The French Dispatch (5/5 Stars)

 

The masterpiece train keeps on rolling. That makes four in a row from Wes Anderson and the machine, an ever expanding cast of remarkable actors, production designers led by Adam Stockhausen, musicians led by Alexandre Desplat, costumes by Milena Canonero, etc etc. This time, Mr. Anderson, writer/director, spins an appetizer and three course meal of the fictional Ennui-sur-Blase, France in the form of a travelogue and three stories of the French Dispatch, a fictional satellite production of the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.

This movie is delightful. I came to that conclusion about two minutes into the feature when the movie takes about a twenty seconds to film a French waiter stocking a tray with an assortment of apertifs, confections, and hors-d’oeurvres for delivery to Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (played by Bill Murray), editor of the title production. Like Wes Anderson’s best work, there is a loving attention to the detail here that most movies lack the ability to attempt.

The French Dispatch is in a newspaper but is not really news. It tells offbeat stories about curious people. It is a pleasant diversion about a small corner of the world that nobody in Kansas would likely visit. I believe that would be the whole point. There are many small things in life that lack formal importance, but as an antidote to the daily grind, are essential to living well. This idea is voiced with beautiful particularity in the third story by writer Roebuck Wright (played by Jeffrey Wright) when he is asked why he devotes so much space in his articles to the experience of dining. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would you choose? You could do much worse than a curated evening with Wes Anderson. (Actually you can choose this, but without the Wes, he curated a version of pullman dining on a British Train. https://www.belmond.com/trains/europe/uk/belmond-british-pullman/search-results. Tickets are around $600, give or take).

The danger of the Wes Anderson experience, as evident in his first fifteen years of making movies, is that his upper class tastes can come off as tone deaf or snooty. He has by and large avoided this pitfall in his last four great movies by focusing not on the rich people, but the servants, artisans, (dogs) that cater to them. It is a delicate balancing act to be sure. Since Wes Anderson is so very much rich himself (I highly suspect), to speak for the poor could easily come off as presumptuous and contrived. He avoids this by showing an unsurpassed appreciation for the artistry, whether it be a lobby boy attending to his duties in a hotel, a boy scout troupe leader searching for his charges, or a dog looking out for his master. Wes Anderson merely supposes, rightly I believe, that the people who curate his experiences care about their art in a manner that is separate and apart from the status of the ultimate consumer. Do such people like the celebrated police chef Nescaffier (played by Steve Park, yes that Steve Park from Coen Brothers’ movies like Fargo and A Serious Man), exist. They must. If they didn’t, how could there be so much beauty in the world?

To consider Wes Anderson’s movies chronologically, is to witness a writer-director become increasingly competent and confident in not only his distinct cinematic voice but the very tools of cinema. The French Dispatch is notable in its sheer amount of sets and cinematography techniques. To take one example, the first story, is a news article by J.K.L Berenson (played by Tilda Swinton) that turns into a lecture, which narrates a story of a psychotic inmate named Moses Rosenthaler (played by Benicio Del Toro) who might be a genius of modern art. The lecture is in color, but the story with Moses is in black and white, until of course, it isn’t. That is, Wes Anderson is not just using black and white because he wants to be artsy, he is doing it to make important scenes in the story “pop” with color. There are several of these moments in this movie whether it be a first glimpse of a fresco, the taste of a delicious apertif, or the blue eyes of Saorise Ronan, and the effect is undeniable. The realm of moviedom has not seen an artist with such innovative control of film, as a medium, since Oliver Stone was at the height of his creative powers in the early nineties (see JFK and Natural Born Killers). Add to this is Wes Anderson’s interesting use of foreign languages (In the second story, that concerns itself with insufferably woke university students, all the boys speak English, and the girls speak French with subtitles. To be clear, they are all speaking French, Wes is just being interesting) and his absolute refusal to shoot anything resembling a conventional action scene (a prison riot is shown in freeze frame, a car chase turns into a cartoon).

