The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson, 2014

Can I Stream it?

4/5

Wes Anderson has some of the most recognizable features to his body of work: quirky sensibility, recurring actors (Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray are the recurring ones here), well-defined color patterns and arrangements, prominent score. In Budapest he revisits some familiar themes. Love separated by an age gap like in Rushmore. Ed Norton playing a person of authority, here as a police officer, tracking down a target as he did in Moonrise Kingdom as Scout Master Ward. There's the mentor / protege dynamic just like we saw in Rushmore between Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman's Max and Herman characters. And there's the dysfunctional family theme, as seen in The Royal Tenenbaums.

The multiple story threads are all built around a murder-mystery plot. When Madame D. is murdered, Gustave is framed for the murder by certain family members of Madame D who are angry that Gustave was included in her last will and testament. Most of the film is Gustave attempting to clear his name while also guarding the valuable "Boy with Apple" painting that was bequeathed to him. There isn't one bad shot in the film. Everything is perfectly framed. Everything is neatly packed in the distinctive Wes Anderson universe. The set design is most similar to his past work in The Life Aquatic with some obvious stage pieces but also some remarkable use of stop motion (the slalom pursuit down the snowy hill is one of the most memorable sequences in the film). It's some of Anderson's most gory & violent work (you don't expect dismemberment, and also manages to make the tired gunfight sequence artful), but it's also some of his most exciting. Anderson gets great use of Fiennes. It's easily some of Anderson's best work, and the somewhat-complicated story never becomes disorienting. 

The Darjeeling Limited

Wes Anderson, 2007

Can I Stream It?

2/5

Three brothers unite on a train in India a year after they lost their father in an attempt to reconnect and have a bonding experience together.

Like all of Wes Anderson's work, the film is easy on the eyes. But despite it's visual perks, it doesn't have a lot going for it. Ironically even though the colorful train is bound to the steel rails, the picture feels quite aimless and all over the place. Their mission together feels quite detached, as if they are mostly on a train killing time by smoking cigarettes and drinking native concoctions that are delivered to their personal sleeper cart. The attempt at multiple story threads (on-board romance, break up grief, family animosity) doesn't really stick. It feels like Anderson really wanted to make a movie in picturesque India. He was so excited that he quickly boarded the plane with Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray and forgot half of the script at home. It's understandable, because the best attributes about the film are probably some of the many amazing shots he managed to get. Heads sticking out of the train window as it passes through the night. The group passing through a bustling marketplace. Various angles of the interior cabin with the aging colorful decor sticking to the walls. It's an Anderson piece that requires more gazing than thinking. Even though it feels like a confused film it does seem to make sense that Anderson would want a picture like this in his library. It fits in well in that respect. You can take in the set pieces with the (very underrated classic rock band) Kinks playing in the background, which at the end of the day really isn't the worst thing to endure.

The Internship

Shawn Levy, 2013

Can I Stream It?

2/5

Somewhere in a movie studio office there is a giant wheel. It resembles the luminous assembly featured on daytime Game Show The Price is Right. Except this one is a Vince Vaughn / Owen Wilson movie wheel. When studio heads are looking for a quick comedy piece to churn out, they spin it and they are forced to green-light whatever premise it lands on.

It's already been used to conjure up a movie about two guys who crash weddings to score with women. Another time it was used to do a modern remake of Starsky and Hutch. Then there was that time it was used to make that movie about the two being a part of a neighborhood watch team (The Watch). This time the wheel was spun and it landed on two guys get fired from  job and get hired as Google interns. Given their on and off history together and compared to some of the bad-on-paper ideas that have been thrown out there this one actually doesn't seem too bad. That is until the movie starts rolling. The end-result applies some of the manipulative tendencies of a bad Adam Sandler film. Was that redundant? But in a way it's the best Adam Sandler movie he didn't make. Like a dumbed-down Social Network, it attempts to run on the fumes of the Vaughn / Wilson dynamic, even though there can't be much left in the tank. At least you get to see quite a bit of the beautiful Rose Byrne.