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Showing posts with label Bill Murray. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Murray. Show all posts
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Saturday, March 8, 2014
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If Wes Anderson was God the world would be a much nicer place. Over the course of his cinematic career he's woven unique cinematic style; creating a fractally detailed, synchronised universe. This is a world where every tiny thing on screen is a jigsaw piece in a bigger picture; the fabrics used in the productions, the style of beards; the fonts on the cover of books; the dents on cars and tiny sound effects and a thousand other minute, carefully considered elements adding up to a sumptuous feast - a beautiful world, an aesthetic world - a better world.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is pinnacle of Wes Anderson's style; a geometric, symmetric and rectilinear caper through beautiful spaces populated with the cream of modern acting talent. After watching this it's difficult to imagine how a film could be any more Wes Anderson than this; every frame packed to the rafters with his idiosyncratic style.
At it's core, the film is the story of a hotel. Set in the cartoonish fake Eastern European country of Zubrowka, the film quickly reveals a pleasingly onion-like structure. We open with a modern woman visiting a monument to a famous Zubrowkian writer known only as "The Author". As she opens a book we flash-back to 1985 where the middle-aged author is explains his methods and how he gets his ideas. From here we flash-back once more to the mid 1960s, where the author (now played by Jude Law) stays at the hotel; now bedraggled, largely unoccupied and suffering under a shabby Kubrickean refit. Here he meets the unassuming owner of the hotel. The two men have dinner and the elderly owner recounts the tale of how he came to run this building.
Now we're in the meat of the story: it's 1932 and Zubrowka is on the verge of war. The hotel is its prime, every aspect overseen by the exacting eye of concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) with the assistance of his lobby boy protégé Zero (Tony Revolori). With the death of elderly patron Madame D (Tilda Swinton) and her subsequent bequeathment of a painting to the concierge, the stage is set for adventure. For the rest of the film we plunge into an energetic, fast-paced farce as Gustave and Zero battle assassins, the military police, prison guards and sinister in-laws of Madame D. The plot twists and turns across Zubrowka, taking in cities, countryside and mountain-tops, showing us every inch of a country which usually only exists on the front of a chocolate box.
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| It's always nice to see Jeff Goldblum in a film. |
As with most Wes Anderson films, you'd be hard pressed to put together a better cast he can. Every few minutes a hugely talented actor pops up, does themselves proud then vanishes back into the crowd. But though we see some memorable turns from luminaries like Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton and Adrien Brody, none of these can really touch Ralph Fiennes. Quite simply he's marvellous, combining a brittle pansexual grace with a military man's attention to detail. Often, (sometimes within the space of a single line of dialogue!), he's paternal, horny, cruel and touching. It's a masterclass of a performance; turning what could have been a prissy Basil Fawlty type into a weirdly noble action hero.
One aspect of Wes Anderson's writing I deeply appreciate is the sincerity of his characters. They wear their passions on their sleeve, announcing their loves and fears at the drop of a hat. There's no ironic winking in a Wes Anderson film, when someone declares their love - whether it be for a hotel, an elderly lady or a resourceful baker, the film takes them at their word. It's important not to take this transparency as shallowness; just because these characters don't have secrets doesn't make them any less dramatically fascinating. My own theory as to why Anderson's characters behave so oddly is that they're children's ideas of what adult behaviour is like.
This is at the forefront of most of his films; the childish revenge of Herman Blume in Rushmore, the arrested development of the children in The Royal Tenenbaums; the swashbuckling (apparently) 'ideal' Dad Steve Zissou of The Life Aquatic. Most of all it's at the forefront of his last film, the excellent Moonrise Kingdom, with two young runaways besotted with each other to the confusion of the neurotic adults. In Grand Budapest we see Anderson's child-like world butting up against realpolitik, from the opening sequence we realise that this idealised 1930s world will be crushed under the boot of concrete realism - innocent childhood gradually and acceptingly replaced by the cool utilitarianism of adulthood.
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| This is a very pretty film. |
This is furthered in the visual style of the film, the watercoloured matte-paintings and landscape wide-shots of Grand Budapest recalling children's pop-up books, the objects whizzing and wobbling through the scenery in a pleasingly analogue manner - looking like hand-made papercraft. In fact, of all Wes Anderson's films, the closest aesthetic relation is the stop-motion Fantastic Mr. Fox - a film that's literally children's literature in motion.
