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Thursday, October 18, 2007
Hotel Chevalier
Director: Wes Anderson
Grade: Incomplete
Anytime a new Wes Anderson movie is released, I consider it a gift. He is one of the few directors for whom I periodically check IMDB to see what they are working on, and eagerly anticipate whatever it is, regardless of what I know about the film's subject. Yet, somehow, The Darjeeling Limited (now playing in limited release), never hit my radar until a couple of months ago (I had stopped paying attention to what he was working on last year, when I saw that he had a stop-motion animated project in the works figuring that could take a while).
What has always struck me the most about Anderson's films (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic) is the artistic direction. Every single shot is visually stunning. Costumes colors match perfectly with the colors surrounding the characters, and rooms are filled with curio and imagery that can steal the scene from the actors. At times, the background is the entire point of the frame.
Hotel Chevalier is the 12 minute prologue to The Darjeeling Limited and is available for free download on iTunes. My understanding is that it is not included in the theatrical version of the film, but it is Anderson's intent that it be watched prior to viewing Darjeeling.
This film EP is a single scene set in a hotel room in Paris. Jack (Jason Schwartzman), who apparently has been camped out in this room for some time, receives a surprising phone call from his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman). She has tracked him down and is on her way up to his room. Their interaction progresses with the even melancholy that paces all of Anderson's movies. However, this time, it seems forced. This isn't to say that some things do not ring true, but their lines to not come naturally.
I still await the expansion of The Darjeeling Limited to theatres around the country, or at least to theatres in my area. Anderson's most recent effort, The Life Aquatic, was his most critically disappointing movie, though I loved it. The main critique is that it is all the quirkiness without the depth of his previous work. It is already apparent that Anderson is trying to go deeper with his exploration of relationships with Darjeeling. I just hope that his schtick has not grown stale.
Director: Wes Anderson
Grade: Incomplete
Anytime a new Wes Anderson movie is released, I consider it a gift. He is one of the few directors for whom I periodically check IMDB to see what they are working on, and eagerly anticipate whatever it is, regardless of what I know about the film's subject. Yet, somehow, The Darjeeling Limited (now playing in limited release), never hit my radar until a couple of months ago (I had stopped paying attention to what he was working on last year, when I saw that he had a stop-motion animated project in the works figuring that could take a while).
What has always struck me the most about Anderson's films (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic) is the artistic direction. Every single shot is visually stunning. Costumes colors match perfectly with the colors surrounding the characters, and rooms are filled with curio and imagery that can steal the scene from the actors. At times, the background is the entire point of the frame.
Hotel Chevalier is the 12 minute prologue to The Darjeeling Limited and is available for free download on iTunes. My understanding is that it is not included in the theatrical version of the film, but it is Anderson's intent that it be watched prior to viewing Darjeeling.
This film EP is a single scene set in a hotel room in Paris. Jack (Jason Schwartzman), who apparently has been camped out in this room for some time, receives a surprising phone call from his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman). She has tracked him down and is on her way up to his room. Their interaction progresses with the even melancholy that paces all of Anderson's movies. However, this time, it seems forced. This isn't to say that some things do not ring true, but their lines to not come naturally.
I still await the expansion of The Darjeeling Limited to theatres around the country, or at least to theatres in my area. Anderson's most recent effort, The Life Aquatic, was his most critically disappointing movie, though I loved it. The main critique is that it is all the quirkiness without the depth of his previous work. It is already apparent that Anderson is trying to go deeper with his exploration of relationships with Darjeeling. I just hope that his schtick has not grown stale.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Across the Universe
Director: Julie Taymor
Grade: D+
Though I can't say that I had highly anticipated this movie, I will say that it had been on my radar for quite a while and was very interested to see it. I had expected it to get a bigger commercial push, and when their were rumors that director Julie Taymor (Frida, the Broadway version of The Lion King) had asked to have her name removed from the project after the studio reshot a large chunk of the movie, red flags went up. Nonetheless, I talked myself into it.
What a colossal trainwreck! Even for a musical, the plot was the weakest of any movie I've seen in recent memory (and I saw Music and Lyrics!). Scenes are sloppily thrown together and characters are seriously underdevolped. The energy of the musical numbers doesn't always match the mood of the scenes. And it just keeps getting more and more bizzare. One moment our leads are at a hip, NYC music industry party, and the next they are kidnapped by Bono on the magical, mystery bus and left at Eddie Izzard's house. Even the attempted poignant statements failed to work, like the "Strawberry Fields Forever" number following Max (Joe Anderson) during his time in Vietnam.
There were numbers that did work for me. The most enjoyable was the Princeton frat brothers night on the town set to "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends". But mostly we found ourselves laughing at the absurdity of it all: the masked men dressed like Fidel Castro who prepare Max for the army after he is drafted, Bono's cameo singing "I Am the Walrus", Sadie's guitar player morphing into Jimmi Hendrix (I leaned over to Sarah and said, "if he lights his guitar on fire, I'm leaving").
Of course the music is good. But you already know that. So maybe you're better spending your money on the soundtrack than a ticket to the movie.
Director: Julie Taymor
Grade: D+
Though I can't say that I had highly anticipated this movie, I will say that it had been on my radar for quite a while and was very interested to see it. I had expected it to get a bigger commercial push, and when their were rumors that director Julie Taymor (Frida, the Broadway version of The Lion King) had asked to have her name removed from the project after the studio reshot a large chunk of the movie, red flags went up. Nonetheless, I talked myself into it.
What a colossal trainwreck! Even for a musical, the plot was the weakest of any movie I've seen in recent memory (and I saw Music and Lyrics!). Scenes are sloppily thrown together and characters are seriously underdevolped. The energy of the musical numbers doesn't always match the mood of the scenes. And it just keeps getting more and more bizzare. One moment our leads are at a hip, NYC music industry party, and the next they are kidnapped by Bono on the magical, mystery bus and left at Eddie Izzard's house. Even the attempted poignant statements failed to work, like the "Strawberry Fields Forever" number following Max (Joe Anderson) during his time in Vietnam.
There were numbers that did work for me. The most enjoyable was the Princeton frat brothers night on the town set to "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends". But mostly we found ourselves laughing at the absurdity of it all: the masked men dressed like Fidel Castro who prepare Max for the army after he is drafted, Bono's cameo singing "I Am the Walrus", Sadie's guitar player morphing into Jimmi Hendrix (I leaned over to Sarah and said, "if he lights his guitar on fire, I'm leaving").
Of course the music is good. But you already know that. So maybe you're better spending your money on the soundtrack than a ticket to the movie.
