What I've Been Reading: November-December 2014

The Wise Man’s Fear and The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss

As I wrote the first time I did one of these reading roundups, I was a big fan of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.  In his follow up, The Wise Man’s Fear, he expands upon the world of legendary wizard Kvothe.  Told through more flashbacks, Kvothe recalls a series of adventures that take him from The University through the four corners of the world, sowing the seeds of his own legend.  The quality from the first one is maintained, although the one complaint I have is that like the first book, they stand better as parts of a whole rather than as individual books, which a little disappointing with the third book still in the pipeline.

While waiting for the next book I checked out the additional material set in this world.  The Slow Regard of Silent Things, his most recent work, didn’t really satisfy my need for more.  It focuses on Auri, the girl living in the ruins below The University Kvothe attends.  This book features no dialogue, minimal of anything that could be described as plot and only one character: either you’re on board with it or you aren’t.  Even Rothfuss acknowledges it may not be the story fans are looking to occupy the time until the third book’s release.  Unfortunately it didn’t work for me, but I wouldn’t be opposed to giving it another try later.  If you’re curious, I say give it between 20-30 pages.  If it hasn’t gripped you by then, it may not be for you.

Rogues by Various

This anthology edited by Gardner Dozois & George R.R. Martin (the latter of whom contributes a story set in the A Song of Ice and Fire world) offers a great variety of tales about people who follow their own codes.  Dozois and Martin offer tales from some of the best writers working these days, from Neil Gaiman to Patrick Rothfuss (Rothfuss’ offering, about Kvothe’s fae right hand Bast, goes down easier that The Slow Regard of Silent Things).  Like a lot of anthologies, the quality can vary from story to story, but as a whole it is solid, and a good sampler of writers.  The high point is “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane” by Scott Lynch, about a group of retired thieves who are hired by a witch for one last job.  Based on that story, I started Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards series.

The Good Nurse: a True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder by Charles Graeber

Full disclosure: I listened to the audiobook for this one.  This meticulously researched true crime story about serial killer Charles Cullen is one compelling read/listen.  Cullen is suspected of being the most prolific serial killer in American history, with upwards of 400 victims—patients he deliberated overdosed—potentially tied to him.  The book jumps from various points of view, from Cullen’s supervisors, the investigators, Cullen himself and one of his work friends who helped bring him to justice.  The story is so crazy and filled with many interesting twists and turns that it will keep the reader on edge throughout.  Darren Aronofsky has been named director of the upcoming film adaptation, and if the film is half as crazy as the book, it should be one compelling film.

Euphoria by Lily King

This novel, loosely based on the life of Margaret Mead, has been getting a lot of acclaim and even has been included on some best of 2014 mentions.  The story is about a suicidal anthropologist named Andrew Bankson who comes between Mead stand in Nell Stone and her sometimes abusive husband Fen as all three study the natives of New Guinea in 1933.  At only 261 pages, King’s melodrama is a quick, but memorable read.  It seems like material Hemmingway would’ve covered.  While the story lacks many surprises, it is still hits those notes in a satisfying way.

Southern Bastards, Volume 1: Here Was a Man by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour

To paraphrase my friend, Jason Aaron and Jason Latour’s Southern Bastards is like the offspring of Justified and Friday Night Lights.  The southern fried noir deals with Earl Tubb, a Clint Eastwood-esque man returning to his hometown to clean out his childhood home.  While there he encounters various small time crooks who now control it, headed by the town’s high school football coach.  The comic quickly establishes a sense of place with its vivid characters and striking color palate.  By the end of the first issue I was hooked, and can’t wait to see what happens next.

We Are the Best! Review

Like a lot of people in the age of the internet, I am fascinated by art that is classified as “so bad it’s good”: the type of art made by people who have the ambition of the greats, but none of their talent.  If a person thinks they’re making a masterpiece, there is something in there even if it isn’t a quality product.  This applies to the music made by the trio of girls in Lukas Moodysson’s latest film We Are the Best!  As the girls start to explore music, two of them are genuinely terrible at it at first, but what they lack in chops they make up for in enthusiasm.  It’s the kind of enthusiasm that is intrinsically tied with youth, and it permeates throughout the film.  Because ultimately youth is a time when people should be making mistakes and pursuing whims since those journeys can yield interesting and unexpected results.

We Are the Best! is set in 1982 Stockholm as Klara and Bobo (Mira Grosin and Mira Barkhammar respectively), two misfit 7^th graders with a passion for punk rock but no musical experience befriend a shy Christian classical guitarist Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne).  They form a punk band and the film tracks their ups and downs.  There is no plot here; most of the film is spending time with the characters as they learn musicianship from Hedvig and Hedvig learns lessons in rebellion from the other girls.  Normally watching kids goof around would get annoying fast but Moodysson, whose Show Me Love also dealt with kids around this age, shows a great aptitude of working with child actors.  The three young leads all turn in great performances as three different types of teen girls trying to find their place in the world.

Thinking about the film, the term “winning” comes up a lot and for good reason.  This is an easy film to like.  We are on these girls’ side the entire time: from when they are a genuinely terrible band to an almost OK band.  When they are almost OK, we’ll still side with the eponymous sentiment because they’re so enthusiastic about it.  These aren’t girls out to be rich and famous rock stars; they’re kids looking to create their own identities and find independence.

Punk at its core is about rebellion and letting the outcasts have their say.  Throughout the film the people in power, their parents and their peers often marginalize the core trio, but through the power of music they persevere and ultimately become stronger.  It’s an idea that’s strong for any outsider who has found comfort and strength in any kind of art, and it’s an idea that’s sincerely delivered in We Are the Best!

Grade: B+

Note:

-I really enjoyed the soundtrack.  I’ve obviously not listened to a lot of punk made outside of the US and UK, but this stuff was pretty good, and “We Hate Sports” turned into a pretty catchy song as they got better playing it.

What I've Been Reading: Late Summer/Early Fall Edition

The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman concludes his Magicians trilogy (preceded by The Magicians and The Magician King) with this highly satisfying novel.  Series protagonist Quentin Coldwater is down and out and is looking for a new purpose with a mysterious heist mission, while his friends in the faraway land of Fillory find themselves locked in another dilemma of cataclysmic proportions.  True to its roots as a mix of Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, Girls and Scott Pilgrim, The Magician’s Land reads like a novel about how young creators need to leave the proverbial sandboxes of past creators and make their own.  With a possible show on Syfy in the works, now’s a great time to get acquainted with the world Grossman’s created.