With the clear divisions between goodies and baddies and fast-paced rhythmic action The Grand Budapest Hotel succeeds largely because it follows this basic template of children's adventure story, with laser-perfect moments of swearing and the odd bit of gruesome violence. This is pure escapism - a retreat into a reassuring world of order and beauty. The camera movements, locked into horizontal or vertical geometric motions underline this vision of an ordered universe, which ultimately becomes represented by the clockwork running of the titular hotel.
This is an absolute pleasure to watch from start to finish, tapping into the same base level of wonderment as you get when you peer into a miniature village, or pull open the doors of an extravagantly detailed doll's house and marvel at the detailing on every tiny piece of furniture. Under Anderson's steady hand everything in the film pulls in the same direction, the best moment being a pursuit up a mountain where every single sound effect squeaks and beats in time to Alexandre DeSplat's masterful score.
The Grand Budapest Hotel makes no grand claims to sociological importance. It has no pretensions to tell us anything about the modern world. The message, such as it is, is essentially about the importance of good people sticking together - hardly news to a seasoned audience. Yet there's something to be said for simple beauty, humour and craftsmanship in cinema. For a film to quite simply make you happy is reason enough for it to exist: with The Grand Budapest Hotel now out there in the world, things are minutely happier.
★★★★★
The Grand Budapest Hotel is out now.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
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As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Ghostbuster. I dreamed of screaming through the exotic streets of Manhattan in Ecto-1, proton pack strapped to my back, trap in hand, ready to ensnare any free-floating, full-torso vaporous apparitions that were unlucky enough to cross my path. The world of Ghostbusters is exciting, glitzy, glamorous, archly witty and devastatingly imaginative. Who wouldn't want to dip their toe in?
Last night I got my chance. The Troxy Theatre in Limehouse has been transformed into the Sedgewick Hotel, the location of the iconic 'Slimer' capture sequence from the film. It's 1984 and we've been invited to Diane von Shattenberg's New York Fashion Gala. With Mayor Lenny Clotch in attendance the night promises dancing, dinner and the very latest in haute couture. Although with the recent paranormal epidemic the more appropriate phrasing might be haunt couture.
This plague of spooks means that ghostbusting is booming. Dead is the new black this year, and the names on everyone's lips aren't Versace, Chanel, Armani and Dior, they're Venkman, Spengler, Stantz and Zeddemore. Everyone has something to say about the Ghostbusters, ranging from protesters campaigning for better treatment of their captured ghosts, petitioners seeking regulation of the unlicensed nuclear accelerators they trot around and the squealing groupies and hordes of press dogging their every move. At the back of the theatre you can meet the guys themselves, take a tour of their equipment, participate in parapsychological research and explain your particular spectral woes.
This is the oeuvre of Future Cinema: taking a film screening and turning it into a bells and whistles full-bore theatrical event. The idea is that you get immersed in a cinematic universe, and Ghostbusters is their current project. This isn't just a question of scenery, the room is full of performers playing New York beat cops, big-haired CNN reporters and snooty Sedgewick staff. But of course the main attraction is the characters from the film: not only the four Ghostbusters, but Dana Barrett, Louis Tully, Walter Peck and so on.
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| Janine Melnitz |
I've seen Ghostbusters many times, so it's pretty damn surreal standing across a desk from Janine Melnitz and chatting with her about a haunting in my flat. Having a conversation with a fictional character is a dislocating experience, especially as I've had a mini-crush on this particular fictional character for a long time (it's the big 80s glasses and barely repressed rage that does it for me). Before you know it, and with the aid of some strong ectoplasm cocktails, you've been sucked into the Future Cinema's little pocket of the 1980s.
This 1984 is a caricature, a reality filtered through the lens of Ghostbusters. A re-watch of the film reveals much that's alien to the modern eye; the heroes drink, swear and smoke like chimneys; one of the villains is an asshole environmentalist and a libertarian business ethic is presented as one of the Ghostbusters primary virtues. Even our heroes are hugely flawed. On paper Peter Venkman is a creepy, manipulative scumbag and it's only the infinite charisma of Bill Murray that makes him into someone loveable. Bear in mind that Ghostbusters being a conservatively minded movie isn't necessarily a criticism, more of an observation that it's a product of its time, a vivid snapshot of mid 80s Reagan-era values.
