Wes Anderson

The Phoenician Scheme

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Phoenician Scheme
  • IMDb: link

You know going into a Wes Anderson film it will look great, and in that aspect The Phoenician Scheme doesn’t disappoint. Incredibly designed sets and styles match a wacky tale of a businessman Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) who is of note for two reasons. First, under attack from a shadowy group (which may or may not be tied to the government?) crippling his business by inflating the cost of materials vital to the job’s completion, Korda is attempting to salvage the biggest deal of his career. And second, everyone wants him dead, so much so that unexpected plane crashes due to bombs smuggled onboard his plane are a common occurrence.

…

The Phoenician SchemeRead More »

The Phoenician Scheme Read More »

Asteroid City

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Asteroid City
  • IMDb: link

Asteroid City

Writer/director Wes Anderson leans into his quirks and fancies in this 1950s live television production of a play set in the fictional town of Asteroid City. We learn very little about the actors themselves. While most of the events take place in the play itself, characters occasionally break the fourth wall revealing themselves to be the production’s actors and occasionally narration will stop to explain information about the play’s writer Conrad Earp (Edward Norton).

…

Asteroid CityRead More »

Asteroid City Read More »

The Top 10 Movies of 2014

/ / Top Tens & Lists

The Top 10 Movies of 2014

Family, friendship, and the struggle to find oneself’s place in the world were the big themes on my list this year. Looking back the year might not have offered me the clear winner to top the list (I gave out no perfect score for any film this year), but it still offered a solid list of ten movies worth noting and celebrating. As always, I tried to see as much as possible but there are a few films, most notably Whiplash and Gone Girl, which eluded me. Others like Foxcatcher, Inherent Vice, and American Sniper won’t release in my home market in 2014 (and which I was unable to view and/or review before the publishing of this list) are also not included (although you might see a couple of them turn up in my mid-year list of Best Movies of 2015 So Far next year). Enough with what didn’t make the cut, here is my list of the Top Ten Movies of 2014.

…

The Top 10 Movies of 2014Read More »

The Top 10 Movies of 2014 Read More »

The Top Ten Movies of 2014 (so far)

/ / Top Tens & Lists

The Top Ten Movies of 2014 (so far)

We’ve hit the halfway point of the year and, as has become the custom, that means it’s time to look back on the best movies of the year so far. This year’s list includes three animated films, two sequels, the return of a beloved television character, a latest (and in one case the last) from few big name directors, and a pair of small indie films topping the list of what has been a pretty damn good first-half of the year at the movies.

…

The Top Ten Movies of 2014 (so far)Read More »

The Top Ten Movies of 2014 (so far) Read More »

The Grand Budapest Hotel

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Grand Budapest Hotel
  • IMDB: link

The Grand Budapest HotelFor his latest film writer/director Wes Anderson takes his trademark style to the fictional Republic of Zubrowka and a once-proud mountainside resort known as The Grand Budapest Hotel with a rich history to share. Relying heavily on narration, the film struggles a bit to get going by beginning in the present and slowly peeling back layers (each jumping 20 years or so into the past) until we finally arrive in the pre-World War II 1930s and the story of fastidious old-school concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his the new lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori).

During the overly-elaborate and unnecessarily complicated (although certainly not boring) first 20-minutes or so as the movie introduces an elderly author (Tom Wilkinson) beginning his own flashbacks to his time at the hotel as a younger man (Jude Law) when he happened to meet the elderly version of Zero (F. Murray Abraham) and thus learned his story, Anderson relies on a variety of his usual bag of tricks involving beautiful cinematography and set design highlighted by the use of some marvelous miniatures.

…

The Grand Budapest HotelRead More »

The Grand Budapest Hotel Read More »