LogFAQs > #981667735

6. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2014, United States/Germany
Director: Wes Anderson

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e775fe4a.jpg
You're looking so well, darling, you really are... they've done a marvelous job. I don't know what sort of cream they've put on you down at the morgue, but... I want some.

Rankings:

Inviso: 1
Karo: 3
Johnbobb: 6
Seginus: 22
Exdeath: 26
Total: 58

Inviso:

Ive watched three Wes Anderson movies for this list (this being the first live action film of his to grace my screen), and every time, his directorial style is perfectly quirky in a way that, even though its very distinct and repetitive, Ive loved it every time. This movie is quick and clever and pretty much every actor plays their part as an over-the-top caricature of the kind of high-profile, high-class personality one might expect. Hell, even the lower-class characters, slumming it in prison, still come across as more aristocratic than their station might otherwise imply. The end result is a series of wacky scenarios in which Ralph Fiennes (who does an amazing job in a somewhat lead role) is both hilariously out-of-touch with reality, and yet simultaneously all too in-touch with reality. Its hard to really going into detail because the movie overall is just so quirky in the best way, and I loved it. Its just nice to have an upbeat film, even if the subject matter is really dark when you really look at it.

Karo:

The story of an odd hotel and its equally odd concierge, one Monsieur Gustave.
Now, Gustave likes to sleep around with senior citizens, and one of them leaves a priceless painting to him in her will. Armed with nothing but his refined gentlemanliness and his trusty bellhop, the two of them embark on on an escapade to recover his rightful property and learns that the true friends were all the felonies you were convicted of along the way.
Of special note is the camerawork, which feels really unique and interesting, often zoomed out wide to really take in the intricate set detail, or employing sharp almost cartoonish cuts. I like it.
It is strange and quirky in the manner of Wes Anderson's stuff, and how much you like him is probably how much you will like this movie, and I generally enjoy his work very much.

Johnbobb:

I've seen a lot of Wes Anderson movies. In fact, I've seen basically every Wes Anderson movie, except Bottle Rocket, because who the fuck actually watched Bottle Rocket? The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most Wes Anderson movie that Wes Anderson has made. When I think of movies with incredible cinematography, The Grand Budapest Hotel is always near the top of the list. Hell, The Grand Budapest Hotel really opened my eyes to what could even be done with cinematography. Every frame of this film feels intentional in the way Barry Lyndon does, but unlike Barry Lyndon, this also manages to be an enjoyable movie to watch. Wes Anderson manages to make Willem Dafoe look even more like a vampire. It's hilarious and its an absolute pleasure to look at from start to finish.

Favorite line from a 1/2 star Letterboxd review:
Wes Anderson doesnt have the flexibility to physically suck his own dick so he made this movie

Seginus:

Lets get the flaw out of the way, this poor kid actor. This kid got saddled with such a bland protagonist hes even named Zero, and I think maybe the intent on the page got lost. Like what it was calling for was a super dry, deadpan performance - the Teller to Ralph Fiennes motormouth Penn act - but the silent straight man is deceptively hard to do and whatever this kid was doing didnt work. I certainly didnt buy him aging into F. Murray Abraham! I feel bad dragging the movie on this point but I really think it whiffed with the Zero character.

Otherwise, a delightful romp between world wars stuffed with fun cameos, ridiculous scenarios, and meticulously crafted pastiche. I love the sequence where Goldblum is being chased into a museum and it takes on the style of a spy thriller. The allusions to old bergfilm are visually splendid and appropriate to the rise of nazism within the films timeline, as the genre historically got co-opted by the party.

A lot of the movie seems to be about how polite society may just be a veneer, but when that crumbles something far worse takes its place.

Exdeath:

Perhaps a bit too straightforward to really be considered an art movie, but this is generally seen as the pinnacle of Wes Anderson's very distinct filmmaking style and I threw it on to help people actually get through the list. It's a fun and breezy heist adventure with a lot of the quirky dialog you expect from Wes. Like with most of Anderson's films, I find that the recognizability of his style also ends up being its biggest weakness, and there wasn't anything about this film that truly surprised me after having seen his stop motions and Royal Tenenbaums. A good time and a well made movie, but for me probably one of the weaker - and less meaningful - entries on a list of very strong films, if I do say so myself.