Somewhere Alongside the Moonrise: The Grand Budapest Hotel

I still think Moonrise Kingdom should have been nominated for Best Picture.

Wes Anderson's 2012 nostalgic comedy was one of many casualties that Oscar season, which also saw Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck (whose Argo took Best Picture) miss out on Best Director nominations. That year was... kind of a mess. It's almost as if people are ignoring little gems like this while overindulging on and celebrating David O. Russell and his admittedly good - but by no means groundbreaking or original - fare. Not that Anderson, the Texan director whose movies seem to run on whimsy and charm, is lacking in public attention. Though he's had a few bombs, Anderson has reached that point in his career where not only does the mere mention of his name elicit squeals of glee from fanboys and fangirls, but his films have also proven good, quirky and unique enough to draw in more mainstream audiences. And Moonrise Kingdom is one of his most inclusive, with all the nuttiness of Rushmore but more approachable at the same time.

Ralph Fiennes: one less great actor who hasn't worked with Anderson.

So can The Grand Budapest Hotel capitalize on that and become Wes Anderson's greatest work yet? Well, yes and no. Budapest is arguably one of Anderson's most artistic efforts, as his distinct style is all over the German locations and sets in which the film was shot. Whether it's opulently-colored models, creative camera techniques or unique character models, Anderson is at his glee-inducing best. His story of a legendary hotel concierge (Ralph Fiennes) falsely accused of murder and on the run from the law with his loyal lobby boy Zero (newcomer Tony Revolori) would make for a great thriller, if the screenplay (also written by Anderson) wasn't content to throw every humorous anecdote and amusing situation along the way to lighten the mood. The fact that Fiennes can talk about sleeping with older women in the same nonchalant tone in which he tells of the violent passing of a fellow prison escapee proves that he belongs in this director's pantheon of recurring performers, many of whom make their presences known.

I even liked Jude Law in this! Truly this Anderson is sacred!

And it's a great cast that the director has assembled here. Though there are a few returning actors that could have done more (no more than a small cameo for Bill Murray?), The Grand Budapest Hotel is surprisingly built upon its new talent, with the Anderson regulars filling out the smaller support roles. Fortunately, that new talent is headlined by Fiennes, who is simply put on of the best actors working today. Revolori also impresses, and the two make for an excellent pair, as the younger actor's innocent and eminently loyal sidekick plays beautifully against Fiennes' haughty, confident and charismatic leading man. And the cast is littered with excellence, Saoirse Ronan as Zero's dutiful but independent fiance to Tilda Swinton as a wealthy hotel patron, to Adrien Brody as her inheritance-seeking son to Willem DaFoe as his thinly-veiled violent sociopath of a lackey. Returning actors Edward Norton and Jeff Goldblum also find their marks as a police inspector and a by-the-book lawyer, respectively.

No, really, there's a funny story in here.

Budapest also carries an extra dose of the zaniness that makes Wes Anderson more than just a standard filmmaker, from his use of four distinct narrators (F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, and yes, I'm including the girl with the book at the beginning) to the Mexico-shaped birthmark on one character's face to having a man named "Monsieur Chuck" (Owen Wilson) to the beautiful cakes designed so that the prison would not want to disturb them looking for concealed escape tools. The atmosphere that the director creates never feels stale, and while there are times that a scene feels a tad overlong, it's a rare occurrence, and usually is made up for by the kind of irreverent humor and witty dialogue that feels reminiscent of the golden age of spoken comedy.

That's a lot of flattened cakes.

Unfortunately, The Grand Budapest Hotel is SO MUCH like a Wes Anderson comedy that.... it never really takes that next step you might have been expecting after the magic that was Moonrise Kingdom. Much like how Django Unchained was Tarantino's sideways step from Inglorious Basterds, Budapest just doesn't feel that different from Moonrise, not in locale or story (which are obviously differing) but in tone and pacing. The humor is the same, and the character archetypes just FEEL as though they've got Anderson's hands all over them. Keep in mind, that's not a bad thing. I mentioned before how the story would make for a great thriller, and another director would have done just that. By subverting that story and combining it with his style of moviemaking, however, Anderson makes something undeniably, indelibly his. And like the excellent Django, that identifiabe voice is what makes The Grand Budapest Hotel the wonderful experience that it is.

Nope, nothing suspicious going on here!

And while that means that The Grand Budapest Hotel ultimately appeals a little more to diehard Anderson fans than the average moviegoing audience, it's still one of the best movies released so far in 2014. You never know where the story will go next, and it makes for an excellent quirky, lo-fi option if you're already tired out from the big-budget tentpoles films that are starting to make their way into theaters. If you haven't already gone out of your way to see this, now is the best time to make it happen. Just don't expect anything truly groundbreaking - by Anderson's standards, anyway - and you'll enjoy your time at the movies very, very much.

Open Letters Review: The Bourne Legacy

I love the Bourne films. Starting with 2002's Bourne Identity, we were introduced to Jason Bourne, an amnesiac, kick-ass super-agent played surprisingly by Matt Damon (remember, this is back when people thought his running Ben Affleck would be a bigger star), and the movie featured twists, action and excitement on unprecedented levels for the time. After the conclusion of Damon's trilogy, the studio decided to look into the fallout of Jason Bourne's actions by telling the story from another genetically-modified agent, this time Jeremy Renner's Alex Cross.