But more than anything, what is particularly impressive about The French Dispatch is the writing. The movie’s screenplay, which Wes Anderson wrote by himself, is based on four fictional articles by four fictional writers with four different styles. Each story, though all written by Wes, leaves a distinct impression of a unique artistic voice, each one a very good writer in their own regard. I ask you, could there possibly be a movie this year that is more “written” than the The French Dispatch. Have you ever seen a movie, more “literary”. Can we just give him his first Oscar ever for Best Original Screenplay right now?

If there is a criticism to be directed at this movie, it is that there is too much of it, at least in one sitting. I think this movie, or something like it, would make a very good TV show. That is, since each story could stand on its own, you could split the movie up into 30 minutes segments like say Documentary Now, thereby giving the audience a chance to catch its breath between stories. The French Dispatch is an appetizer and three entrees in a row. We need more time to comfortably digest. After all, I haven’t even mentioned Adrian Brody’s brilliant dissection of the economics of modern art, or Timothee Chalamet’s hair, or the fact that I got to see Lea Seydoux naked (worth the ticket price by itself).

Nomadland (4/5 Stars)

 

Nomadland, a feature by relatively new writer/director Chloe Zhao, seems to be part fictional narrative and part documentary. It has the thinnest of plots, Fern (played by Frances McDormand), lived her life in a one-factory town in Nevada. Her husband died and then the factory died, so she packed up her life in a van and has been living out of it ever since. There are many people out there like her in the sparsely populated areas of the American West, and I as far as I can tell, the real people show up in this movie and talk about themselves while Frances McDormand sits there and listens. A woman in an Amazon fulfillment center lunchroom talks about her tattoos. A man gives an impromptu educational lecture on the practical dos and don’t for a life on the road to a crowd of passerbys. An elderly woman sells the little that she has and embarks on one last road trip to Alaska.

Most movies have conflict or plot. Nomadland is adamant about having neither. Banking on the fact that you are likely not familiar with the subject matter, it believes your natural curiously can hold your interest with just showing you a novel way of life with its capable inhabitants acting as tour guides. It is right. Nomadland is lovely little movie filled with the beauty of the open West and the good nature of the nomads that make it their home.

The negatives of this type of life are generally overlooked, lest it spoil the mood and cast shade on the very real people here. One I can think of would be a lack of security either from nature or other people or both. How do you guard your stuff from random people in the middle of nowhere? This is not explained. Fern experiences trouble with her van’s engine. She conveniently has a sister she can call and ask for a loan. We believe Fern when she is good for the money, but that is besides the point. The point is that she has someone to call. I am reminded of Kelly Reichardt’s movie Wendy and Lucy starring Michelle Williams. When Wendy has car trouble, she calls family but they have no interest in helping. Unlike Fern, she ends up selling her car for parts.

The difference between Fern and Wendy is that Fern still has some support. Not only from her sister, but also from the federal government. She looks to be old enough to be receiving social security and be covered by Medicare. She works part of the year in a federal park, which incidentally provides services to nomads like her. The life is not so bad a life and plenty good the movie wants to show. Fern has little wants, makes what she needs to provide them, and has access to community and infrastructure, albeit loose, to support her. The best line is when Fern is asked by a teenage girl if she is ‘homeless’. Fern replies that she is ‘houseless’ and that there is a difference. Fern is not poor, she is simply living on the cheap. There are nomads out there that are truly poor, but we don’t know enough about the people we meet here to know which of them are in that number.

Movies about truly poor people are kind of rare. This is not helped by the fact that writers’ need their characters to have some sort of money in order to be able to make choices and do things. Movies are generally about people who have the opportunity to do make choices and do things. I can think of two good modern examples of people being poor, not just living on the cheap like Fern, but poor like do not “have a sister who could loan money if in a tight spot” poor. Wendy and Lucy by Kelly Reichardt is one. The other would be the TV-series Atlanta. The character Earn (played by Donald Glover) is poor, like truly poor. I have never been truly poor, but I’ve lived on the cheap for a few years and certain scenes in that show really made me uncomfortable. There is one episode where Earn takes his girlfriend out to a place that he believes has a cheap burger special and a happy hour that goes until midnight but upon arrival finds out that management has turned the place into a seafood restaurant that specializes in tiki drinks. That, as they say, was real. Nomadland instead is a bit like its last piece of sage wisdom. “One of things I like most about this life is that there is no final goodbye. I’ve met hundreds of people out here and I’ll don’t ever say a final goodbye. You just say, I’ll see you down the road. And I do, I see them again. And I can be certain in my heart. That I’ll see you again.” Well that’s pretty, but not, as they say, real.