History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs by Greil Marcus

Although it got a little pretentious at times and there are traces of snobbery against modern music, the latest from Greil Marcus is a unique take on the countless books written about the history of rock.  It isn’t about the 10 definitive rock songs, but rather 10 songs whose stories serve as microcosm for larger trends in the musical community.  Some are well known classics like “In the Still of the Nite” and “Money (That’s What I Want)”, others are more obscure.  For readers who don’t want to read another piece about “Like a Rolling Stone” or any other picked apart classic, this is a worthwhile alternative history to one of the greatest cultural movements of the 20^th century.

Ex Machina written by Brian K. Vaughan, Artwork by many more

Another one from acclaimed writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man), this one can be summed up as The West Wing with superheroes (I know I’m not the first person to say that).  The series, which ran from 2004 through 2010, follows Mitchell Hundred as he governs a post-9/11 New York City.  Before he was mayor, Hundred gained the ability to speak to machines and used that ability to become a vigilante crime fighter and a hero on 9/11.  Like The West Wing at its best, the politics in Ex Machina are treated smartly.  A variety of hot button issues are discussed throughout the run and there’s never a sense of straw manning whatever side Vaughan disagrees with.  The reveal of why Hundred got his powers comes a little too late and rushes what could’ve been a satisfying payoff (I suspect it may have something to do with the publisher closing), but the run is still a refreshing spin on the superhero genre.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

For those of us eagerly awaiting the return of Game of Thrones (the show, the next book or both), The Name of the Wind will help pass the time very well.  The first in Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle, The Name of the Wind focuses on a legendary wizard who has gone into hiding named Kvothe (like “Quothe”).  Upon being discovered by a scribe known as Chronicler, Kvothe allows Chronicler to transcribe his autobiography.  The first book largely focuses on Kvothe’s life from young circus performer to struggling orphan to student at the most prestigious University in the world.  Rothfuss has a great talent at world building, with Kvothe’s Walter White-esque logic of thinking everything out helping us understand how the cultures, the history and the magic system work.  Throughout the book there are hints at trouble down the road, which creates some great ominous foreshadowing.  Like Game of Thrones, this saga is also incomplete, but is another great step for those who’ve been to Westeros and want to see more from the fantasy genre.

Guardians of the Galaxy Review

By this point, Marvel Studios is practically unstoppable.  They’re cranking out two movies a year that kill at the box office and generally get good to great reviews.  Even without its two biggest properties (X-Men and Spider-Man), Marvel’s done very well with taking the second string heroes and kicking them up to the A-list.  At this point they could be content just putting out more Iron Man and Captain America films until they stop making money.  Instead they’re expanding beyond the mostly earthbound Avengers with even deeper cut characters like in the new Guardians of the Galaxy.  Directed by cult favorite James Gunn, Guardians is a true blast; a refreshing change of pace from the bleakness clogging up modern blockbusters.

Guardians focuses on Peter Quill (Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt, whose performance here may be his breakthrough), an earthling abducted as a kid and raised by mercenaries.  He’s sent to pick up the MacGuffin in the film, a MacGuffin that can produce devastating effects.  Through his ordeal trying to sell it he comes across Thanos’ adopted daughter & trained assassin named Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a warrior with a Spock-like mindset named Drax the Destroyer (David Bautista), an anthropomorphic tree with a three word vocabulary named Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) and a wisecracking raccoon/science experiment named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper).  As Quill finds himself targeted by villain Ronan (Lee Pace), he gathers his gang of antisocial misfits to become the title group.

Director Gunn, who also co-scripted, has created easily the funniest of the Marvel films.  The film plays like an irreverent Star Wars, as if all of the heroes were Han Solo.  There is some fun with language and tropes of actions movies that’s reminiscent of the dialogue in Airplane!  Also part of the genius of the MCU films: this film rewards fans of the series and the comics, but is just as enjoyable for new viewers.  Even people who have never seen a second of any of the MCU films will get a kick out of it.  While this film also has the most world building of any Marvel film since the Thor series, it never becomes burdensome or too hard to follow.

The one big demerit is the villains.  Ronan, as well as his associates Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Korath (Djimon Hounsou), suffer from the trend in Marvel movies having lackluster villains (except for Loki).  They serve their function, but I was left wanting a little more out of them.  There are also certain character moments that seem underdeveloped, like they know they’ll use it in the sequel even if it probably would’ve made more sense to use in this film.

Despite that, Guardians of the Galaxy is a non-stop good time.  It’s the best space adventure since Serenity, and is up there with the original Iron Man and Avengers for the MCU films.  With blockbusters deciding “dark” and “gritty” are synonymous with quality, Guardians states loudly and clearly that that couldn’t be further from the truth.  The film is clever and hilarious with a memorable team of characters at the center of it.  There is something to say about enjoying the swagger of storytellers who are on a roll, and Marvel is on one right now.

Grade: A-

Miscellaneous Notes (SPOILERS):

-Of course I have to mention the music, which is perfectly curated for stuff that sounds straight out of Reservoir Dogs K Billy’s Super Sounds of the ‘70s.  It works so well for a film that refuses to take itself too seriously.

-Much like Black Widow and Captain America in The Winter Soldier, I’m glad they didn’t have Gamora and Quill automatically become a couple at the end.  They clearly have the chemistry, but it’s a good way to show she offers more than just being a potential love interest.

-Between Rocket Raccoon and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, this has been a great year for cinematic mammals handling weapons.

-Man, the bar just rose really high for JJ Abrams.

-At this point, part of me wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up rebooting Howard the Duck.  They are so confident now almost anything is possible.

-I am Groot!

Under the Skin Review

Here’s the thing: I don’t know how to describe my reaction to Under the Skin, the latest effort from Sexy Beast director Jonathan Glazer.  More accurately, I don’t think that I can describe my reaction to it in the liked it or not sense.  It is hard to say for sure what is going on most of the time because there’s very little dialogue or plot to give us insight into what is going on.  Not that that is really the point: it’s clear early on that this is going to be a challenging ride.  I also don’t want to dismiss it with an “I don’t get it” either because I don’t want to be the guy who dismisses stuff that goes outside of the traditional boundaries of narrative film.  Ultimately however much you enjoy or appreciate this film depends on how willing you are to embrace this film’s weirdness.  If you’re ready to turn it off by the time the title flashes on the screen, this film is not for you.