When Jason Bourne threatens to expose the actions of the United States black ops group Treadstone, it sets off a domino effect. Outcome, and its chief Eric Byers, decide to play it safe and liquidate the program, to take the accumulated data and start over elsewhere. Unfortunately for people who work at Outcome, that means murdering agents, scientists and support staff to wipe out all record of the program. Two people who refuse to go down are agent Alex Cross and virologist Dr. Marta Sheering, who find they need one another's help if they're going to survive this government coverup.

The Bourne Legacy is directed by Tony Giltroy and stars Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton, Rachel Weisz, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Stacy Keach, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn and Albert Finney.

Click here for the whole review at Open Letters Monthly.

Kingdom Come

When it comes to Wes Anderson (no relation) films, there are two kinds of people: those who think his are the best movies ever, and everyone else.

Okay, that's an oversimplification. It certainly does seem though that those who love the works of the independent director do so with every fiber of their being. How many people like that have you known over the years? These are the ones who stand aghast that you have not seen The Royal Tenenbaums, and hold Rushmore as an unheralded classic. They insist that Anderson's 1996 feature film debut Bottle Rocket is his best, and that The Fantastic Mr. Fox was a better animated movie than Up in 2009. They've even seen The Darjeeling Limited, which I dare you to admit you even KNEW was a real thing. Anderson's deadpan style of humor and narrative criss-crossing are well known to his fans, but as he trends away from the style of most modern comedies, many don't get on board, making Anderson's a cult fandom at best. His latest hit theaters this past week, and Moonrise Kingdom certainly looked like an interesting movie-going option. The only one of his films that I've seen before was The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and while I hoped that Moonrise would at least be better than that, I honestly had no idea into what I was getting.

"Wes Anderson needs YOU."

The year is 1965, on a small island in New England. Two twelve year olds have packed up and left their unhappy homes, determined to make a life together. Orphan Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) recently left a letter of resignation to the Boy Scouts of America, and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is leaving a family whose issues she cannot stand. As they attempt to flee and begin anew, a search is orchestrated by the island's Sheriff, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), Scout Master Randy Wright (Edward Norton), and Suzy's parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand). Little does anyone know that a monster hurricane is on its way, and none of the island's inhabitants will be safe, let alone two runaways in the wild.

Now THAT'S a story they'll tell the kids someday...

It's difficult to describe exactly what I liked about seeing Moonrise Kingdom, mostly because the damn thing's so quirky it defies explanation. Anderson infuses several themes - including abandonment, infidelity, family infighting, anger issues, and intolerance - into the screenplay he co-wrote with Roman Coppola, and the result is not the illiterate mishmash you would get from lesser directors, but a cohesive, multi-staged narrative that properly builds the film's story from perfect beginning to poignant ending. One Anderson staple is to have his characters display little, if any, emotion, and while that might not be very realistic overall, it's an interesting allegory on how we censor ourselves around others, even in moments of distress and frustration. Moonrise Kingdom is smart most of the time, and silly only when it absolutely needs to be, creating a dynamic that pushes it far ahead of where Life Aquatic could reach.

She sees you!

The cast does a great job of telling that tale, and not just those actors like Murray and Jason Schwartzman, who have worked on films with Anderson in the past. Murray is of course amazing as usual, managing to play the practical father figure who occasionally allows signs of his mental depression and anger issues to pass his screen, making for one of his best performances in years. In fact, this might his best work since the excellent Lost in Translation. Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand are also impressive in their Wes Anderson debuts, with Willis actually playing it somewhat subtle as the island's Sheriff, who is also having an affair with McDormand. As for the actress, how McDormand hasn't appeared in one of Anderson's films before now is a mystery; seeing as she is all-around wonderful, delivering each line (whether normally or through Laura Bishop's trademark megaphone) perfectly. Edward Norton and Tilda Swinton round out the cast; Norton plays the squeaky clean Scout Master with the level of talent we are all used to from him, while Swinton is positively delicious as the woman considered so reprehensibly wrong that she doesn't have a name, referred to only as "Social Services".

All we need is a butcher, a baker and a candle-stick maker.

It's the preteen stars Gilman and Hayward who make the biggest impact, however. While their introductions are perhaps a bit slow, they quickly become the center of the whole film, and Anderson wisely uses them to their fullest abilities without stretching them too thin. These are their first appearances in movies, after all, and from their performances as outcast lovers, I'd be shocked if either failed to make it work with real Hollywood careers sometime in the future, should they so desire. As the our heroes, their story of finding their first love is spectacularly told, and the acting of the two kids helps properly convey their attraction, their similarities and their differences. Their outward fight against those that would keep them apart is the same as the struggle of new lovers to discover common ground and compromise, all while learning new things about the other. While Anderson does his best to make the supporting characters stand out, it is these two who are rightfully the heart and soul of Moonrise Kingdom. You could argue that twelve year olds have no real clue what love is, but this movie just wouldn't be the same without their innocence to carry it.

Because kids running off to get married is totally cool.

Obviously I can't really compare this to the best of Wes Anderson's films; I've only seen the one, and Life Aquatic has nothing that Moonrise Kingdom does not easily overpass on its way to becoming the year's #4 Film. Anderson takes a deft hand to what can be best described as the most artistic movie so far in 2012, and he is helped both by his amazing screenplay and the excellent acting of all involved. I honestly wasn't sure what I was getting into when I went to see this, but if it comes to a theater near you, do yourself a favor and check it out. It may not be for everyone, but it is a film everyone should try, just for the sake of seeing something different.