doing what you describe is to be framed for a murder and get chased across Europe by an aristocratic family's psychotic manservant. The point of the movie is that the world Zero is nostalgic for is not quite as good as his recollection to the writer makes it out to be. The movie hints at this in several ways. Like the fact that Zero's paramour's illness could easily have been cured in the present day. The clear message of the film is that Zero's nostalgia is, at least in some ways mistaken. What you're saying entirely ignores how what you've called the useless artifice of the nested narrative interact with one another and are instead making some kind of Tumblr post style condemnations of the film where none are needed.

So, this post is a whole bunch of bullshit. Writing off an engaged critique of the film as "Tumblr style condemnation" is a great way to squash any kind of productive discussion. And thanks for presuming my ignorance of basic history.

What does the outermost narrative accomplish? We learn that it's the 80s, for some reason, and there's a book about the Grand Budapest Hotel. The author is beloved. All of this information is redundant or useless, as it immediately leads to a monologue in narrative two establishing the same information. At the end, the girl closes the book. The movie already had a nice closing shot before this, as narrative two ended.

The heiress' son and his cohort are delineated from the bourgeois very explicitly throughout the film. On a number of occasions, they are juxtaposed with the SS look-alike logo to confirm their fascist affiliation. Both of their costumes are all black, in contrast to the vibrant colors worn by the heiress, and the purple- the color of royalty- notably worn by Zero and Gustave. As collaborators, they are not of the same quality or dignity granted to the wealthy in the movie. In GBH, the fascists are the final curtain-fall of the world from which the film draws its scopophilic fascination. Zero remarks, near the end of the film, that most of the estates of the wealthy became "common property" (historically, this term referred to the property of deceased or deported "undesirables", which transferred into the hands of collaborators and opportunists).

I don't see where the film is making clear that Zero's recollections are clouded by nostalgia. I don't recall anything that called into question the veracity of his story, or its details. Medicine progressed- so what? That has nothing to do with the social structures of the age, or the gilded imagery which GBH is so enthralled with.

This is not an isolated problem with GBH. Of all Wes Anderson's work, The Life Aquatic is probably the only film of his that I've seen that wasn't condescending and classist, with its sympathies and imagination firmly rooted in the dealings of the rich. Anderson's aesthetic revels in in opulence and finery. At times, this works to his credit, and shows in the meticulous detail of his set design, shot composition, and costuming. However, it is indicative of an ideological position that should be resisted. GBH is more egregious, in this regard, because it also draws in the servile class and makes them complicit in this structure, as well as using them to trade in quirky "bohemian" imagery.

I'll use an emblematic image to explain myself. Let's take Zero's hat. This is an important image; it was used on a great deal of the promotional material for GBH. The hat reads "lobby boy", clearly cementing his position. In the film's posters and advertisements, this is an ironic image. It calls forth the humiliation of being in a servile position. However, this isn't really present in the film itself. Rather, it goes out of its way to highlight the supposed dignity of serving the "establishment" and its tactile grandeur, and contrasts it with the lack of the same dignity in the new working caste, the GBH's 60's concierge and Zero's replacement. Zero, a foreigner, is brought into the fold by Gustave and integrated into the stratified society of the hotel, in which he learns, thrives, develops as a character, and eventually inherits great wealth in exchange for his fealty. There's no bitter contrast here to provide any ironic depth- even the conditions of Zero's servant quarters, or the looming, labor-sucking boss of the pastry shop, are portrayed as quirky, whimsical things. They're the sites of romance and adventure. The guiding thesis of GBH is to show us the lobby boy hat and say, wasn't that fun for all of us?

cloudchamber
Aug 6, 2010

You know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine

Anonymous Robot posted:

So, this post is a whole bunch of bullshit. Writing off an engaged critique of the film as "Tumblr style condemnation" is a great way to squash any kind of productive discussion. And thanks for presuming my ignorance of basic history.

I never said you were ignorant of history. I just find this whole thing that seems prevalent on that site slightly mystifying. You spent 100 minutes watching a film in which a poor worker is victor in a struggle against a family of aristocrats and then declared that the film is classist.

Anonymous Robot posted:

What does the outermost narrative accomplish? We learn that it's the 80s, for some reason, and there's a book about the Grand Budapest Hotel. The author is beloved. All of this information is redundant or useless, as it immediately leads to a monologue in narrative two establishing the same information. At the end, the girl closes the book. The movie already had a nice closing shot before this, as narrative two ended.

