The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Magnificent Story Told Magnificently Well

★★★★★

5 Stars; MPAA Rating: R
Director: Wes Anderson

I scratch my head at times wondering why a movie is nominated for the Academy Best Picture award . . . or maybe not realizing there are socio-political reasons within the Academy beyond artistic merit . . . but I cheered when this one showed up as a nominee. While it didn't take home the Oscar (losing it to Birdman, another superb movie), it was nominated for all the right reasons. Often touted a comedy I found it to be mostly a drama with major comedic elements. The movie starts with a teenage girl entering a cemetery and placing a hotel key onto a grave monument decorated with hundreds of other hotel keys. The grave is that of an author, and the girl is holding his published memoirs about The Grand Budapest Hotel, which she begins reading after decorating his grave marker. The story about the hotel begins, as told through the author’s memoirs she is reading.





The four time periods:

1. The present in 2.35:1 aspect ratio with the author's grave and the teenage girl reading his memoirs.
2. 1985, also 2.35:1 aspect ratio with the author writing his memoirs about a trip he made there 17 years earlier.
3. 1968 in 1.85:1 aspect ratio when the author traveled to the hotel and met Zero Moustafa, the hotel's owner.
4. 1932 in 1.33:1 aspect ratio when Zero first started working at the hotel as a boy.

The first provides a simple framework at the beginning and end within which the rest of the story is told. The movie proper periodically moves between the other three timelines. Unlike some non-linear films, the different time lines in this one are easy to follow with different characters in each, obviously different eras and the different aspect ratios. The hotel is a resort in the fictional Central European Republic of Zubrowka. When the author visits in 1968, it’s a run-down shell of its former glory with few guests. The author befriends the elderly owner, Zero Moustafa, and they agree to meet over dinner. Moustafa begins his tale of how he acquired ownership of the hotel and why he keeps it open. The tale then fades back in time from 1968 to 1932 when Moustafa was taken on as a lobby boy after his town was razed and his parents executed. Zubrowka is on the verge of war with a neighboring country, which has equally fictional symbols, flags and emblems, but all the trappings of being governed by a militaristic, fascist dictatorship.

The hotel’s concierge takes Moustafa under his wing, mentoring him. There is plenty of mystery, adventure and intrigue with a war looming, the mysterious death of the hotel owner and the machinations of the hotel owner’s cruel and evil son. The drama is generously peppered with wry comic relief throughout. Wes Anderson’s touch in the story and the directing is quite evident. Production design is lavish, with the hotel’s interior and exterior inspired by a combination of the Palace Bristol Hotel and Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic, and the Grandhotel Gellért in Hungary.

A grandly executed production, with excellent pacing and unpredictability in the plot making for some suspense and numerous surprises. The non-linear author’s memoirs framework greatly enhances it. It’s a Wes Anderson triumph deserving five stars for a magnificent story told magnificently well.

The King of Comedy (1983)

Not the Typical Scorsese, Jerry Lewis, or Robert De Niro Film

★★★★☆

4 Stars; MPAA Rating: PG (see rating note)
Director: Martin Scorsese

If you're expecting the typical Jerry Lewis slapstick comedy, you won't find any of it in this film. Aside from a few lines of talk show host monologue he plays a completely straight non-comedic role and does an excellent job of it. It's blatantly obvious his character, Jerry Langdon, is portraying Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show. For those too young to remember, Johnny Carson, who hosted the show for 30 years, was Jay Leno's predecessor, who was Jimmy Fallon's predecessor (not counting the brief Conan O'Brien debacle).

Robert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) is a stage door autograph hound who is obsessed with becoming a stand-up comedian. He has enormous ambition, but unfortunately zero talent, and even worse, he's utterly oblivious to his lack of talent. Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), is a world famous comedian and late night talk show host, whose stage door Pupkin frequently hovers around for autographs. He has a brief "chance" meeting with Langford by interdicting Masha (Sandra Bernhardt), a woman stalker romantically obsessed with Langford who is preventing him from getting into his limo. Pupkin deludes himself into believing from this that has found his "Big Break" as Langford now knows him. An audio tape of his "act" is rejected by Langford's staff and he is repeatedly rebuffed by them at their offices, until Langford does so himself. Pupkin is escorted out of the building by security officers as persona non grata and told never to return. Eventually he conspires with the obsessed stalker Masha in a plot to force his way onto Landon's show as the lead-in act. Nothing goes as planned, but nothing shakes Pupkin's grandiose delusions either. What they do and how it all ends would be too much of a spoiler.