Hail, Caesar! (4/5 Stars)

The new Coen Brothers movie “Hail, Caesar!” is not so much a satire of the big studio soulless entertainment of film’s first half-century as much as it is a celebration of it. After all, the big all encompassing studio has long since been a ripe satirical target. However the type of entertainment it would produce, as if art were something that could be manufactured en masse in a factory, did have its admirable attributes, lots of which are on display in this movie. Here we have five “types” of movies that the producers churned out: a western with trick horse play, a Busby Berkeley dance number, a high society melodrama, sailors tap-dancing a la “On the Town” and finally a biblical epic starring the biggest movie star of them all, Baird Whitlock (played by George Clooney). The Coen Brothers put on fine displays of them all. It is entertaining though it hardly means anything. But if that is all you want in a movie, than this is a very good one. It delivers just that.

Ostensibly the movie is about Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a producer. He is not the boss of the movie studio (that guy is in New York) but he is the highest-ranking person on the lot. His job is all sorts of things and takes day and night to do it. To over simplify things, he keeps the productions running and the stars (who are full-time employees of the studio) out of trouble. He solves problems. Take for instance the case of DeeAnna Morgan (Scarlett Johannsson) the mermaid in the synchronized swimming number. She is pregnant and unwed. Eddie, conscious of what it looks like to the moral movie-going public of family friendly pictures, helps her as only the representative of a huge corporation could. He plans to keep the pregnancy a secret, hire a professional person (Jonah Hill as Joseph Silverman) to adopt the newborn, and have this person give the child up for adoption back to DeeAnna a few days later. The professional person is just that. Whenever a star does something stupid, he is keen to be framed for the crime. It is let on that he spent six months in jail for a drunk driving incident.

On one of the last days of shooting the big biblical epic "Hail, Caesar" Baird Whitlock is kidnapped from the set. The kidnappers ask for $100,000. Eddie does some math and is content to pay it after realizing it will cost more to delay shooting a week (not to mention the bad press). The kidnappers happen to be a study group of communist screenwriters. They are not so rough on Baird. After slipping him a mickey and spiriting him to an isolated beach house, he is let in on the study group. They calmly and professorially explain Communism to him. He is receptive although that may be only his dim nature.

Mirroring this is the studios treatment of Jesus in “Hail, Caesar” which seems to look a lot like Ben Hur. The studio wants to give the people what they want (Jesus!) but do not want to offend anyone (an opinion on Jesus!). To that end, Eddie invites three priests from three Christian denominations and one rabbi to his office. He shows them the script and asks their opinion. There is nothing to object to as Jesus is seen only once in one scene with his back towards the camera (like “Ben Hur”). Nobody agrees on Jesus but nobody objects to the script because nothing is actually said about Jesus. Hollywood has pulled this fast one from time immemorial and for good reason too. Whenever an artist has something to say (take for instance Scorsese’s “Last Temptation of Christ,”) they are met with protests. Jesus remains hidden from big studio mass-market films to this day. 

Not that the Coens do the communists any favors. It turns out, through a lot of intellectual rigamarole and bandying about, the Communists want the ransom money because they are greedy. That claim it as payback for their services because they have been blackballed but are still working. The fact that they care about money does not bother them. An old venerable man explains that history is a science and that the Communist Revolution will come so it does not matter whether the study group acts selfishly. In fact to act selfishly will hasten the revolution so acting in their self-interest is in furtherance of their cause anyway. I dislike communists and though I have sympathy for anyone who is unfairly kept unemployed (what kind of good capitalist would I be if I were not) I love the fact that Hollywood Communists are being made fun in this movie for their stupid political beliefs. I have seen nothing but tragedies about them so far (thanks a lot McCarthy for turning them into noble sufferrors) so I consider this as a relief on the subject. The only thing worse than letting the Communists write screenplays was not letting them write screenplays. At least that way people could have a demonstration of how dumb is the philosophy.  