The film stars Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious woman who seduces random men on the streets of Scotland and kills them.  There is also a man on a motorcycle (professional motorcycle racer Jeremy McWilliams) who is trailing her.  The volume of ambiguity in the film makes writing a synopsis a fool’s errand, especially those who aren’t looking up the Wikipedia entry to try and get a purer response.  Johansson, who has done well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has a good hot streak with smaller films like Her, deserves a lot of credit for taking on such a daring role.  Obviously she was cast in part because of her sex appeal, but she definitely has the chops.

With the lack of plot or character, the film makes up for it in technique.  It looks amazing.  The film’s use of light and dark imagery helps establish this bizarre, dreamlike world that runs parallel to our own.  Daniel Landin’s camera work could be enjoyed with the film on mute, but the sound is another vital piece.  With the lack of dialogue, the sound design and soundtrack steps up in a big way.  It’s hard not to think of the soundtrack to 2001 with some of the more droning pieces of music, especially in the opening sequence.  I have to imagine this film plays better on the big screen.

Under the Skin has been considered one of the best films of the year, but it is decidedly not for everyone.  There is minimal plot or story and nothing is spoon fed.  It is easy to see how it almost has as many 1/10 reviews as it does 10/10 reviews on IMDB and I definitely am looking forward to reading more of what other people thought about it.  While I often have a hard time with these types of films, top notch filmmaking and Johansson’s performance are what make it worth seeing.  For even true cinephiles, throwing in a challenge like this may seem like a chore, but I believe exercising your brain with a film like this can only benefit a viewer, even the ones who can’t make it to the end credits.

Grade: B?

Snowpiercer Review

Five years ago, roughly the same time Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was poorly received by just about everyone yet made a ton of money, a bit of sci-fi counterprogramming occurred with the release of Duncan Jones’ Moon.  While Moon never came close to transcending its cult status into mainstream success, its reputation has gone on as one of the better cult films of the late 00s.  Now we have an even worse received Transformers filling multiplexes and another small sci-fi film, Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer, based on the French comic book Le Transperceneige.  Cursed from a major release because Bong wouldn’t agree to the Weinsteins’ cut (I know, the Weinsteins cutting a film from an Asian filmmaker, huge shocker), Snowpiercer has been relegated to limited and VOD releases in the states.  Although it is a shame this great film isn’t available to a wider audience, that treatment may make Snowpiercer the next great cult classic.

Set in 2031, we find humanity has been decimated by a new ice age, the product of an experimental attempt to stop global warming.  It has been 17 years since and the remaining life on earth is stuck on the eponymous train, speeding around the globe in perpetuity.  The society that has emerged in that time is decidedly split between the direst of poor and the rich, the former rebelling against the latter often.  This time they’re lead by Curtis (Chris Evans), who has spent half of his life on the train and wants to speak to the mysterious leader Wilford.  They manage to break out train door builder Namgoong (Song Kang-ho), who helps them open the doors to get them to the front, where the rich and powerful hold court.  Like many dystopias, the idea of how man can survive this ordeal runs throughout, and this film posits the idea that maybe it shouldn’t.  A little less than 24 hours since I’ve seen it and I’m still wrestling with these ideas, and no doubt they’ll be on my mind when I see it again.

The film is quite amazing to look at (I have to imagine it looks even better on the big screen).  Aside from a few brief glimpses outside, cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo places his camera only from within the cars, creating a great claustrophobic effect of only being able to work on sets the width of a train car.  As the rebels make their way further up the train, we are treated to a variety of train cars that serve a variety of different uses from non-stop raves to a school that is a thinly veiled indoctrination center.  Although some of the mythology may be a little fuzzy, the art direction brings this world to life.

Snowpiercer’s cast is filled with some impressive talent: John Hurt co-stars as Gilliam, the amputee mentor of Curtis, Bong Joon-ho mainstay Song offers some color as the eccentric architect and addict Namgoong and the always reliable Tilda Swinton delivers as the jittery mouthpiece Mason.  However, it is star Evans that stands out.  He has to hide the Captain America muscle, but the world weariness is there.  There’s no flashy quirk here.  A monologue towards the end, where he outlines just how bad it can be back there, is some of the best work of his career.  I can only hope he changes his mind about retiring from acting when he finishes his work at Marvel.

For his first English language film, Bong Joon-ho has created a relentlessly grim version of the future.  Despite that, the film never drags and has enough thrills that it could be a decent sized hit if it got a release similar to other summer blockbusters—it’s right at home with other dark summer films like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla.  It’s done very well in Bong’s native South Korea, becoming the 10^th highest grossing film there domestically of all time.  Unfortunately, the Weinstein Co. isn’t giving it the push it deserves in the US.  However, maybe that’s OK.  Thinking about this predicament, it’s hard not to think about another dystopian film that flopped at the box office and dealt with similar studio meddling, Brazil (there’s even a character named Gilliam).  Like any great cult film, no matter how much interference gets in the way, it will find its audience.

Grade: A-

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review

When reviewing movies, you always have to be aware of the idea of “spoilers”.  While the whole “spoiler” notion had gotten way out of hand, most of us would prefer to learn the major plot events the way the creators intended, through experiencing it first.  However, sometimes the “spoiler” is right there in the title, as has been the case with Rise of The Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, its new sequel.  Regardless of how one may end, ultimately the series is going to end with the humans losing big and the apes taking control.  So ultimately the answers we look for with these sequels isn’t “what” so much as “how” and as both ROTPOTA and DOTPOTA prove, it is all about the presentation that makes it an entertaining ride.

The film begins with a callback to the credit sequence from ROTPOTA, as red lines circle the globe, spreading what the film calls “Simian Flu” around the world.  It destroys the majority of humanity to the point where a decade after the first film the apes hadn’t had any contact with humans in two years.  The apes, led by Caesar (Andy Serkis) from the first film, have created their own society.  It is practically a utopia until they come across a human expedition.  This incident shatters the isolation of both communities, as the humans need to reach into ape territory to access a power plant in hopes of solving an energy crisis.  The apes agree but the uneasy agreement that, as you can expect, eventually crumbles.

