The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)

[Idioteque Stalker]

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[Idioteque Stalker]

Wes Anderson gets showier and showier with every film. It's a marvel of craft, but not so much of heart.

[baby doll]

It's a failure (only the first story works), but even Anderson's failures are more interesting, and more stylistically inventive, than most directors' successes. Part of the problem here is a certain compulsive allusiveness that takes the place of characterization and historical detail and borders on a kind of prideful ignorance that mistakes itself for knowingness: Anderson can't tell us anything about French youths in the 1960s, and isn't interested in doing so, but recognizing that the Chantal Goya song used in one of the café scenes was also used in Godard's Masculin féminin is supposed to make us feel like we know something about the period even if we don't and distract us from how thinly conceived the whole episode is. (The chess thing makes no sense, even as a metaphor.) Then again, it is a tribute to the New Yorker so I guess ignorance mistaking itself for knowingness is to be expected.

[Pop Trash]

Then again, it is a tribute to the New Yorker so I guess ignorance mistaking itself for knowingness is to be expected.

ZING!

[Ezee E]

Brody/Del Toro/Seydoux's section is top tier Wes.

The rest is maybe bottom tier?

The anthology doesn't quite resonate with an ode to journalism that I think Wes had hoped for.

I missed a lot of the cameos, except Waltz.

[Peng]

Slot this with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in being Wes Anderson films I'd like to revisit down the line, with this one's reason of it being so dense and busy that during the film I frequently felt like I was more catching up in its details rather than enjoying it proper. Plus I was left cold by the second story. Loved the first though, and the third one's Jeffrey Wright strand is a really appropriate note for the film to go out on. 7/10

[Grouchy]

No complaints here, it was the whimsical Wes Anderson joint I expected with plenty of love thrown towards the French New Wave. I know casting great character actors in very small roles is a trademark at this point but I wonder how all these thespians feel that they're called into the movie just for three or four lines with deadpan delivery. Oh well, I guess they leave the set with bulkier pockets.

[MadMan]

I absolutely loved this movie, can't wait for his next one. Maybe the low expectations helped, the trailer didn't make me as excited for this one as his other flicks. It's the most Wes movie he's ever done, so either people hate it or love it there's very little in-between I guess, although this is matchcut.