Oh the capering that abounds across Europe in Wes Anderson’s latest fairytale for adults, The Wartime Nose-Punchings. As usual, it’s beautifully set-designed, impeccably scored and acted with all the emotion of Hannibal Lecter on a bender. Ralph Fiennes is the best thing by a Kropog as Gustave H., the elder-lovin’ concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel, a fancy place where the rich love to party. He’s left a painting by one such loving elder (Tilda Swinton, one of three lady speaking parts in the whole movie—We Need to Talk About Wes), to the chagrin of his family (Adrien Brody) and a bunch of people (Willem Dafoe, Edward Norton) chasing him across Europe for various reasons. At this point, you’re in or you’re out. If Miranda July or Sofia Coppola directed this movie it would be dismissed as twee piffle. Instead there’s a line down Quinpool Road every night.
This article appears in Apr 10-16, 2014.
I really gotta stop read the TT movie reviews. Enjoy that cuppajoe.
Don’t worry, Tara: twee piffle still gets dismissed as twee piffle whether it’s a man or a woman directing.
And those people lining up to see the movie on Quinpool? They’re obviously all totally stupid, unworthy of cinema, and not at all motivated by the fact that every other movie playing downtown right now is Captain America: The Winter Soldier (another of Tara’s Picks for the month of April).
They were lining up for TPB tonight…. well at the Oxford, anyway.
“If Miranda July or Sofia Coppola directed this movie it would be dismissed as twee piffle.”
Glad to see your contributions as a female writer Tara, setting the bar real high.