The story is ultimately a tragedy, as the humans are afraid of these hyper intelligent apes while the apes, in particular former lab experiment Koba (Toby Kebbell), have some issues trusting the humans as well.  Ultimately it can only result in the world from the original series of films, but it is still compelling to see that process unfold.  It doesn’t get quite as dark as I wanted, but considering the box office this film is raking, we’ll be seeing increasingly grim chapters to come.

Of course you can’t mention this film without praising the work of Andy Serkis.  Serkis, who I believe gets top billing for the first time in his career, continues to shine as ape leader Caesar.  Serkis is best known for his work in motion capture acting, roles that don’t get him even the glory of a great character actor, but he deserves all the praise he’s gotten for Caesar.  His work here rivals that of his other best known work, Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series.  Serkis conveys all of the confusion Caesar had as far as supporting his apes, but still caring about the humanity that raised him.  It is a shame his work isn’t considered Academy worthy.

The great acting is assisted in superb special effects.  From the first shot after the prologue, the level of detail of the apes is stunning.  Director Matt Reeves (Let Me In), coming in after ROTPOTA’s Rupert Wyatt, does a great job in blending the effects into real world.  He also handles the action well as the apes and humans have their inevitable showdown (a particular POV shot from a tank is a highlight).

Although it may be saving the darkest stuff for future films, DOTPOTA is an exciting, entertaining film.  Much like what made the initial reboot work, they were able to mine a human story (mutual distrust between factions with different agendas trying to co-exist but escalating into all-out war) and use state of the art special effects well in service of that story.  This series is heading towards the inevitable moment where the title is the truth rather than the promise.  Despite knowing that fact, it doesn’t hinder the enjoyment of this new series one bit.

Grade: B+

Notes (SPOILERS):

-It may be splitting hairs, but I think Rise would’ve been the more appropriate word for this film title.  The first film in the reboot showed the beginnings of apes becoming smarter (the dawn), now we see them form their society and begin setting the stage for the war (the rise)

-I probably should mention something about the human characters, who are also good, but really, we’re here for the apes riding horses with a machine gun in each hand.  Jason Clarke’s Malcolm and Gary Oldman’s Dreyfus serve as a parallel to Caesar and Koba, and those fundamental differences between the two eventually lead to the war that humanity will lose.

-In a way, Caesar and Koba’s struggles mirror another conflicting relationship from earlier this summer, the one between Charles Xavier and Magneto from X-Men. 

-How long do you think we’ll have to wait until the Statue of Liberty falls?  I figure the next one, and that’ll be the stinger for the trailer.

-The dream director for a future installment would be Herzog, whose oeuvre is filled with nature overpowering humanity, but that would likely be another “Edgar Wright directing Ant-Man” scenario.

-I was expecting maybe a grizzled James Franco to make a cameo.  It is interesting to have a franchise like this where none of the human characters from the first one are in the second.

-Caesar’s son gets his scars so we can tell him apart from the other apes, right?

-I think it is telling that Koba’s ultimate fall to his death (nice foreshadowing with the gesture of forgiveness resembling helping someone up) isn’t just a straight fall, but one punctuated by him getting caught on a wire and hitting some equipment, then falling.  Definitely a major sea change in the ape world.

The Raid 2 Review

Released stateside two years ago, Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption was a surprise hit.  The Indonesian martial arts film was a shot of pure adrenaline for action movie fans.  Its concept was simple: a SWAT team is sent to take out a 30 story building filled with criminals and psychopaths.  Evans made a simple martial arts movie because he couldn’t get funding for the film he really wanted to make.  What he lacked in budget he made up for in some of the most dazzling fight choreography in years.  Rather than helm the English language remake, Evans decided to make the film he really wanted to do as the sequel.  The Raid 2 (sometimes subtitled Berandal) is a larger scale, more expensive follow up that still delivers the thrills of the original.

Before he can even recuperate from the events of the first film, SWAT Team rookie (and one of the few survivors of the first film) Rama (Iko Uwais) is recruited to infiltrate a powerful gang to expose the corruption of the police force.  As he befriends a major mob boss’ son (Afirin Putra), Rama finds himself spending years in prison building a cover while his wife and infant son go on without him.  Meanwhile, the Indonesian mob Rama infiltrates finds itself on unstable ground with the Japanese, while independent mobster Bejo (Alex Abbad) proves to be a wild card.

As that previous paragraph indicates, there is a lot more plot and character moments in this film than in The Raid.  It is almost 50 minutes longer, but with probably the same amount of time spent on the fights.  Unfortunately the plot isn’t that great and it could’ve been trimmed down or clarified.  Between the warring factions, the dirty cops and Bejo, it’s hard to keep track of what is happening and why whereas the original was rather straightforward.  That said, the shortcomings of the plot are more than forgiven in the fights, which are just as good if not better in some cases than the ones from the original.  Evans had a bigger budget and the money is there, with plenty of variety in daring set pieces.  They also seem to want to challenge themselves in the fights, with several fights taking place in confined spaces or using just about anything in the room to help out in a fight.

There are no weak links in the fighters in this film.  Uwais has to be in the vanguard of the next generation of martial arts stars.  The things he and his co-stars do in this film boggle the mind.  There are prison fights, an elaborate car chase and a brother/sister assassin combo who are adept at baseball bats and hammers respectively.  The punches and kicks come so fast you’d think these guys weren’t human.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bathtub filled with ice for Uwais (or just about anyone else) that he could lie down in during breaks in filming.  These fights look brutal and real to the point where one fighter towards the end has his entire face red from bruises.  Best of all, there isn’t a clunker among the fights to be found.

They’re all serviced by Evans’ direction.  For everyone sick of rapid cutting and incoherent action, The Raid films are for you.  Alongside the recent Fast and Furious films, The Raid 2 shows us the action and doesn’t jumble it up in excessive (and probably concealing) editing.  Even in the chaos of the rapid fire blows dished out, it’s not at all confusing.  When someone delivers a painful blow, you feel it too.  It’d be hard to see these guys dealing out this type of punishment without garnering a reaction.

Even with a subpar plot, The Raid 2 still shows Hollywood action movies (often made for much more than The Raid 2’s $4.5 million budget) how it’s done.  The original is a leaner production for sure, but this one takes advantage of having more money and a bigger canvas to use.  These films should be game changers for how action is seen in movies these days, or at least the perfect film to show a group of people looking to discover something many bigger productions have been missing: a series that blends both brutality and vitality equally.