 Jerry Lewis should have received more recognition for his excellent performance. Sandra Bernhardt (Masha) is nearly over the top with her portrayal of a manic obsessive. In my opinion it's deliberate to provide sufficient contrast with Pupkin's delusional obsession. Robert De Niro is completely immersed in his Pupkin role and plays it with his usual mastery throughout. The magnitude of his role compared to the rest of the cast dominates the story, its dialog and its limited action. De Niro's skill as an actor playing the inept, pathetic Pupkin clearly shows and he carries the film.

The very dark comedy and its style is atypical of Scorsese. It's a significant departure from three previous film collaborations with De Niro: Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. (New York, New York with De Niro and Liza Minnelli is another substantially different departure in a musical.) I found De Niro's character, Rupert Pupkin, painfully embarrassing to watch at times. I wanted to feel some sympathy for his pathetic bumbling life filled with delusions, but it's impossible as he's also an obsessively obnoxious jerk oblivious to how he's continuously humiliating himself without any respite for the entire film. I was left at the end feeling this was deliberate on the part of Scorsese, that he didn't want Pupkin to have anyone's sympathy. The discomfort I felt regarding Pupkin during the first 2/3rds of the film eventually gave way to the absurdity of his self-destructive actions. If "Greatness" wasn't possible he was determined to go down in a blaze of "Glory," which he does quite dramatically. Even then, at the very bitter end, he still cannot give up his lesser obsession with the barmaid he thinks is his girlfriend (a high school acquaintance) and his delusions of grandeur.

Overall an excellent job by Scorsese with excellent performances from Lewis, De Niro, Bernhardt, Diahnne Abbott (plays a barmaid, Rita Keane, who Pupkin thinks is his girlfriend; another delusion) and the other principal supporting actors and actresses. Don't expect the norm though for Scorsese, Lewis or De Niro.

Cinematography Note:
The scenes showing Langon's broadcast TV program are quite soft. This was intentional in the original filming. Scorsese deliberately filmed those scenes using the low fidelity videotaping systems used for studio recording TV programs to make them realistic looking as they would have been seen in analog NTSC TV broadcasts (this film was made fifteen years before HDTV). Might not be evident on the DVD, but is quite evident on the Blu-ray as it undoubtedly was in its theatrical projection.

MPAA Rating Note:
This film was produced and submitted to the MPAA when there were only four ratings prior to the 1984 PG-13 implementation: G, PG, R and X (now NC-17). Its content didn't rate an "R" and therefore it was given a "PG." Today it would undoubtedly be given a PG-13 rating.

West Side Story (1961)

Long on Superb Song and Dance; Short on Drama

★★★⋆☆

3½ Stars; MPAA Rating: Approved
Director: Robert Wise (dance director: Jerome Robbins)

West Side Story originated in a Broadway Musical of the same name which did well, but it was the movie that propelled it into a second run and much greater notoriety. The film garnered 11 Academy award nominations, winning 10 of them. However, it's very important to note among all those nominations, Best Actor and Best Actress were glaringly not among them (the singing for both was dubbed). It hasn't withstood the test of time as well as some other highly acclaimed film musicals from the 1960's. The plot is shamelessly based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, reset into mid-1950's era New York City tenement gangs (Jets and Sharks), the manner of which hasn't helped its aging.

What attracted so much attention from the academy? Put it into context in 1961. West Side Story was a huge break in the musical genre from the typical meringue and whipped cream musicals of the 1940's and 1950's, some of which were thinly veiled showcases for ballroom dance pairs like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, or a spectacular musical revue, and others of which featured very traditional song and dance. It contained syncopated rhythms and modern dance routines with a superb musical score by Leonard Bernstein. The style of the song and dance routines is completely different. Unfortunately, what could have been a more powerful movie was overwhelmed by the dance director, Jerome Robbins, not knowing when to call "cut" and let the movie move on. We end up with a film filled mostly by song and long dance routines at the expense of a potentially compelling dramatic story. The result is the drama being a vehicle shell to carry a song and dance spectacle instead of the singing and dancing being used to carry and punctuate the drama. Contrast it with the 1965 Best Picture, The Sound of Music (even though its Rodgers and Hammerstein music is much less edgier), 1972 Best Picture nominee Cabaret, 1979 Best Picture nominee All That Jazz, or with the 2002 Best Picture, Chicago. All these have more substance to their drama with song/dance that supports it instead of displacing it.

Impressively different music and dance when theatrically released in 1961, its song and dance are exceptional. However, the story's drama is stunted by it dominating the film, and it has suffered from that over the years as the edge to its music and dance has worn off.

MPAA Rating Note:
West Side Story was produced prior to the MPAA's rating tiers. Films were either "approved" and issued a certificate number or they weren't using the restrictive Hays Code that was strictly enforced in 1961. It was a "one size fits all" system, and theaters other than some "art houses" that specialized in foreign and small independent films would not exhibit movies that were not approved (with some very rare exceptions), nor would many newspapers carry advertising for films that were not MPAA "approved."