Director does 5-star turn in ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’

It’s tempting to say that if you’ve seen one Wes Anderson film, you’ve seen them all, an ironic comment that I can’t help but think the director would appreciate.

Each and every one of his movies from “Rushmore” on (“The Royal Tenenbaums,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Moonrise Kingdom” among them) have been calculated narrative exercises containing art direction that has become more and more meticulously rendered with each feature. While viewers are well aware they’re being manipulated throughout, what saves most of Anderson’s films is the genuine heart that beats beneath the artifice, a willingness to be able to find the best in characters whose actions are morally questionable.

All of this is at play again in Anderson’s latest, “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” his most visually ornate — and that’s saying something — to date and his most melancholy as well.

With a narrative that employs a flashback within a flashback, underscoring how remote the characters and their world is to ours now, the film wastes little time in dropping us into the world of the title institution with Mr. Moustafa (a heartbreaking F. Murray Abraham) as our guide, unspooling his life story to a young writer (Jude Law) in which he recounts how he came to work at the most beautiful hotel in Europe in the early 1930s and became the protege of the greatest of concierges.

M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is a man of impeccable taste who expects perfection from himself and his staff as he sets about running the Grand Budapest Hotel. He is a model of well-mannered austerity, and young Zero (Tony Revolori), a new bellboy at the hotel, longs to follow in his footsteps.

While Gustave is conservative in appearance, he’s not without his vices, chief among them bedding the lonely, older women who frequent his place of employment. His most frequent lover, Madame D. (a barely recognizable Tilda Swinton) dies not long after her most recent stay, and Gustave is stunned when he’s told she has left him a priceless painting in her will.

He’s equally surprised when he’s arrested for her murder, as her bitter heirs have prodded the authorities on, Dmitri (Adrien Brody) chief among them, to intercede on their behalf.

It’s at this point, when Gustave finds himself behind bars, that the lunacy of the plot kicks in. Our hero, along with a gang of cons led by Ludwig (Harvey Keitel), a tough guy with a heart of gold, plot an escape, all the while Zero courts and weds Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), a lovely baker who gets sucked into the prison break as well. Meanwhile, Dmitri’s right-hand man Jopling (Willem Defoe, looking wolf-like with sharpened teeth and sunken eyes) tries his level best to eliminate the only man who can prove Gustave’s innocence, which takes him to a monastery where the key players ultimately meet.

One of the recurring themes in Anderson’s films is that while mankind may be able to create things of great beauty, we seldom fail to ruin them with our own petty behavior and flaws. This plays out on screen and is underscored in the way the director constructs his work. While the characters here put forth the appearance of being cultured, they destroy this illusion by their actions whether it be cursing like sailors, being unfaithful or acting in ways that fly in the face of the societal norm.

Gustave is the prime example here as his insecurities and questionable morals where women are concerned undercut the meticulously groomed appearance he’s painstakingly worked to perfect. Only the children in Anderson’s films seem immune to this sort of deception, not having been damaged yet to the point where they feel as though they must hide their true selves from the world.

The film itself represents this incongruity as well with broad and subtle touches. As the mannered comedy devolves into broad farce, odd visual clues pop up, purposely placed there by Anderson to upset his meticulously rendered sets. Why there is a cactus in the kitchen of a home in the Bavarian Alps is beyond me, while a wild gunfight set against the backdrop of an ornate ceiling window are just a couple of the visual sore thumbs the director throws at us to let us know that perfection is often marred by our inexplicable natures.

Ultimately, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” embraces this notion, driving home to us that we must revel in moments of happiness and do our best to ignore the many flies in the ointment of our lives that we’ll encounter.

‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (3-1/2 stars out of 4)

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, F. Murray Abraham, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tom Wilkinson, Lea Seydoux and Owen Wilson.

Written and directed by Wes Anderson; produced by Jeremy Dawson, Steven Rales, Scott Rudin and Anderson.

