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What's Your Favorite Wes Anderson Movie?

BuzzSugar — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:30:38 -0700

News about another Wes Anderson movie (even if it's not a Wes Anderson original) got me thinking about his ever-growing canon of work. I'll always be partial to Bottle Rocket because it was my first introduction to the brothers Wilson and I still crack up thinking about it, but I have a deep love for Rushmore, too. And who can deny the brilliance of The Royal Tenenbaums? And even though The Darjeeling Limited mostly flew beneath the radar I liked it well enough. On the other hand, some people aren't turned on at all by his trademark aesthetic and stories about dysfunctional families.

What do you think?

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What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:30:00 -0800

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the titles below, 30 Days of Night is available if you have the need to get the bejesus scared out of you, and you can finally catch the emotional Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale on DVD.

The Darjeeling Limited
In the latest addition to director Wes Anderson's growing collection of movies that feature dysfunctional families, The Darjeeling Limited gives us Anderson's typically quirky characters, his stylized look and of course some witty, awkward dialogue. The movie stars Adrien Brody alongside Anderson regulars Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman as brothers who plan a road trip across India.

The first part of the film contains all the goofy and neurotic trademarks of this director's films, though the story takes an unexpected dark turn in the middle. While there are certainly problems with this movie, fans of Wes Anderson won't be disappointed. The DVD's special features include the film's prequel Hotel Chevalier which stars Natalie Portman.

Two more movies you might enjoy are out this week, so read more

Death at a Funeral
I've been waiting for Death at a Funeral to come out on DVD as it was one of my Must-Haves this month and I never got to catch it in the theaters. The movie received a lot of great reviews from critics and audience members alike, and the tag line perfectly sums up what I've heard about it: "From director Frank Oz comes the story of a family that puts the F U in funeral."

I'm a big fan of those find-humor-in-the-bleakest-of-situations stories so I'm really excited to see this one. Special features include a gag reel as well as commentaries by the film's writer, Dean Craig, and director Frank Oz.

Beowulf
The epic English poem comes to life (albeit with some liberties taken) as a 3-D animated film thanks to director Robert Zemeckis. Voiced by big-time talent including Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich, the movie tells the story of a Scandinavian warrior's journey to find and kill some terrifying monsters. In Beowulf, Zemeckis again employs the motion-capture process used in The Polar Express, which proves very impressive during the battle scenes.

Today this title is also released in an unrated director's cut version which takes the chains off the film's scenes that include violence and nakedness. Special features include a treat for folks interested in animation with plenty of making-of featurettes, an extensive look behind the scenes, and an odd bit with Zemeckis discussing how much he hated the original poem.

The Darjeeling Limited: Another Study in Dysfunction

BuzzSugar — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 07:20:00 -0700

For years, director Wes Anderson has had his finger on the pulse of severely dysfunctional families. His latest film, The Darjeeling Limited, is no exception. The film tells the story of Francis, Peter and Jack Whitman, three brothers who haven't seen each other since their father's funeral a year ago. Francis (Owen Wilson), the compulsive planner of the group, convinces the other two to join him on a train trip across India, on a half-baked spiritual quest "to become brothers again, like we used to be."

It's a convenient excuse for Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) to escape their own frustrating lives: Peter is feeling increasingly estranged from his pregnant wife, while Jack has just broken up with a girlfriend. (For the record, there are several small nods to Hotel Chevalier, the short focusing on Schwartzman's character, but seeing the short isn't crucial to understanding the movie.) For his part, Francis has just crashed his motorcycle into a hillside, leaving him with a bruised, bandaged face (and viewers with an uncanny reminder of Wilson's own troubles).

The first half of Darjeeling is typical Wes Anderson fare: character quirks galore, amusing yet nonsensical plot points, gorgeous colors and camera work, and witty - if emotionally stunted - dialogue. The characters are kept at somewhat of a remove, more pill-popping, cough syrup-swilling collections of neuroses than actual, relatable human beings. The bickering over belts and poisonous snakes that takes up the first half of the film is amusing, if somewhat insubstanitial. But the movie quickly takes a somber turn, so read more

Something happens about halfway through - something big and tragic - and it changes the course of the brothers' trip. It's a shocking event, especially since we've been zooming along in this perfected, stylized, Wes Anderson world for so long. The weight of the event falls on Brody's shoulders, and that was a wise choice - both Schwartzman and Wilson do fine work, but Brody has a leg up on them acting-wise, and his reactions seem more rooted and real. The movie uses that moment as a catalyst to flash back to the death of the brothers' father; only in the aftermath of another tragedy can the Whitmans start figuring out what's kept them apart for so long.

I tend to like Anderson's work, even when it's overly precious; it's worth noting that his detractors will probably find more problems with the movie than I did. But I do have a couple of quibbles, both of which were big enough to hurt my overall impression of the movie. For one, there's an absolutely perfect ending that comes about 20 minutes before the real one; the ultimate conclusion is satisfying, but the material in between didn't feel as vital to the movie as it should have been. The much more egregious issue comes when that gorgeous Louis Vuitton luggage gets enlisted into one of the least-subtle "shedding baggage" metaphors I've ever seen. Anderson usually conveys so much with so little; I expected more subtlety from him. But while it's uneven, Darjeeling is still an oddly affecting movie, worthy of its spot in Anderson's canon.

Photos courtesy of Fox Searchlight

Darjeeling Limited Prequel Hits iTunes

BuzzSugar — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:59:57 -0700

Hotel Chevalier, Wes Anderson's prequel to the forthcoming Darjeeling Limited, has been getting quite a bit of press this week - both because it's pretty unconventional to release a prequel like this and because Natalie Portman (briefly) gets naked in it. The 13-minute short film is available free on iTunes, and if you're a fan of Anderson, Portman, Jason Schwartzman or any combination of the three, it's worth checking out.

The short, which was made a year before Darjeeling started filming, takes place entirely in the Paris hotel room of Schwartzman's character. Portman plays his toothpick-chewing ex-girlfriend, who tracks him down in the hopes of a possible fling. It's a quiet little story - translation: not a whole lot happens - but it's certainly intriguing. It made me wonder what happened between the two of them in the past, and I wonder whether that will be explained in Darjeeling proper.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Anderson once considered making shorts to fill in the back stories of the other two main Darjeeling characters, who are played in the movie by Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody. Now, I really wish he had; if Hotel Chevalier is intended to raise my interest in Darjeeling, it definitely worked. Check it out, then come back and let me know what you think.

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