BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
Wes Anderson is an amazing filmmaker. I’d call him a “director”, but he does more than mere direction. He’s a filmmaker. He writes, produces, directs, and perfects film. He has a signature style and throws awe-inspiring imagery at us so casually that it’s criminally underappreciated. That black and white New York silhouette of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” is part of cinema imagery that is celebrated and acclaimed. To not put many… MANY of Wes Anderson’s scenes in the same regard would be silly. You can argue his stories, the acting, the narrative, or even tone but the visual display is mainly my reason for loving this guy’s work so much. The story and narrative part is where I get lost sometimes. There isn’t a Wes movie that’s not beautiful to look at, but they don’t always connect with me. Sometimes the stories go too long, the narrative repeats in a few of them and sometimes things just don’t hit the mark for everyone. I love “The Darjeeling Limited”. I’m inspired by “Bottle Rocket”. I enjoy “Rushmore” and “Moonrise Kingdom”. “Life Aquatic” is a great movie, but a tad long at the end. “Mr. Fox” didn’t connect with me at all. I could and have talked about Wes Anderson movies all day. If I could make a perfect movie I’d take Kevin Smith’s slacker dialogue and stories and let Wes Anderson direct them. Imagine how Wes Anderson would have make “Dogma” look?! Shit. Imagine how he’d have envisioned “Mallrats”. Back to the point here. I’m happy to say “This Grand Budapest Hotel” falls into the upper tier of my favorite Wes Anderson movies. It looks stunning. There’s nothing too new here visually. It’s the same style and it still looks amazing. The fullness of Wes Anderson’s settings and camera angles give a child-like-wide-eyed view at the world. This story centers around an old man who tells the story of the hotel to a stranger. It turns out he has connections to the hotel and we follow his crazy and great story. It’s a movie that’s hard not to smile at and with. It was well paced, well-acted, well shot, well edited, and just a damn good movie. A friend said this is the best movie he’s seen so far in 2014. I wasn’t too sure about it during this talk but I’m having a hard time thinking of many movies that were this great. If you appreciate Wes Anderson movies you should obviously see this. If you appreciate good movies you should see this. This is not a movie you don’t want to ignore. It doesn’t seem like much on the surface, but it’s such a pleasantly awesome film that you’ll be doing yourself a disservice by not seeing this as soon as possible. A
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