Tag Archives: Wes Anderson

Oscars 2015: What They Got Right

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Image via Hitfix

The statement “while I do not agree with some of the nominations, I am happy about most of them” could literally be said every single year. Time is a freaking flat circle.

There have already been a lot of complaints going around, mainly about the lack of Selma (my review and thoughts on that to come). With a strong presence of films like The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything (NOTE: I haven’t seen either of these yet, so I am guessing here), this was a year made for Oscar movies rather than movies that actually deserved Oscars. However, the ambitious Boyhood and Birdman lead the pack. In order to finally get some Oscar love, Alejandro Inarritu had to finally stop making Oscar movies.

There are many deserving nominees this year. Here are a few I especially loved:

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Reviewing Rex Reed’s Reviews: The Grand Budapest Hotel

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Pictured: Rex Reed’s headshot. Image via New York Times

Against all odds, Rex Reed has had a long, fabled career as the film critic at the New York Observer. During his tenure, Reed used his review of Oldboy to insult the entire nation of South Korea, and then used multiple reviews to make fun of Melissa McCarthy’s weight. A lot of film critics can barely get by. Reed lives in The Dakota. I hope he gets haunted by the ghost of Rosemary’s baby on a regular basis.

The only possible reason he still gets work is because controversy gets clicks. You should check out one of his reviews sometime. Actually, don’t do that. Instead, I will read one of his reviews, so you don’t have to, and break it down. I will now be the first person to review Rex Reed’s reviews. Please, help me turn this into a living. I want to earn enough money so I can buy Rex Reed’s place in The Dakota.

For the second installment of this series, let’s talk about how Rex Reed talks about The Grand Budapest Hotel:

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In Theory: Casting Wes Anderson’s Future Movies

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wesandersonowenwilsonIn Theory is a new feature in which I make up theoretical projects and try to develop them.

Not just anybody can star in a Wes Anderson joint.

Wes Anderson is perhaps best known for the incredibly detailed worlds that he designs. He is like a science fiction artist who is more interested in people than outer space. His characters are just as intricate and unique as the houses, ships, trains, and hotels that he puts them in.

Throughout his career, Anderson has assembled some of the best ensembles ever seen on film. Without Wes Anderson, we would never have been able to see Jason Schwartzman try and kill Bill Murray with a tree. Wes Anderson is good with actors, and actors are even better when they star in one of his films.

There are certain people who you see, and they just look like they belong in a Wes Anderson film. It might be because of their public personas, their looks, or their general attitudes. Being a Wes Anderson actor requires you to be as goofy as a cartoon, but then have the ability to get serious at a moment’s notice.

Today, I decided to step into the shoes of a casting director. Here is a short list of the actors and actresses who Wes Anderson should put into his films in the future:

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Movie Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

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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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