But I get carried away. The point of the movie is the studio fun. On great display is Alden Enrenreich (as Hobie Doyle) who is the cowboy of the film. He actually can do all sorts of tricks with a lasso. In fact, on a dinner date he takes a noodle of spaghetti, makes a lasso out of it, and hooks his dates thumb from across the table. Amazing! Now that’s entertainment. Also Channing Tatum does a great tap dancing number as a sailor who is not gay among a bunch of other sailors who are also not gay. The song is called “No Dames” and is about how when they are all at sea together there will be no dames. It is not gay. It is sad. Do not be tricked by the smiles and tap dancing.

Moonrise Kingdom (5/5 Stars)

“Let’s make an inventory”

Says Sam Schukusky to Suzy Bishop, once the two twelve year olds have successfully run away from their respective adults (parents for Suzy, a junior khaki troop for Sam) to elope on the New England island of Penzance. And make an inventory they do. Suzy is carrying her brother’s record player with extra batteries, her favorite LP, her pet kitten, several of her favorite science fiction books, her lucky left-handed scissors, and her much-loved set of binoculars. She carefully explains why each item is important. And if you haven’t guessed already, this scene is taking place in a movie written/directed by Wes Anderson, because, really, who else would have characters take the time to do an inventory of the things they are carrying. I mean, if it isn’t a war movie and the characters aren’t talking strategy and weapons, an inventory is almost unheard of in movies. This is just one particular touch, along with absurdly detailed set designs and costumes, obsessively neat and tidy dialogue, and super-controlled camera shots, that scream out that you are in that most distinctive of styles, Wes Anderson cinema. No other movie looks or works quite the way his do.

Now this does not automatically mean that his movies are good, in fact it has been a decade since he made a movie that needed seeing. The distinctive style that makes his films stand out also tend to undermine the story and move it toward the unfortunate territory of boredom. But, I’ve always felt there was a great movie just waiting to be made by the guy, and I’m glad to say he has finally made it. “Moonrise Kingdom,” is one of the best movies of the year. It succeeds in all the places his earlier movies have failed without sacrificing any of the trademark idiosyncrasies that make Anderson films such unique experiences. 

First the two kids are genuinely likable and may have some actual problems. I would like to emphasize the word “actual” here because so many of Anderson’s characters don’t have actual problems. They are generally well-to-do good-looking people afflicted with a type of depressing boredom or something. Like for instance, the three brothers in “the Darjeeling Limited” had unexplained father "issues" so they went on a long train ride in India to bond. Being able to afford to go on a long train ride in India to bond with family isn’t exactly evidence of a real world problem. I would guess that’s why so many of these characters tend to suffer quietly in whispers. They seem to be some acknowledgement that it is kind of pathetic to be unhappy while blessed by their relative circumstances. Anyway, this isn’t something to worry about in this story. Sam Shukusky is an orphan recently dumped by his latest foster parents and Suzy Bishop is emotionally disturbed. Or at least she has good reason to think she might be. She found a pamphlet entitled, “Coping with the Very Troubled Child,” on the top of her refrigerator, which is admittedly a kind of a freaky thing to find in your house. Neither have any friends, but they do like each other, and their love story is sweet and touching.

It takes a certain kind of skill to act effectively in a Wes Anderson movie. There is always a temptation to softly speak in long pauses. Take for instance Gwyneth Paltrow’s character in “The Royal Tenenbaums.” This however is a boring mistake. Instead the exact opposite needs to be done. An actor needs to fit in as many yells as possible within the tight framework of stilted dialogue. This is essentially the only way to break through the gorgeous/suffocating style to achieve some sort of catharsis and why an action blockbuster star like Bruce Willis, playing the island police officer, is a much better casting choice than a mellow guy like Owen Wilson. Otherwise an actor needs the jujitsu comedy skills of a guy like Bill Murray, also present playing Suzy's father, who has the unique ability to take the style and subtly play it against itself by under-under-playing his performance, see the scene with the axe and the little kids. We’ve got some passionate speakers here. Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel, as scoutmasters, put in a ridiculous degree of professionalism in directing boy scouts. Frances McDormand doesn’t yell but carries around a bullhorn and uses it whenever she speaks. 