She's sat in a cemetery ignoring the world around her and enjoying an entertaining yarn about a hotel. The movie opens by telling you that all that you're about to see takes place in the mind of a young woman. She's rejecting the reality of the graveyard to enjoy a book. It's the main theme of the film which we learn within a minute of the opening. Zero is rejecting reality too to tell us his grand illusory story about the past. Gustave's life by the end of the film is essentially an illusion too. He fails to see that he will n longer be able to get along by pandering to the upper classes and pays the ultimate price for doing so. His inability to change is the end of him. This passes into Zero's story line too. Like Gustave he's unable to alter to changing circumstances and remains trapped in his crumbling image which represents an illusory past he can't seem to let go of. Both the main characters pay the price for falling in love with this fantasy of the past and are punished, but you seem convinced that Anderson was trying to lionise them.

The_Other
Dec 28, 2012

Welcome Back, Galaxy Geek.
Just wanted to say that I saw this film last night. For the third time. This was the first Wes Anderson I've seen and I plan to try out his other films.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
Like all of his films, it was artistically brilliant and an absolute visual treat that otherwise I didn't care for. But it's what I was expecting going in, and it delivered what I paid to see--in spades. The composition of every single shot was good, and often exceptional.

Mescal
Jul 23, 2005

I had so much fun watching this movie. Unfortunately it was the last showing of the run, or I would go again. (I don't know why they're ending the run; the guy at the theater said it's been selling out.)

I could nitpick pieces of it, but that would only show how easy it is to criticize a movie that's not all self-serious or award-seeking. It's rare to have a movie that's both so carefully constructed and so goddamn fun. If they cut a few blue minutes out and didn't have the swearing, it could be a 'family' movie, and I'm so glad Anderson doesn't have to do those things.

Edit: one detail I liked was that while the two main characters are absent from the hotel, they're summarily substituted for and the place seems none the worse for need of their obsessive care.

Mescal fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Apr 12, 2014

oswald ownenstein
Jan 30, 2011

KING FAGGOT OF THE SHITPOST KINGDOM
Really enjoyed this, and liked it about as much as I liked Moonrise Kingdom - which is a lot. I am just a fan of Wes Anderson's light hearted, charming film style.

nimh
Sep 18, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
Awesome, way better than Fast & Furious 5. Alvin Chipmunk 2: the Squeakal made over $400 million because parents think its better than a Roald Dahl feature to take their kids to see.
It's a charming tale in a sumptuous setting. Style over substance? i dont care when its this good. Have you ever seen a hunting room look that good? No, so shut the gently caress up.

A True Jar Jar Fan
Nov 3, 2003

Primadonna

nimh posted:

Awesome, way better than Fast & Furious 5. Alvin Chipmunk 2: the Squeakal made over $400 million because parents think its better than a Roald Dahl feature to take their kids to see.
It's a charming tale in a sumptuous setting. Style over substance? i dont care when its this good. Have you ever seen a hunting room look that good? No, so shut the gently caress up.

That's dumb, this movie didn't even have The Rock in it.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


Well, this has become Anderson's most successful film with a worldwide box office of over $100 million.

zygnal
Dec 1, 2006
Never
Fun Shoe
Does anyone know how the night shots were filmed? They were gorgeous,
with the skies vivid dark blue while the cars raced down the streets, or
Willem riding his motorcycle. It didn't appear to be day-for-night, and I
wouldn't think cameras could capture that, but I couldn't find any details
about that.

Bugblatter
Aug 4, 2003

zygnal posted:

Does anyone know how the night shots were filmed? They were gorgeous,
with the skies vivid dark blue while the cars raced down the streets, or
Willem riding his motorcycle. It didn't appear to be day-for-night, and I
wouldn't think cameras could capture that, but I couldn't find any details
about that.

They shot dusk for night. They'd start shooting as soon as the sun started going down, underexposed by as much as a stop and a half (Underexposing less as it got darker), and placed bright practicals (Visible light sources disguised as normal lights, like street lamps) in the shot to better sell the effect. Some of the shots filmed closer to true night required digital sky replacement.

zygnal
Dec 1, 2006
Never
Fun Shoe

Bugblatter posted:

...digital sky replacement.