Grade: B

22 Jump Street Review

I’m not the first to say this, but of the genres, it seems that comedies have the hardest time making a good sequel.  Sequels often get bogged down with the mindset of “do what you did in the first one, but more of it”.  This leads to comedies that tell basically the same jokes, just search and replaced to make it different enough.  We get the comfort of the familiar, but not the thrill of discovery (look no further than the difference between the cameo filled fight scenes in Anchorman and Anchorman 2).  This is at the forefront of the minds of Phil Lord & Chris Miller, the directors behind 22 Jump Street, as well as its predecessor 21 Jump Street and this year’s The Lego Movie.  These seem to be the guys you go to to make well received hits out of concepts that on paper look like surefire flops, and 22 Jump Street continues that trend.

22 Jump Street finds the undercover odd couple Schmidt (Jonah Hill) & Jenko (Channing Tatum) infiltrating a school (again) looking to stop a new street drug from spreading beyond the campus (again).  The film is so meta you’d think Abed from Community wrote the script.  Certainly the self-referential jokes, including the introductory spiel by their chief (Nick Offerman), are very funny, but in between those winks to the audience is a sharp lampooning of sequels and the mindset that goes into making them.  Throughout the film the characters will literally tell each other to do what they did the first time.  However, in a fun commentary on the diminishing returns of sequels going back the well, what worked the first time doesn’t always work again.

What does work again this time around is the chemistry between Hill and Tatum.  21 Jump Street showed Tatum’s surprising comedic chops which he continues to showcase here with Hill.  Their relationship ultimately drives the film.  This time Jenko finds himself attached to the frat/jock side of college, bonding with a possible lead (Wyatt Russell) who is hilariously similar to himself, while Schmidt bonds with an art student (Amber Stevens).  Schmidt and Jenko’s relationship works so much that it helps give the film something substantial on top of the jabs made at lazy sequels.  The rest of the cast is also solid.  Ice Cube’s no nonsense Captain Dickson is often a part of some of the biggest laughs, Peter Stormare is just one of those character actors I always enjoy and keep an eye out for a ton of cameos.

In a time when the summer movie season has found itself a victim of diminishing returns from overextended franchises a little more each year, 22 Jump Street is a welcome change.  While it is on the surface a sign of Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy, actually watching you see a film that is clever and fun.  Lord and Miller continue to take a questionable idea at best and make it fresh.  That they made a good comedy sequel is reason enough to celebrate.  If only there were more of these guys for some of the direst movies in production.

Grade: B

Random notes:

-I was disappointed that there was no mention of Schmidt’s love interest from the first film, Molly (Brie Larson).  Perhaps her rising star made her unavailable to be in this one, but it feels like a missed opportunity not to make a joke about that cliché of sweeping the love interest in the first film under the rug in the sequel.

-Definitely stick around for the credit sequence, although you’re fine skipping the post-credits scene.

The Last Playlist

It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since my dad passed.  I still don’t know exactly what to say.  Obviously the past year has been difficult and it’s hard to sum up all that in a blog entry, nor is much of it stuff I want to air out in public.  For this sad anniversary, I wanted to focus on what may be considered a small detail of his memorial service: the music played beforehand.  As far as I know he never gave any specific requests as to what he wanted to be played.  Ultimately, I took it on myself to craft about an hour or so of music that was not only appropriate for a funeral, but also music I knew he enjoyed.  In the end I whittled it down to 18 songs, and was proud of the end product.

Playlists were something my dad really got attached to when he found iTunes, and that was something I had in mind while making it.  It wasn’t just 18 songs played at random, I wanted a certain rhythm and flow to it: to have the songs about mourning the loss early on and finish with celebrating what we had, touching upon some of his favorites along the way.  So here is a breakdown of that ultimate playlist, with a little commentary:

1) “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” – Bob Dylan

The funeral staples are a little tricky, but fortunately this was a right fit.  My dad was a big fan of Dylan, and this was a good choice to kick it off.

2, 4-6) “Day After Day” – Badfinger, “Time of the Season” – The Zombies, “Johnny Too Bad” – Taj Mahal & “Spooky” – Classics IV

I lump these together because they aren’t really funeral type stuff (although The Zombies doesn’t sound like a band you would want to play at a funeral) and were songs my dad really liked to listen to.  These songs were frequent in playlists he’d play on Saturday afternoons (music on Saturdays were an unofficial tradition growing up) after we transitioned to playing the music primarily on the computer.

3)  “In My Life” – The Beatles

Another funeral staple.  My parents turned me on to the Beatles and this song is one of their best.  Perhaps it has a different meaning for my generation than the previous one since John Lennon was dead before I was even born.  Now it seems more like looking back at someone already gone than someone looking back on their own life.  Regardless, I knew the Fab Four needed to be represented somewhere.

7) Nightswimming – R.E.M.

I picked this one because it feels bittersweet, as the song’s narrator reflects on the passage of time and how fleeting things are (“September’s coming soon”).  It’s also just a gorgeous song and I will take advantage of any excuse I have to play it.

8) “Keep Me in Your Heart” – Warren Zevon

I think this may be the only funeral staple made by someone who was near the end of his life (the album was released about a week and a half before Zevon died from cancer in 2003).  It always amazes me when an artist can hit something as profoundly true as he does here, facing the end.  It acknowledges the sadness of death, but also the fact that life goes on, and the memories of those we’ve lost stay with us.

9) “Hey Jude” – The Mutato Musika Orchestra (From the film The Royal Tenenbaums)

Here is where I tried to turn it around a little bit, leading to the uplift at the end.  I’d already used a song the Beatles wrote, but The Royal Tenenbaums was a favorite of ours, and for a hint at what’s to come, this soundtrack has a lot of songs that work for funerals.

10) “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” – Elvis Costello

My dad was a huge fan of Elvis Costello.  He owned an enormous, wall sized poster of him that he’d put up in his office (I believe my sister has it these days).  We even saw Costello do an acoustic set at Woodstock 99.  Most of his music I found a little hard to fit with the rest of the playlist, but with the title I couldn’t resist (though I don’t remember my dad owning any red shoes).