A Fox Searchlight Pictures release. 100 minutes. Rated R (language, some sexual content and violence). At Art Theater, Carmike 13 and Savoy 16.

Veronica Mars Movie a Hit… If You’ve Seen the TV Series

“Mars” Movie for Fans Only (2 stars). The release of “Veronica Mars,” the big screen continuation of the cult television show, will be remembered for being a watershed moment in the history of film distribution.

Financed by fans through a Kickstarter campaign, it’s the first studio-sponsored feature to be released in theaters the same day that it was available through pay-per-view services. The success of this venture was mixed at best. While showing in only 291 theaters, the film brought in a respectable $2 million.

However, with a $6 million budget, some are calling it a failure, which is a premature judgment as the final numbers are not yet in regarding how many fans shelled out $10 to watch the movie in the comfort of their homes.

That many had trouble downloading it and getting refunds for their trouble is another issue altogether, but it points to the fact that digital platforms may not be ready to handle a wide day-and-date release of a major Hollywood feature.

In the end, how the film fares under this release model is far more interesting than the film itself as it plays like nothing more than an extended episode of the series with nothing visually distinctive about it to warrant seeing it on a big screen.

For that matter, the story itself is nothing to write home about, as the mystery that the comely Miss Mars gets involved with is standard fare.

When one character makes a comparison to her adventures and those that took place on “Murder, She Wrote,” I couldn’t help but think that a more accurate comparison had never been made before.

Though having vowed never to return to her hometown of Neptune, Calif., for her 10-year high school reunion, Veronica (Kristin Bell) finds herself doing just that as she flies cross-country from New York City when she finds out her old beau Logan (Jason Dohring) has been accused of murder.

Before she knows it, our Nancy Drew is sucked back into the vacuous lives of her former high school peers, dealing with past grudges and petty behavior as she attempts to solve the murder of a pop singer with ties to those at Neptune High.

Even though writer/director Rob Thomas does a nice job of trying to get everyone up to speed with all things “Mars” during a slick opening credits sequence that provides outsiders with the nuts and bolts of the show, there’s no question that devotees of the program are the only ones who will catch all of the inside jokes and understand the import of the relationships at play.

And that’s fine — after all, they’re the ones who donated money to get the film made, so it should be made to please them.

However, from this small sampling, I was left scratching my head. After seeing Veronica leave her sweet fiance in New York and cheat on him, after seeing her and Logan struggle to create any sort of chemistry and having to witness a mystery that would be more at home on “Scooby-Doo” than in a feature film, I couldn’t help but wonder what all the fuss is about where “Mars” is concerned.

Grounded ‘Need for Speed’ Outdistances ‘Furious’

Do we need another movie built around fast cars and reckless drivers? Or for that matter, one based on a video game?

For me, the answer is a resounding “No” to both questions, and that being the case, I went into Scott Waugh’s “Need for Speed” with the mind-set that the film already had two strikes against it.

However, again I was reminded of the perils of prejudging as this proved to be a genuinely exciting, if not overly original piece of high-octane popcorn entertainment, buoyed not only by inventively staged chase sequences but a sympathetic, grounded performance from Aaron Paul, around whom all of this vehicular mayhem ensues.

The actor stars as Tobey Marshall, a grease monkey with a custom car shop of his own, left to him by his father, that’s on the verge of collapse. He loves what he does, as well as the crew he has assembled, but the work that comes in (plus whatever he can pick up winning illegal road races) simply doesn’t pay the bills.

An offer he can’t refuse walks through his door one day in the form of Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper, looking every bit the bad guy), an old rival who has gotten away with Marshall’s girlfriend Anita (Dakota Johnson). He needs a rare Mustang customized to the tune of $250,000, a job the crew jumps at, thus feeding their passion and saving their friend’s business at the same time.

This transaction is not the last bit of business that Marshall and Brewster engage in, as they have a throwdown on the road between themselves and Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), Anita’s brother. He ends up dead, thanks to Brewster’s dastardly doings, while Marshall takes the blame and does two years in prison on a manslaughter charge, only to come out looking for a bit of revenge and redemption.