Thanks, that's interesting. I felt that Anderson was consciously avoiding any
sort of advanced special effects, but I guess if it wasn't noticeable that's
just as effective.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

drat this movie was great, I just got wrapped up in the world and I loved how much was going on around Gustave and Zero's bickering journey - hell even The War barely registers on their horizons other than the two scenes on the train. It's a beautiful and sweet movie and Zero's melancholic happy comfort in the hotel was just perfect, he knew the glory days were long gone (and stresses that even in Gustave's time they were purely an illusion anyway) but it didn't matter, because the memory alone kept him warm.

The supporting cast were excellent, it was lovely to see Adrien Brody in a good film again, Willem Dafoe is sensational and while Goldblum felt mostly just competent I absolutely loved the scene with the cat and I was shocked when it seems like he is going to get away on the bike when the door suddenly slams on and severs his fingers. Only Edward Norton didn't seem on form, which was a little disappointing since he was so good in Moonrise Kingdom, but overall this movie was tremendously entertaining and utterly beautiful from a visual perspective.

I hope that Ralph Fiennes sticks with Anderson's growing group of regular castmembers.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the prison escape sequence was astoundingly good, capped off by that fantastic argument/reconciliation while all the violence is going on off-frame. I already want to watch this film again, there's so much to take in.

Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Apr 17, 2014

Party Boat
Nov 1, 2007

where did that other dog come from

who is he


I feel like there were so many little jokes going on in the background of this film that I must have missed a few. During the museum sequence the sign changing from "closing in 15 minutes" to "closing in 14 minutes" had my wife and I helpless with laughter, but everyone else in our showing didn't react at all.

Redeye Flight
Mar 26, 2010

God, I'm so tired. What the hell did I post last night?
I went to see this movie this afternoon, at the Oriental in Milwaukee. For those who don't know, it's a Landmark theater--a really old theater with extremely ornate interiors, and lots of the old ambiance. There's no ads before the show and the movie begins with the old stage curtains pulling back from the screen.

This was the first movie I'd seen in a theater in years--at least three, maybe more. I'm not entirely sure why, just something had made me not want to go.

I absolutely made the right choice about a movie to go back to. That was an amazing movie. So many things about it were just so great, but the thing that struck me most was how well it pulled you in. It felt like it took physical effort to return to the real world after it ended.

Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Apr 27, 2014

CountFosco
Jan 9, 2012

Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.
If you're going to criticize this film for being classist, you might as well go all the way and condemn the cranes are flying for being anti-semitic, sunrise for being reactionary in it's anti-urbanization sentiment, and battleship potemkin for glorifying a revolution that ultimately led to tyranny.

This film isn't even terribly classist. It's realistic about how people operate within parameters of class, and how there are porous places where people can navigate in both directions, upwards and downwards, in class. It's not saying that it's a good thing. It's more about the pride in a job well done: the exacting standards of Zero and Gustave as professional hosts, the artisanship of agatha, the minimum-wage worker who does her best despite her jerk bourgeoisie boss.

This movie was funny, poignant, clever, pomo, perhaps a bit too symmetrical but beautiful regardless.

Pegnose Pete
Apr 27, 2005

the future
I just saw it last night and loved it. I did get a bit of the classist vibe, but as someone who is usually sensitive to that sort of thing (i.e., grad student) it did not spoil the movie for me at all. I didn't read it so much as a celebration of the European pre-fascist upper crust, but I guess more of a exploration of the old world aristocratic setting and aesthetic.
If you were to reduce it thematically, sure I guess the film is portraying nostalgia for this period, and therefore the vast separation between the classes. Still, even M. Gustave is essentially a con-man. Someone from the servant class who had carved out a place for himself in pre-war Europe. Zero was more along the lines of justifying the "work hard, take crap from the ruling class," I still see him as more of a passive character since he was not really trying to get rich or inherit the hotel, it just fell into his lap.

Just my quick take on it within 24 hours of viewing. Not claiming to be bullet proof by any means. I definitely loved the film though, even more than Moonrise which I thought was a great evolution/refinement of Anderson's style.

Edit:
Anderson also does commercials for Prada and American Express, so there's that.

Pegnose Pete fucked around with this message at 22:16 on May 8, 2014

Binary Logic
Dec 28, 2000

Fun Shoe

Redeye Flight posted:

I went to see this movie this afternoon, at the Oriental in Milwaukee. For those who don't know, it's a Landmark theater--a really old theater with extremely ornate interiors, and lots of the old ambiance. There's no ads before the show and the movie begins with the old stage curtains pulling back from the screen.

This was the first movie I'd seen in a theater in years--at least three, maybe more. I'm not entirely sure why, just something had made me not want to go.