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| Winston Zeddemore |
This old-fashioned Reaganist atmosphere tied directly into the most interesting part of the night, Winston Zeddemore taking to the stage to talk to us about God. Within the film, Zeddemore is an unbashed Christian, a position which, let's be honest, makes some sense when your day job is busting people's afterlives. Still, when he asks us to raise our hand if we believe in God there's a frisson of awkwardness in the audience. Just four people out of a crowd of hundreds believe in God, (or are happy enough to admit to believing in God in front of their friends). It's when he asks us to join hands and recite the Lords Prayer that things get slightly uncomfortable. Sheepishly, everyone trails off into mumbling when we realise we can't quite remember the words. It was a strange moment, hip young metropolitans meeting sincere evangelical Christianity, the moment where you most strongly feel the 1980s politics and sensibilities that Ghostbusters espouses jarring against the world of 2013.
Then the movie begins, though this isn't a cue for the performers to take a 2 hour break. During iconic scenes people run on stage and pantomime what we're seeing on screen. Lights flash and smoke billows, often our attention is drawn away from the screen to miniature acts of theatre happening all around us. It's an interesting way to watch a movie; Ghostbusters becoming at times a backdrop for Future Cinema to work their theatrical talents out in front of. But, weirdly, it's the actual showing of the film that lets the side down.
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| "Nice shootin' Tex!" |
Close attention has been paid to every aspect of scenery, costumes and characters, so it's dismaying that the actual quality of the screening wasn't up to much. Firstly, the sound was fractionally out of sync with the picture, it's distracting and very annoying. Secondly, and most egregiously, they slice off the final few minutes of the film as the characters exit Dana's apartment building. This robbed us of one of my favourite moment: seeing Winston raise his hands in the air and shout "I love this town!". I get that at this point we're supposed to begin our own party with the Ghostbusters at the front of the stage, but still, if you're going to charge £38 for a film screening, then screen the whole damn film.
Annoying as that was, it didn't spoil a magnificent night. These Future Cinema events are mindbogglingly complex and intricate pieces of theatre, with close attention paid to every minute interaction that the audience will have. Ghostbusters is one of my all-time favourite films, one of the few that I consider perfect (I can't imagine any way it could be better). I've seen it countless times, yet with Future Cinema's extravagance coupled with a responsive, happy and well-dressed audience the film came alive in a way I hadn't expected. Future Cinema always pull something special out of the bag, and any lover of cinema owes it to themselves to attend one of their events. I eagerly await whatever they've got cooked up next.
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| Dancing the night away. |
Future Cinema presents Ghostbusters listings here. It's fully booked at the moment but tickets are occasionally released in batches so it's worth keeping an eye on.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
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‘The
Woman that Wanked off the President’ would have been a better title. ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’ tells you almost
nothing about what’s to come, namely a soft-focus, dreamily serious historical
drama about the woman whose job it was to wank off President Franklin D.
Roosevelt (Bill Murray).
Set in 1939, the film revolves around the visit
of King George VI (Samuel West) and Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman) to
Roosevelt’s private residence in upstate New York. Europe is on the brink of war, and the two
have made an unprecedented trip to visit Roosevelt in the hope of form a
relationship between the United Kingdom and the USA as allies against the Axis
powers. This pivotal moment in world
history is told from the perspective of the shy Daisy (Laura Linney), the
Presidents fifth cousin, a member of his staff, and the person whose responsibility is
administering handjobs to the Commander in Chief.
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| Bill Murray as FDR |
The film is drenched in summery, pastoral
imagery. It’s languorously paced, with a
soporific, dreamy voiceover from Linney throughout much of the film. It’s almost a bit too obvious to compare it
to ‘The King’s Speech’, but
stylistically and historically it covers some very similar ground, albeit far
less successfully.