He finds his opportunity in the De Leon, a high-speed road race that takes place on the highways and byways of California, organized by Monarch (Michael Keaton), a mysterious moneyed maniac who lives vicariously through the drivers. Marshall, Brewster and a handful of others duel to near-death in their sleek, road-hugging machines, causing all sorts of glorious-looking wrecks as they race more for pride than the pink slips of the autos they use that are on the line.

To be sure, this is the silliest of premises, but for what it is, there’s no denying that it’s done exceptionally well. Waugh, a former stuntman helming only his second film, (“Act of Valor” was the first) takes an old-school approach that helps distance it from the “Fast and Furious” franchise. All of the racing here was actually executed on the road, as no computer-generated effects were employed. You won’t see the cars doing anything that a car can’t do, and the difference is palpable. Using inventive camera placement and an editing rhythm that adopts a rapid tempo but doesn’t distract us from the action, Waugh fashions an old-fashioned car film using modern cinematic technology that roars off the screen.

Obviously, a movie like this can’t survive on muscle cars alone, and while the revenge plot that’s used is as hoary as a threadbare rug, the cast is committed to it in such a way that we don’t mind knowing right where it’s headed. Paul is as solid as we’ve come to expect him to be from “Breaking Bad,” bringing sympathy to the stereotype he’s saddled with as well as a bit of charm.

His co-star, Imogen Poots as his shotgun co-pilot Julia, is feisty and not just a piece of eye candy. Her quick wit plays well off Paul’s quiet demeanor, and the many scenes they share are so good that we don’t mind that we’re taking a breather from the constant action. Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek and Ramon Rodriguez as Marshall’s crew all get their comedic moment in the spotlight which they take advantage of to great effect. As for Keaton, he’s so manic that you can’t help but think you’re watching a middle-aged Beetlejuice, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Need for Speed” is designed to thrill as well as launch a franchise with Paul at the center. Whether two speed-based series can survive at the box office remains to be seen. However, with the exception of “Fast 5,” “Need for Speed” is superior in almost every way, primarily because of Paul’s ability to anchor the movie and Waugh’s dedication to filming this adventure in a way that does not insult our intelligence yet deliver the thrills audiences demand.

‘Need for Speed’ (3 stars out of 4)

Cast: Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Dominic Cooper, Michael Keaton, Scott Mescudi, Rami Malek, Ramon Rodriguez, Harrison Gilbertson and Dakota Johnson.

Directed by Scott Waugh; produced by John Gatins, Patrick O’Brien and Mark Sourian; screenplay by George Gatins.

A DreamWorks production. 130 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sequences of reckless street racing, disturbing crash scenes, nudity and crude language.)

Welcome to the Blog!

Hey folks,
Welcome to my blog. I’ve been doing movie reviews in print, television and radio for years. But when you’re deciding what to see at the movies- or what you want to rent or download- having a review at your fingertips is awfully handy. Check out the reviews and feel free to make comments! (Please use netiquette)

I love films and movie-making: they tell stories that entertain us and challenge us. The best and worst of the human spirit and the human condition can be found through the art of movie-making. And yes even the worst films have their positives (just don’t count on me to sing the praises of one decent scene in an otherwise terrible production). So stay tuned for my reviews and other useful, timely, and important links! I’ll see you at the movies and on Twitter!

Best,
Chuck

A little more about me:

Though he had his first critical thoughts about film when he was 8 years old, Chuck Koplinski had to wait 20 years before putting his opinions in print. Having established himself with various independent newspapers in Central Illinois, Chuck joined the Illinois Times in Springfield, where he has been writing since 1998. Branching out into other media, he has been delivering weekly film reviews for the CBS affiliate WCIA-TV and FM radio station MIX 94.5 (WLRW-FM) since 2005. Additionally he has been writing for the News-Gazette in Champaign, IL, since 2007.