Posts tagged Volker Zack Michalowski
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” All Style and No Substance
Apr 2nd
“All Style and No Substance”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is the latest movie written and directed by Wes Anderson, and of all his movies that I have seen, I have either liked them or didn’t like them.
This one falls in the latter category.
Full disclosure: Granted, I have not seen all of his movies, but I did enjoy RUSHMORE, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, and THE LIFE AQUATIC OF STEVE ZISSOU, which I enjoyed very much.
I believe that this latest movie has more style than substance and is as filling probably as the confectioneries that play such an important part in the story.
Oh, it contains plenty of story, just as it contains plenty of actors, such as Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Soirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, and Owen Wilson, many of whom were recognizable because of the size of their parts, but a couple I missed because they weren’t on screen long enough to recognize them.
Sure enough, the story is about a hotel, but it is not in Budapest, but rather in the fictional Republic of Zabrowka, which apparently is in Europe.
The story also jumps around in time, but mostly takes place in 1932, between the two world wars, which also play a part.
Mostly the story is about a concierge at the hotel, M. Gustave, played by Ralph Fiennes, and Zero, the Lobby Boy he hired on a trial basis, and whom Gustave tells, “Remember, I am always with you.”
Well, there is a dowager countess who dies and leaves Gustave something priceless in her will, but which is contested by her son.
Not only is there a second will, but also a second copy of the second will and a confidential message that goes along with it.
There is a murder investigation, a prison sentence, a prison escape, a love affair between the Lobby Boy and a pastry maker, a cat thrown out of a window, some fingers cut off in a door, and a wild chase through the snow.
Now, I subscribe to the philosophy of Vincent Canby, respected film critic for THE NEW YORK TIMES, which was “One man saw a movie, and I am that man.”
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL was that movie, and I hated it!
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Movie Trailer
Apr 1st
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune — all against the back-drop ofa suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.
“Inglourious Basterds” Ostentatious Self-Indulgence
Aug 27th
Ostentatious Self-Indulgence
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is intentionally misspelled, because writer-director Quentin Tarantino wanted that title for his latest movie, but also wanted to differentiate it from the 1978 Italian movie of the same name, which just shows how easily he could have given it a unique title.
I’ll tell you what that unique title could have been later on.
The film is divided into five chapters, which are identified at the beginning of each section, and Chapter 1 takes place in 1941 in Nazi-occupied France.
Col. Hans Landa, a German SS officer played brilliantly by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, shows up with his men at a small dairy farm to question the owner in private.
Waltz has already won the Best Actor award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and he is sure to be nominated for and to win many more similar awards for this role.
Col. Landa is charged with finding and killing Jews in France, and he suspects that the farm owner he is questioning can provide him with information about the last Jewish family unaccounted for in the neighborhood.
Chapter 2 then shows the title characters, who are a squad of Jewish- American soldiers who have been dropped behind enemy lines in France and are led by Lt. Aldo Raine, played by Brad Pitt in a surprisingly comic role.
Lt. Raine tells his men, “We’re here to do one thing and one thing only: Killing Nazis.”
Well, that’s not entirely true, because they also scalp the German soldiers that they kill in order to send a message to whoever finds the soldiers’ bodies.
Chapter 3 then jumps to 1944 in Paris, and we meet Shosanna Dreyfus, a young Jewish woman who owns a movie theater, and here is where Tarantino really starts to show off his cinematic knowledge, so much so that the audience can get the impression that this is a lecture on the history of cinema instead of a movie itself.
Col. Landa shows up again, and then later Lt. Raine and the Inglourious Basterds show up, too, but by now this is no longer a war movie, but an elaborate hoax on the audience because of Tarantino’s rewriting of well-known history.
And remember how I said that Tarantino could have given it a unique title?
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS could easily have been called OSTENTATIOUS SELF-INDULGENCE.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