I absolutely made the right choice about a movie to go back to. That was an amazing movie. So many things about it were just so great, but the thing that struck me most was how well it pulled you in. It felt like it took physical effort to return to the real world after it ended.

I saw it in an old rep cinema too and it really added to the feel of the movie.

el oso posted:

Finally saw it tonight and enjoyed it quite a bit - it feels like the most overtly humourous, precious and Wes Anderson-y Wes Anderson movie so far - and that's ok. To me it feels like he is exploring the limits of his style with this movie while also poking holes into it with the violence, the excessive cameos, the silliness of the special effects, etc.

It's a movie presented from the viewpoint of a flowery writer writing about an even flowerier (ok, that's not a real word) person he once knew who had a very flowery view of how the civilized world should act. It's not to be taken seriously at all, but enjoyed for the scenery, the setting, the dialogue (which bounces from nostalgic poetry to realistic profanity very often), the tangential but important and offbeat characters, etc.

I'll be disappointed if Wes Anderson's next movie does not stray from his very distinctive style, but I really did enjoy this iteration of his vision.
The narrative is framed, in that this is a story within a story within a story.
The Macguffin is framed (a painting with a secret tucked into the frame).
The shots are all deliberately and stylistically framed.
The protagonist is framed for murder.


muscles like this? posted:

Well, this has become Anderson's most successful film with a worldwide box office of over $100 million.

Great cast, beautifully shot, lots of humour throughout the movie and the more you think about it afterwards the funnier it gets.

Macdeo Lurjtux
Jul 5, 2011

BRRREADSTOOORRM!
I think I might be developing the goon inability to tell people apart. When Harvey Keitel showed up I could only think it was a fatter Alan Arkin and even when I realized it wasn't I still couldn't place the face.

Macdeo Lurjtux fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jun 15, 2014

Binary Logic
Dec 28, 2000

Fun Shoe
I thought the goon thing was that, once an actor has played a role he is always referred to as that character. So in this case it would something like, "I was really surprised to see that Mr. White (or the Bad Lieutenant, or The Wolf) ended up in a Zubrowka prison."

Man what an escape that was, like the shot of them using tiny tools to make a tunnel.

holttho
May 21, 2007

Seen the movie a few times now and I love it more and laugh more each time I see it. Granted, I never watched any of Wes' movies before this, and I only watched this one the first time because I had 2 hours to kill. But since seeing it, I binge-watched all his movies, then re-watched GBH.

I really agree that this definitely is Wes Anderson at his strongest, both in style and in execution. I am a little confused to a handful of the complaints people have had, as none of them seem out of place or failed to be adequately explained. Edward Norton, for example, seemed right in line with the litany-jokes Wes was making. There hasn't been word-one about M. Chuck, yet Henkles gets lambasted for doing the same thing. Did people see M. Chuck and think "oh, how silly and whimsical! His name is Chuck and he doesn't belong being a concierge! What a farce! :v:" but then immediately turn around and say, "Henkles was out of place and improperly-anachronistically spoken and I hate him! :argh:" Especially when Edward Norton is playing the exact same character from Moonrise Kingdom: a moderately successful and competent person, yet undervalued, milquetoast/deer in the headlights kind of goofball. He wasn't supposed to be a menacing SS deathdealer, he was Edward Norton playing "Edward Norton in Wes Anderson film". And as his exchange with Gustave on the train would indicate, he is in his rank because he is likely part of the aristocracy, and therefore didn't climb his way up through cunning and guile. Long story short, I just can't believe Norton's performance to be an oversight. It had to be intentional.

Just watch for the patterns and litanies and a lot of this stuff will really click. Just like the frames within frames within frames, or the second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand story telling, Gustave being an unreliable narrator that leads into plot-diverting segues. And one of the best is that everything is grand, beautiful in nostalgia, but also really crappy in real life. The hotel is a cherished memory, but is a tattered piece of junk; Gustave is elegant, well-spoken, and cultured, but is also kinda sleazy and foul mouthed at the drop of a hat when reality kicks in. Gustaves poetry while Jopling is trying to kill him, and when Zero knocks him off the cliff with Gustaves "HOLY poo poo YOU GOT HIM!" is by a mile my favorite swing of the movie. He turns from this notsalgic poet-of-old to a jagged person so abruptly I just crack up thinking of it.