11) “I’ll Fly Away” – Alison Kraus and Gillian Welch

My dad became more in touch with his spiritual side in the last decade of his life, and I wanted to include that in the playlist.  Plus I really enjoyed this version, recorded for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack.

12) “The Fairest of the Seasons” – Nico

The second song from The Royal Tenenbaums, maybe the most somber from the second half, but it felt right as a part of saying goodbye.

13) “What a Wonderful World” – Louis Armstrong

Perhaps the funeral staple, if not top 5.  My dad loved jazz and Louis Armstrong.  Armstrong’s music played at the house all the time, especially his work with Ella Fitzgerald.

14) “We’ll Meet Again” – Vera Lynn

Besides the spiritual implications this song can have in the funeral context, this song has a connection to my relationship with my dad because of its use during the end sequence of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.  Dr. Strangelove was one of the first films my dad showed me when I started to get interested in movies beyond entertainment and it is still one of my favorite films.  Plus it adds to the uplift I was hoping to get as the mix nears its close.

15) “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)” – Talking Heads

Of course our parents influence our tastes by passing down what they liked to us, and my dad loved Talking Heads.  So I wound up loving them too.  This song is simple and beautiful and evokes a strong feeling of peace (I could see the song working at a wedding as well).

16) “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” – The Rolling Stones

This song definitely encapsulates the “acceptance” piece of the grieving process.  Obviously it was tough to lose my dad at only 60 years old and I’ve done a lot of thinking about it.  While I’m still making my way there, I know ultimately that life isn’t going to be fair and that this ordeal will make me stronger.

17) “Everyone” – Van Morrison

The third and final song used in The Royal Tenenbaums (not meant to imply dad was anything like Royal).  I loved how it ended the film, as the characters moved on from the experiences and how that was ultimately a good thing.  Also the Moondance album this is from got a lot of play growing up.

18) “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” – Monty Python (From the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian)

Like it was going to end with anything else.  Dad turned me on to Monty Python and their brilliant comedy when I was a teenager and it was a major building block for my sense of humor and the way I’d see the world.  While we feel pain for what we’ve lost in funerals, we also need to remember how much good they brought us.

There are of course dozens, if not hundreds, of more songs I could’ve put in but for an hour’s worth of material, I think he would’ve liked it.  It was obviously the toughest playlist I’ve ever had to assemble, but it needed to be done.  He would’ve wanted something carefully and thoughtfully curated because that is some small bit of his legacy carrying on to me.  Of course I got a lot more out of my dad than that, but it is something like this that gives me a little comfort as I continue to process life without him.

Escape from Tomorrow Review

Watching Escape from Tomorrow, the much buzzed about film from last year’s Sundance Film Festival, I was reminded of a test Gene Siskel coined for judging movies.  The test is this: “Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?”  For Escape from Tomorrow there has to be some version of that rule where instead of the cast eating lunch, it’s the behind the scenes story of how the film got made.  The film, shot without permission at Disney resorts, certainly has audacity when you think of all the work that had to go into making it.  Unfortunately, all that effort went into making a film that is unwatchable.

Escape from Tomorrow is about a married father of two (Roy Abramsohn) who finds out he’s lost his job just as his family begins the last day of their vacation at the resort.  As the day wears on, he slowly loses his mind, leading to bizarre, Lynchian imagery and scenes.  What sinks the film is the complete lack of any cohesion.  Is the film supposed to be a black comedy?  A satire of the contrived pleasure of theme parks?  Horror about the dark side to “the happiest place on earth”?  The longer the film goes, the more it falls apart.  They even introduce science fiction late into the movie (it may still be taking place in his head).  It feels like it changes dramatically every five to ten minutes.

One of the primary problems of this film is that there is no one to sympathize with.  In theory it should be on the father, but he quickly spends that good will by leering at and stalking two teenage girls (Danielle Safady and The Americans’ Annet Mahendru).  Perhaps it is commenting on how vacations can bring out the worst in us, but doesn’t work because we can’t see things his way.  It shouldn’t be this hard.  He’s stressed out trying to have fun on an expensive vacation, but he’s burdened by the thoughts that this trip cost him money he now desperately needs to stay afloat while he looks for work elsewhere.  That’s all you need for a baseline, and knock it off with him being creepy.

Also, perhaps to avoid legal trouble, they sometimes blink.  The only time I remember Disney said aloud by name is bleeped out.  Sometimes it feels like they go out of their way to avoid saying it.  Probably the biggest cop out is that some scenes are clearly shot in front of a green screen.  It tampers the danger that garnered this film so much of its buzz.  It is amazing how much of what is shot on site looks like a legitimate movie, but clearly they couldn’t quite get what they wanted.

Some movies, like Fitzcaraldo and Apocalypse Now (whose backstories were made into documentaries), have behind the scenes stories that rival what the film audiences saw.  Sadly, Escape from Tomorrow is one of those films where the story about how it got made is miles beyond what we ended up seeing.  The characters are horrible, the story is incoherent and there a little too much gross out stuff that isn’t earned (a scene late in the film in a bathroom is the low point).  Ultimately the biggest problem is likely that to get this any release, it had to be neutered, leaving a pointless mess in its wake.  For such a risky endeavor, it’s a shame that exciting behind the scenes story never made it to the screen.

Grade: D-

X-Men: Days of Future Past Review

Ever since The Avengers made all of the money two summers ago, every other studio with rights to a superhero property has been trying desperately to catch up, whether it’s rushing reboots into production to keep the rights from falling into Marvel’s hands or figuring any movie that does well can be the foundation for an Avengers sized franchise.  The results have been iffy: The Amazing Spider-Man was unnecessary and forgettable (and apparently the sequel wasn’t much better) and the more I hear about Batman V Superman, the more I’m convinced it’ll be the film that’ll burst the superhero movie bubble.  However, Fox is the only one doing it right with their treatment of X-Men.  X-Men made some pretty lousy movies (Last Stand & Origins: Wolverine) to keep the rights, but ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe started gaining traction, the X-Men series has stepped up their game.  X-Men: First Class was the type of relaunch any franchise owner dreams of: while the prequel format could’ve easily just been a reboot, they decided there was enough good from the previous films (namely the first two) that they could build upon it.  While I would still love to see some type of collaboration with Marvel Studios and Fox, I am OK with them keeping the rights, so long as they continue to make films like First Class and its latest, Days of Future Past.

