![]() ![]() Among the lives lost was that of Daniel Bevilacqua, known in France as the chanson singer Christophe. But delaying the release of a Wes Anderson movie surely counts among the least regrettable harms of the pandemic, which has caused millions of deaths worldwide. As it is we're kind of circling an immaculately composed drain, and have been for some time.The French Dispatch came out nearly two weeks ago, after having been pushed back more than a year by COVID-19. A break in the monotony could do wonders for him: a sharp turn toward realism, a low-budget quickie that forces him to focus for 90 minutes on two characters, a documentary on a complex and esoteric subject that gives new agency to his meticulous sense of style, a genre picture - any and all would be welcome. The worst of his films treat ethnic stereotypes and misogyny like jokes he can really enter some dark places sometimes but is too often ill quipped to do anything once there. But sometimes, the same old bones are starting to show.Īnderson loses the heart of his work when Owen Wilson departs as a screenwriting collaborator, continuing to build increasingly elaborate dollhouses but never managing to bring them to vibrant life with relatable, dimensional characters again (though Moonrise and Fox come closest). Because most of them don’t have kids, and have time to worry about the straightness of their lapels and know how to shop with an eye towards hipness at a thrift store. But then, I doubt I would be able to take much that they say seriously. ![]() I know someone like me would never fit in with Wes‘s dinner party pals. The formulaic nature of his filmmaking, with always a heist, and large horizontal panning sets, and often prisons and pastries and perfect clothing, and so many tchotchkes carefully placed, sometimes it seems a bit too cool for school. That’s not a criticism, it’s just not a way I would like to live. Sometimes to me, it seems like Wes must make note of everything he sees in case he decides to put it in a frame. There are many objects I am glad to not evaluate and categorize and catalog. I wish I had an eye like his, but I also don’t envy somebody who is constantly viewing the world through that sort of filter. But then I watch a film of his, and it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes, I think I’m getting a little weary of Wes Anderson’s symmetrical compositions. It just seemed cold and dissonant and unkind. Strangely, I found the nudity out of place. The writers, with all of their eccentricities and stylism, well-presented in an elevated reality, remind me of the friends I had in that line of work. Probably partially because I worked as an entertainment correspondent back when you could make an actual living doing it, and there were real globetrotting benefits to being able to put a few words together in a pleasing sentence.īill Murray‘s editor character reminds me of lots of people I’ve known, in a more naïve world where Hemingway and his beef and potatoes and whiskey dinners still had a place in peoples’ memories. He’s truly a master of cinema and I rewatch all of his films regularly. And if you asked me tomorrow, my rankings would likely be different than today. That being said, this is really more like a ranking of how often I watch each of these films, plus the rankings are really more like 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, etc. I would have loved a little more storyline with the actual newspaper as well, and maybe it would rank a little higher. The other two stories (and I’m not counting the Cycling story as a story) are really quite amazing. After watching it a few more times, it’s grown on me a lot, but I figured out what made it incomplete for me, and it’s the second story, the Manifesto. My first viewing of The French Dispatch, I enjoyed it, but felt like it was somehow incomplete or missing something. ![]()
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