Overall, I rate this movie the strongest of Wes' catalog, though Fantastic Mr. Fox was a close second, and if Moonrise Kingdom was only the first half of the movie, it would be the best movie --period. But as it stands, it's #3. GBH has incredible, tight pacing and a phenomenal cast of characters. Frenetic dialog and action framing a more serious subject. The effects makes me wish he'd be a special[practical]-effects supervisor to other movie makers. I don't think there is terribly deeper meaning to the movie, but I won't go as far as the 'style over substance' people would say; but I do get where they're coming from. I just think of it as a positive. Wes Anderson is showing you how good things can be just with an easy plot and a few tricks up his sleeve.




Also, the goon thing is that someone will notice, in passing, that two actors that have a vague similarity. Maybe in real life, maybe one character is similar to another, or a character is similar to an actor. Queue goons tearing them apart by posting INCREDIBLY disparate photos of the two actors in question, saying tantamount to "NO TWO PEOPLE LOOK THE SAME!! GET OUT OF YOUR BASEMENT" And heaven help them if the two actors in question aren't white.

holttho fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jun 16, 2014

ShoogaSlim
May 22, 2001

YOU ARE THE DUMBEST MEATHEAD IDIOT ON THE PLANET, STOP FUCKING POSTING



^ completely agree with your assessment of Norton's role, and most everything else you said about the film.

Disagree on your ranking of his films, however, but to each their own.

Doesn't GBH come out on disc today? I refuse to buy it now when a Criterion Edition is inevitable down the line.

precision
May 7, 2006

by VideoGames
Wasn't able to see this in theater, but goddamn if this wasn't the best Wes Anderson film since Tenenbaums. I went into it actually thinking it would be far more complex and intricate than it is, which worked to its benefit, I think, because the relatively straightforward story of Gustave and Zero came as a welcome relief.

Ralph Fiennes deserves all the awards. All of them. Just dump them on his doorstep.

Brody was a terrific villain, though he got perhaps not as much screen time as he should have. And of course DaFoe was suitably terrifying and merciless.

Agree that Norton was weirdly flat, I didn't feel like he was so much "phoning it in" as making some kind of weird choice to not stand out very much. I think it was intentional but I think whatever his point in doing it was, it missed the mark.

I actually thought Goldblum did quite well with his small role.

Harvey Keitel was easily the best cameo, and F. Murray Abraham gave his part such a sentimental bent I just couldn't help but love every second he was talking.

I would actually go ahead and say that if you aren't going to watch every Anderson film in order (which is what you really should do) that this would be a good starting point; it really is his most accessible film, at least since Rushmore. It's not nearly as quirky as Tenenbaums or Darjeeling, nor as impenetrable as Life Aquatic or Moonrise Kingdom.

Stormageddon
Jan 16, 2008
I am actually just a sentient program made to shitpost, and am still getting my human speed calibration down.
That scene after the breakout is seriously going to be my favorite of the year. I'm usually not an Anderson fan, but this one seemed to dilute the quirkiness with Fienne's relentless gold plated vulgarity. I recommend it to anyone any everyone.

Vintersorg
Mar 3, 2004

President of
the Brendan Fraser
Fan Club



I hope Finnes is nominated for something. He was loving fantastic in this movie on the same levels of Bill Murray in Life Aquatic.

Riot Bimbo
Dec 28, 2006


I watched this the first time fairly hosed up, but still in a movie-watching mood and we're talking opioids which don't usually distort things too heavily, and about halfway through I was pretty aware of the fact that I had no idea what was going on, that it was a beautiful film but being even kind of intoxicated makes this film all about the visual style and the story was beyond following.

I watched it sober again with a totally different view and loved the film quite a bit. This film is kind of like a drugged experience on its own, if you're even moderately high or buzzed or intoxicated I'm not sure you'll get the same experience, at all. The colors just loving pop out and the symmetry and precision of everything is utterly distracting on its own.

For me, I needed a clear mind to like this film, which is a weird thing and unheard of to myself. Makes me like the movie even more, though.

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


Have any of you read Eileen Jones's critique of the film? It's right here, in Jacobin-it's a hard-left rag, and she hates it. I really enjoyed the movie, but it's fun to read takedowns of stuff you like. Forces you to examine it in a new light.

SilvergunSuperman
Aug 7, 2010

Twiin posted:

Did no one else think it was weird how Zero changed races when he was older?

That stuck out to me as well.

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boner confessor
Apr 25, 2013

by R. Guyovich
Everytime I think of Brody's introductory lines THAT loving human being!!! I crack up.

boner confessor fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jul 15, 2014

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