It's all done very well. Someone here between Murray, Willis, Norton, and Schwartzman deserves an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actor but I can’t really decide who deserves it more than the others. A safe choice is Bruce Willis, who in his very long career has amazingly never received any real recognition for anything. Given his perfect performances in great movies such as “Die Hard,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Sixth Sense,” and "Sin City" he is a bit overdue. For all his machoness, he has done some of his best work with children, and there is a scene here with the orphan Sam after he has been caught, separated from his love, and notified that his foster parents do not want him back that contains every correct thing you can say said in all the correct ways in such a situation.

Lastly, Wes Anderson has finally figured out how to end his movies on a high note. This movie has an exciting third act with an honest to god action sequence that doesn’t have some winking existential sigh of a conclusion. (Contrast this with “The Life Aquatic,” and his weird decision not to blow up the tiger shark with dynamite as planned.) In other words, the movie like so many other Wes Anderson previous efforts doesn’t run out of steam before the end. This is probably his crowning achievement and what makes this movie his best movie yet. (I will forever love “Rushmore” more yes, but that is strictly for personal not critical reasons, like say, the main character’s name being Max)

When you have a style that is especially distinctive (like say Altman or Kubrick) it is especially hard to judge your movie because they are so unlike anything else. So it would not come as a surprise to me if “Moonrise Kingdom” was completely ignored come Oscar time. It shouldn’t be though. Among the more obvious things it should be acknowledged for are the original score by Alexandre Desplat (you may remember him from “The Tree of Life”), and the art direction by Gerald Sullivan. The not so obvious things would be a nomination for best director for Wes Anderson and best original screenplay for Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola. And why not, nods for cinematography, editing, and Bruce Willis. It should go without saying that a Best Picture nod is called for as this is one of the best movies of the year.

Burn After Reading 09/15/08

The problem with this comedy is that it doesn't know where its priorities are. Out of the great ensemble within, there is only one purely comic character. His name is Chad and he's a absentminded gym employee played by Brad Pitt. Unfortunately he is the last character introduced and the first one to leave, prematurely at that. As far as I'm concerned, they should have made that guy the main character. He's profoundly more interesting to watch than anybody else. 
There's a bare bones feel to the entire movie. The plot may be original, and yes I haven't seen anything like it, I'll also concede that it has its moments, but it still isn't anything really special. Clocking in at a long hour and a half and ending arbitrarily (some may say lazily) it lacks any real bite or a fever pitch that usually accompanies your average Coen brothers movie. What this movie is, if anything is a weird footnote in the career's of its very accomplished cast. The Coen's have just won the Oscar for best picture, Swinton has just won an Oscar, Clooney has just been nominated, Brad Pitt is a huge star, and Malkovich and McDormand have always been well respected. Put that together with a supporting cast including the likes of J.K. Simmons and Richard Jenkins plus the great cinematographer Roger Deakins and it's a wonder how this movie could be so forgettable.
There are basically two plots that interweave. One features the misplaced memoirs of Osbourne Cox, an ex-CIA man, that falls into the hands of gym employees (McDormand and Pitt) who try to blackmail him. The other plot line has to do with several extra-marital affairs involving Swinton, Clooney, and McDormand. The first plot is consistently funny. The second is completely vacant of laughter and hangs around taking up space, draining away the life of the movie, and wasting time in general. Swinton may be a good dramatic actress but she is completely lost here, not that the script gives her much help. The largest laugh along this story line comes when Clooney is impressed by the white pine floor of McDormand's apartment. It's a random throwaway line that is funny simply because it has no connection with the scene. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It often doesn't in this movie. There's a complete lack of jokes in some scenes. The cutesy dialogue may garner a giggle, Clooney may mug and gain a snigger but there simply isn't enough material here. And I don't care who's telling a penis joke, the Coen brothers or Rob Schneider, there needs to be some sort of context to it before it becomes funny. Come on Coen brothers, you're better than that.