Days of Future Past, arguably the most famous X-Men story, is the perfect story to mine for inspiration.  It ties the original trilogy cast, stuck in a dystopian future where they are being hunted down, to the new series, as Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, the constant between the two casts) is sent back in time to stop this darkest timeline from ever beginning.  Specifically, he has to stop the assassination of an anti-mutant scientist Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), the inventor of robotic mutant hunters the Sentinels, by Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), who has gone rogue after Magneto (Michael Fassbender) was detained.  Needless to say, Magneto isn’t detained for long and both sides race against time to change the future, albeit directed by their different philosophies.  On top of that, Wolverine is working on a deadline: he has to avert this dark timeline before the sentinels (in 2024) arrive and take out the surviving X-Men.

As you can imagine, DOFP is ambitious because it is so risky: they have two large ensembles, a complicated timeline & the rules of time travel and they have to update us on what the First Class crew have been doing in the decade since their first movie.  Luckily the source story is so short.  It could’ve easily failed under the tremendous weight, but manages to be breezy fun, in part of knowing what to emphasize.  While the original cast serves as a framework, it is more a film continuation of First Class.  Unfortunately they run into the problem of trying to cram so many characters into a movie, like Mystique’s arc is a little underserved (perhaps a result of how far Lawrence’s star power has risen since the first film) and I would’ve loved to see more between Xavier and Magneto, whose relationship has always been the X-Men series’ most compelling story.  However, it never becomes a significant problem.  Not to mention having Jackman as the top billed and ostensibly the main character helps: 14 years on and he is still fun to watch.

As much as this film is about averting a disastrous future, it is also about a broken man finding his purpose again.  When Wolverine finds Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) in the 70s he is a broken man: a man who saw his ambitious dreams crumble.  He’s getting loaded on a drug that allows him to walk, but at the expense of his telepathy.  Unlike the usual hero’s journey many comic book films employ, prequels give us a chance of seeing the modern day elder statesman as one plagued by many of the same doubts his future students will grapple with.  However, unlike Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels, we see Xavier on journey bouncing back from his disappointment.  While I wanted to see a little more between Xavier and Magneto, as their long, complicated history is the richest element of this world, seeing Xavier get his mojo back was satisfying.

After the disappointment of Godzilla and skipping Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past feels like the real beginning of the summer movie season.  Although it isn’t as good as First Class, it pulled off a difficult arc and shows the prequel’s quality wasn’t an accident and like everyone else, they are setting up plans for the next one in this film.  Certainly I would love to see Wolverine pop up in an Avengers movie (like just about anyone), but if Marvel can’t have the rights, I’m OK with Fox keeping it.  There’s no need for them to catch up: they’re already there.  All they have to do now is maintain it.

Grade: B+

Miscellaneous (SPOILER ALERT!)

-I don’t want to get into the scandal director Bryan Singer is involved in (the whole art from the artist is a can of worms), but I wonder how it will affect the series going forward.

-As for the question who is the better Quicksilver (the character is the only one so far in both non-Marvel and Marvel films not counting the possible Scarlet Witch cameo in this film), Fox is off to a promising start with Evan Peters.  The “Time In a Bottle” sequence was a high point.  Like many people I had issues with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Godzilla, but maybe with Joss Whedon’s touch he could be a formidable version.

-I guess one of the selling points Fox has with their properties is they go a little further content wise.  Marvel’s movies are generally mild PG-13, knowing full well a good chunk of the audience is under 13.  DOFP has more swearing (including the one PG-13 f-word PG-13 movies can use), the violence is a little more graphic and I think this is the first PG-13 comic book movie with nudity in it.

-It was kind of nice to have all those excessive characters from the first one bumped off in between movies.  I guess Emma Frost had to go because her planet needed her (and she subsequently died on her voyage back).

-So Anna Paquin is on screen for like 10 seconds, has no lines, and gets billed above Ellen Page.

-Magneto and Xavier must be in their 90s in the darkest timeline portion.

-The timeline for this, needless to say, is pretty confusing.  Besides whatever they retconned from The Last Stand and Origins (before Wolverine seemingly retconned the whole thing), I’m not sure where The Wolverine, and it’s mid credits scene, stand in the chronology.  I’m sure someone is creating a fun video detailing the timeline.

-I don’t think the post-credit scene, which features a young Apocalypse single handedly building a pyramid and being worshiped as a god, is going to resonate much with casual filmgoers.  Certainly he is powerful, but we also saw Magneto lift an entire football stadium and drop it over The White House.

-To be honest, I bumped up the grade because it more or less means The Last Stand & Origins: Wolverine are no longer canon.  Even if this is the swan song of the original cast, I’m OK with it.  It’s hard not to read this film as an apology for those two other films.

Godzilla (2014) Review

Well this summer is off to a rough start, huh?  First we had The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is fading fast at the box office due to toxic word of mouth.  Now we have Godzilla which went from being one of the summer’s most anticipated films to being one of the most polarizing.  A lot of people are simply happy it isn’t the 1998 version, which admittedly I’ve never seen, but going in having seen only one Godzilla movie (the 1954 original) I have to say this one left a lot to be desired.

The reboot of the iconic movie monster series brings the franchise into the modern era, though this film owes a lot to the series’ origin.  The original, which came out 60 years ago, was a serious reaction to the atomic bomb dropping in Japan at the end of WWII.  They even had Takashi Shimura, a mainstay of Akira Kurosawa’s films, star as the lead.  While the Cold War is over, incidents like the one in Fukushima in 2011 show that our fears about nuclear power are alive and well.  From the beginning it’s clear that was a key influence on the new one as nuclear tests and power plants help bring about the title monster, along with some as far as I know new ones to do battle in several metropolitan areas.

The script is a mess.  Though it has two people credited (one for story, one for screenplay), it has the feel of a script that went through a few doctors to polish it up.  It’s not really clear who the main character is until around a half hour in, when they finally get around to his nonsensical “save the cat” moment.  His arc at the beginning shifts dramatically when the main motivation for his character gets tossed out, after that he’s a mostly forgettable hero archetype (for a better version of what they were going for, look no further than Chris Evans’ Captain America).  Certain characters, like Ken Wantanabe’s & Sally Hawkins’ characters, just pop up here and there as if the writers forgot they were in the movie and needed to put them back in occasionally.

