Tag Archives: Bill Murray

Movie Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Grand-Budapest-Hotel-clip-Ralph-FiennesThe Grand Budapest Hotel constructs a European past that looks like a game of Candyland, yet feels like a very serious history lesson about events that never actually happened based on events that really did happen.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, the eighth feature film by the one and only Wes Anderson, is his most dense, elaborate, and cartoonish (even though he has made an animated film). It seems like the kind of film you get to make once you turn stories like Moonrise Kingdom into Oscar nominated hits.

At times, this film feels like Wes Anderson’s attempt to top his own whimsy. There are only a few moments that are annoyingly typical of him (oh look! a humorously disabled child!). However, I think it is better to invent your own clichés than to steal them from others. More importantly, he weaves those clichés he invented into gold. I mean, this is about a girl reading a book about an author telling a story about how a man told him a story. It turns out, F. Murray Abraham makes as good of a narrator as Alec Baldwin (in The Royal Tenenbaums) once did.

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Ranking the Films of Wes Anderson (So Far)

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I’m not sure if that horse is dead or alive. Image via New York Magazine

Even if you are a Wes Anderson hater you have to admit: he knows how to make a film, and the fact that he has any unique style at all is something he should be admired, not admonished, for. While he has reached the edge before, Wes Anderson hasn’t become a caricature of Wes Anderson just yet.

A majority of my life (since I was in elementary school) has revolved around Wes Anderson’s films. He has changed the way I see both film and the world itself. I personally think that if everyone had Wes Anderson’s careful eye for little details, then the world would be a much better place. Then again, it would also be a world where adults act like children, and children want to be adults.

Matt Zoller Seitz recently released an amazing book called The Wes Anderson Collection that chronicles all of Wes Anderson’s films. Don’t worry, it has lots of pictures and drawings if you’re not into the whole reading thing. While I don’t think I can do them as much justice as Seitz did in his book, I have been an admirer of Anderson for long enough that it is worth a shot.

With the upcoming release of his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, I figured now was a great time to take a look back at all of Anderson’s films so far. From his humble beginnings, to the moment he completely surrendered to his incredible imagination, Wes Anderson has turned his filmography into his own personal sandbox, where all of the sand castles are decorated in a very particular way.

Without further adieu, here is how I would rank all of Wes Anderson’s films:

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Oscars 2014 Final Recap: I Liked Some Things, I Didn’t Like Some Things

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I found this on Twitter. I am really sorry I can’t provide proper accreditation but whoever did this, you freaking rock.

The cinema lover’s Christmas happened last night. And now it’s time to go back and talk about normal stuff like The Muppet and upcoming Wes Anderson films.

For a year that seemed to be incredibly unpredictable, the Oscar winners sure were predictable. As expected, 12 Years a Slave took home the top prize while Alfonso Cuaron was crowned the best director in all the land. This happened to be a really good year for film, so none of the winners were exactly infuriating. The only really upsetting thing was that I had to listen to Bono sing instead of Oscar Isaac. And there’s plenty of more Bono ranting where that came from!

This year’s Oscar ceremony was overlong, indulgent, and only funny in small portions. Which is to say it was just like any other year. Read on to find out what I liked, what I didn’t like, and what I wasn’t sure if I should love or hate, during this year’s Academy Awards:

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