The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
I’m gonna blast your candy ass once and for all right now!
THE SUMMARY: A weirdo hotel concierge bangs an elderly woman only to become a suspect in her murder and eventually pass the entire hotel down to his lobby boy in something of a fart-sniffier, gayer Great Escape. One of the most numbingly boring stories I’ve ever heard, plenty of the least funny ‘comedy’ I’ve ever heard (much which I didn’t even realize was supposed to be funny), plus a confusing presentation of unnecessary timeline jumps that make a pointless story hard to follow too - it’s legitimately one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER ROSS: I've heard this film described as ‘Swiss watch comedy,’ and I agree - the humor in this film had to be perfectly choreographed. I think this was the movie that made everyone start to realize that Wes Anderson shoots everything perpendicular, like every scene is a little diorama. Many would say that the top Wes Anderson movie is The Royal Tenenbaums, but I say it's The Grand Budapest Hotel.
THE BEST:
Moments of decent slapstick: The few laughs I did get were from occasional moments of slapstick absurdity: the doorway finger chopping, the splattered dead cat, Jopling getting pushed off the cliff, and maybe a few other bits. They’re good for a momentary chuckle, but there’s nothing particularly clever or deep here. Haha, I get it - that’s an unusual form of violence. Moving on.
One decent scene with the balls to drop a Susan-bait slur: I also laughed briefly when Gustave shows up to the will reading, learns he will receive the painting, and gets aggressively called a ‘f—king f—got’ by Madame D’s son. The slur gets a callback a few moments later, with decently funny writing in response - ‘you are, but you’re bisexual.’ Enjoy the laugh. It’s one of the few.
You are, but you’re bisexual.
THE WORST:
Oh my god - who the hell cares?: It’s a totally uninteresting plot with totally uninteresting characters. I’m not rooting for a weird grandma f—ker, or the kid he’s probably grooming, and I don’t care at all what inheritance they get or not. No amount of fancy dress or bright colors or unusual camera work will change that. It’s a story about nothing, and a bad one.
The supposed comedy isn’t: Outside of the occasional chuckle, there’s nothing memorable here. If you disagree, give me a quote from this movie from memory. Odds are you can’t, because the writing, like everything else, is completely uninteresting and unnecessarily complicated. I gather the humor is supposed to be subtle - so subtle it entirely disappears, apparently. You need hipster decoder glasses to see it. Skinny jeans and a few hazy IPAs probably help too.
The supposedly serious themes are dead tired: Wow, Nazis were mean to sexual deviants and other minorities. What a brave take. What an original topic. What an unexplored issue. Based on Gustave’s behavior, he could have used a little more camp treatment, actually. Woulda done him some good.
Why is the time travel even necessary?: The main story is completely uninteresting, but that’s not enough to make this movie suck as hard as it possibly can. Like a Russian doll, the main story has to be needlessly nested within other pointless stories. We get this story not directly, but through a young woman visiting an author’s grave to flashback to his visit with a hotel owner to flashback to his time as a lobby boy - why? What do these extra characters add? What purpose do the secondary timelines have? None. All it does is it make a terrible story harder to follow, and that’s supposed to be sophisticated or artistically complex. No. It’s just unnecessary. It’s like marinating a steak in cat piss - just because you add something obscure doesn’t mean it’s a good addition.
Stop it with the aspect ratio: Wes Anderson is the Hollywood equivalent of the jackass who films something important in vertical orientation, except he actually gets paid millions to do it for some reason. The movie swaps between various widescreen and standard aspect ratios, supposedly for ‘historical accuracy’ or some bullshit, even though this movie is clearly not historical in any way. This isn’t historical footage. Nobody is under the impression that it’s footage of the era like a documentary. It’s a new movie with a new story of pure fiction, so cut it out with the ‘authenticity’ nonsense. If this movie was historical, Gustave really would have received the Nazi treatment and taken an early shower, which would be a much better show.
Jeff Goldblum is just Dr. Ian Malcolm in a different universe: As mentioned in my Jurassic Park review, I love Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm. But apparently, that’s the only personality Goldblum can play. He’s the exact same guy in this movie, just with a goatee, like he’s Colonel Ian Malcolm selling fried chicken instead. While he’s reading the will, he sounds exactly like he does warning about the ethical considerations of bioengineering velociraptors. It’s the same performance - it’s just this time, he doesn’t get sweaty and unbuttoned. He just dies. If only more in this movie did sooner.
THE RATING: 1/5 Wickies. I’m honestly baffled that anyone could find enjoyment in this movie, and that it somehow holds a spot in the IMDb top 250 movies of all time (#186 as of this writing). There’s nothing funny. There’s nothing thoughtful. There’s nothing meaningful. Just shitty aspect ratios and brightly colored costumes and decor, because that’s artsy or something.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇
NEXT WEEK: The Shining (1980). We’ll stick with hotel themes in this selection from my wife’s nominations for the last week of January.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! February’s movie nominations are from listener Swiftner.
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