The only time the movie came to life was when Godzilla was on it, especially doing his signature roar.  When the camera pans up, it’s hard not to think “Oh man, here we go!”  But it never pays off satisfactorily.  Unlike the 98 version, this version’s appearance is true to the Toho version, but brought to life with some stellar effects.  Sadly, Godzilla isn’t in a whole lot of the movie (we don’t see him until about the hour point).  I knew that coming in, but I didn’t know just how little Godzilla we were getting.  As the film wore on it really felt like the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead of monster movies, which would be OK if the characters were worth investing in.  The shark isn’t in much of Jaws, but this Godzilla has no Brody, Quint or Hooper.  As much as I don’t want to be the guy who complains about not seeing a lot of action, it’s called Godzilla, and we go see Godzilla movies to see monsters fight.

Perhaps this is a result of timing: it’ll be hard to see destruction like the kind featured here and not think of 9/11, and although it is not as overt as the nuclear themes, the idea of global warming devastating civilian areas (we see several areas flooded as the monsters create massive tidal waves) is extremely potent idea the film taps into, although it never quite gets there.  Maybe, like the original film, it will be different in tone to future installments, which will be more about who Godzilla is fighting and what other monsters are there.  Whatever the case is, I just want to see more of him next time.

Grade: C-

Observations: (SPOILER ALERT)

-When you have a character who has a contentious relationship with his father and set it up to be a huge part in the story, don’t kill off the father a half hour in, especially when he’s played by Bryan Cranston.

-That Cranston has such a small role really reinforces my usual behavior of avoiding trailers.  It’s hard not to think he would playing a pivotal role in the entire film based on it and the part he’s in.  Not to mention the rather unceremonious way they dispatch him.

-Not to mention Juliette Binoche is in the movie for what couldn’t have been more than five minutes.

-I kinda wish Godzilla had been a villain in this one as he was in the original: that would’ve been truer to the mission statement the film set out with.  But then again, it’d put the kibosh on sequels.  Although the way he killed the MUTO by opening his jaw and breathing that electric fire or whatever was the kind of awesome moment this film needed more of.

-The film in general looked very good.  In particular the scene where the soldiers parachute in to the city with the streams of red smoke lead to the best imagery.  The score in this scene was also very effective.

-So does Aaron Johnson’s character Ford just get in with the troops because they take him at his word?  I’m sure they could do some background check off camera, but this still felt very weird.

-I see Godzilla has followed Pacific Rim’s example of shooting many of the creature fights at night and/or in the rain.  Godzilla’s effects were better and there were a few more scenes during the day, but c’mon, I want to see some more action like in Pacific Rim.

-Random detail that bothered me: BS on there being a news report on in a casino.  Casinos are designed so you have no idea what time of day it is, much less what’s going on in the outside world.

-I couldn’t quite see it, but there was a Mothra Easter egg when they’re in the abandoned city (it’s a sticker on a fish tank).

-This issue I had with Ford’s “save the cat” moment was while he was concerned about helping the kid, he didn’t seem as concerned about the other people in the train car who plunged to their deaths as he did about this kid, not to mention there really wasn’t any satisfying payoff to this bit.

-Better luck next summer Aaron Johnson and Elizabeth Olson.

The Grand Budapest Hotel Review

As I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel, I was reminded of something author Stephen King said about the rock band AC/DC.  Although he is aware of the criticism that all their music sounds the same, he dismisses it with a “What’s your point?”  Wes Anderson is a similar artist.  His films are stuffed with eccentric characters, showy cinematography, unique set design and a sense of melancholy.  His quirkier instincts have been more pronounced in his recent films, but his films rarely deviate too far from that auteur vision on which Anderson has made his name.  His style isn’t for everybody, and it’s unlikely to change with this film.  Generally I have enjoyed his work, unchanging as it may be, because I won’t get that style anywhere else, and any time I can spend more time in his world is time I look forward to.  While it doesn’t reach the levels of his previous films Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a solid entry into his canon.

The film is a weird set up, as the bulk of the story is under a few layers of flashbacks: a girl (layer 1) reads a book by an author (layer 2) who remembers a time when he interviewed a man (layer 3) who remembers the times he spent as a Bell Boy to a concierge of a legendary hotel (layer 4).  Layer 4 is the bulk of the story, with layer 3 serving as a framing device.  It gets a little more complicated from there, as concierge Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) takes the young Zero (Tony Revolori) under his wing after swiping a piece of art from one of Gustave’s departed friends.  His psychotic family gets wind of this, and whimsy and madcap antics ensue.  I’m not sure why the first two layers are here, maybe it’s meant as some critique of films that rely on the person reminiscing about the past structure.  It just made the beginning a little cumbersome.

As expected, Anderson’s cast—and all-star one—delivers.  Fiennes, showing again he has a gift with comedy as well as drama, proves to be very compatible with the regular Wes Anderson players.  Similarly, Anderson newbies Revolori and Saoirse Ronan work well inside the world Anderson has created, which has its difficulty considering the stable who know how Anderson works.  It’d be shorter to list of the Wes Anderson regulars who aren’t in the film and part of the fun for fans is spotting them as they pile through.  One segment later on in the film feels like an excuse just to trot them out for cameos (not that I minded too much).

His art direction shows no sign of waning.  The film is set in the fictional country of Zubrowka and Anderson’s eye for detail helps make this place feel lived in and real.  With a cinematic world so covered in movies tinted blue and orange, Anderson’s color palate is a refreshing change of pace.  Grand Budapest is more violent than typical Anderson, with significant bump in body count as the characters face the creeping Second World War.  It never goes near Tarantino level gore, but it may turn off some of his fans.

It is a Wes Anderson film through and through.  The thing that I gravitate towards Anderson’s films is that no matter how hard others have tried to imitate his style, it seems to always come naturally from him.  Copycats wouldn’t think to shoot some scenes the way a silent film director would, down to the slight camera shakes, as Anderson does several times.  Each segment is signified by a change in aspect ratio too!  Of course his critics will likely find stuff like that infuriating, but for his fans, doing what he knows and doing it well and unlike anyone else is enough.

Grade: B

Miscellaneous Notes:

-The birthmark shaped exactly like Mexico right on her cheek?  That feels more like something that would appear in a parody of Wes Anderson.

-I hope in his next film he can use some pop music needle drops, since he’s done so well with that in the past.