The problems of the film all boil down to the
wanking off scene. You can just tell
that director Roger Michell is painfully aware that this element sticks out
like a sore thumb in his highbrow glossy drama, and he does his level best to
camouflage it as best he can. It takes
place in a field full of gently swaying flowers, the sun illuminates it like
something out of a postcard, the camera angles are tasteful and the
performances from Murray and Linney can’t really be faulted. But, for all that, this is an old bloke being
given a hand job in a softly creaking car.
You can only class it up so much.
Bill Murray is the one thing that prevents this
film tipping completely over into creepy territory. He’s a charismatic, loveable and randy FDR,
Murray’s natural ease with people shines through in all his interactions. He may the most powerful man in the world,
but still knows how to have some fun. He
plays the role as charmingly as he can, and with Murray’s considerable talent
this is pretty damn charming.
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| Laura Linney as Daisy. |
But even Bill Murray can’t prevent the film
being feeling deeply strange. We are
expected to take it in our stride that a horny FDR is in the habit of randomly
summoning his distant relatives to his private country home, essentially to
audition them for the role of Presidential wanker-offer. The script is at pains to repeatedly
emphasise that Daisy is FDRs fifth
cousin, but as far as I’m concerned as soon as you introduce the word cousin
into the equation there’s a faint and unpleasant whiff of incest to
proceedings.
What makes matters even worse is the creepy way
in which it happens. Daisy is bizarrely
naïve for someone in their late 30s or early 40s. She's weirdly virginal and doesn’t seem to have had any romantic experience, this innocence makes the scenes preceding the
first wanking session really quite creepy.
FDR waves away his police escort, driving off into the woods, Daisy
asking in confusion where they’re going.
When the reach a scenic spot, FDR stares into the middle distance
smoking, and gently guides Daisy’s hand into his lap. She looks shocked and confused, but then gets
on with the task at hand. She doesn’t
really have much of a choice. There has
to be better ways of setting the scene, if you make Bill Murray (Bill Murray!) seem like a creepy sexual
predator then you’re doing something wrong.
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| Receiving the Royal Family, George VI (Samuel West) and Olivia Colman (Olivia Colman) |
This bizarre half of the plot takes absolutely
forever to link thematically with the visit of the Royal Family, and then
proceeds to do it in an incredibly confusing way. These segments of the film really do feel
like a bargain basement version of ‘The King’s Speech’. The stiffness and over-mannered nature of the
Royals is emphasised at every turn, with the effect that they seem like
caricatures. Samuel West fails to
capture any of the vulnerability that Colin Firth brought to the role, and
Olivia Colman, generally a brilliant actress, gets to spend the entire film
looking terrified. I know the film is
trying to play up the differences between the aristocracies of the USA and UK but
they seem so confused and lost that they might as well be the Martian Royal
Family.
The two strands of the plot finally link up when
our Royals are served hot dogs at a picnic, an event portrayed as the lynchpin of the entire visit. FDR summons Daisy over to
the table, and as the King shakily proffers his quivering, pink sausage, FDR
tells an awkward Daisy to spread some mustard on it, which takes place in
lascivious close up. Are we to presume
that this hot dog the King is about to suggestively eat is a symbolic of FDR’s
dick? All signs point to yes, but what the hell does this mean?!
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| The gang hangs out. |
I am genuinely boggled. Perhaps the handjobs are FDRs way of
relaxing, and he wants the King to relax so he gives him a handjob substitute
in the form of a delicious hotdog? Maybe
this is a symbol of Daisy wanking off George VI behind the scenes unseen by the
audience? Could the suggestive way in
which the King eats the phallic sausage be a point on the unequal power balance
between the UK and USA? It’s frustrating,
there’s something happening here, but I don’t know what it is! Fortunately I don’t much care.
The cherry on top of this muddled and confusing
cake is that the whole film is predicated on the US coming to the United
Kingdom’s aid in World War II. George VI
desperately explains that he’s seen cities bombed during the Spanish Civil
War, and is terrified of the same thing happening to Britain. The film ends in triumph – a ‘special
relationship’ has been forged between our two nations. Everything is going to be fine from now
on! Except the film is set in 1939 and
the USA didn’t enter the war in Europe until 1942. In the meantime Britain's cities got practically bombed flat.
**/*****
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