Reviews by JxSxPx

I’m all for any excuse to sit back and watch Paul Newman act. Nobody’s Fool is a late-period masterpiece of a performance from Newman. The movie surrounding it isn’t too shabby either, but the heart of the matter is that Nobody’s Fool operates best as a character portrait of a damaged man trying to make good. Or not so much “make good,” as he has change and the opportunity for growth and change thrust upon him, six of one, half-dozen of the other when you get right down to it.

The film follows Sully, a 60-year-old borderline-alcoholic, who drifts from one construction job to another, all the while avoiding responsibility and never-knowing the family he left behind years ago. Newman is given ample opportunity for Great Acting Moments, you know them well, they frequently play before the winner is announced at an awards show as a display for why a certain performance is nominated, but he never indulges. Instead, he finds the truth and quiet resolve in this man and forges ahead with one of his minimalist performances, which are far more effective. It is easy to forget just how great an actor Newman was because of his smaller choices.

And here he is, forcing us to care about this rascal as he slowly begins to get his life in order and change before our eyes. Newman gives this man a sense of humor and a morality beneath the stunted adolescence of the character. This man wouldn’t appear out of place in a Southern Gothic novel, yet while he’s as tragic as any hero from that genre, he’s also an equally hilarious son-of-a-bitch. It’s a tight-rope to walk for an actor, and the degree of difficulty is high. If the performance fails, so does the movie. But Newman’s stock-and-trade was lovable rascals, whether or not they made good is dependent on the movie.

The supporting players do a solid job across the board. It’s nice to see Bruce Willis play a real person instead of a walking/talking action figure, Jessica Tandy adds a touch of gravitas to Sully’s landlord, Pruitt Taylor Vince play his best friend who is also mildly retarded, Dylan Walsh is his estranged son tenuously trying to reconnect with his father. Each of them hit moments of quietness, warmth and grace, only Melanie Griffith, as the married object of Sully’s affection, seems slightly out of step with the rest. Even then, she’s never embarrassing, only mildly awkward in a few brief moments as she lacks depth and weight as an actress.

Nobody’s Fool wisely foregrounds Newman’s central performance and lets everything else play second fiddle to it. The film creates a rich portrait of a man slowly changing, while the story doesn’t seem to be about much happening at all. Yet there is a profound slow burn going on at all times. The film may not be an all-out classic, but it’s so close to being there that its minor shortcomings tend to stick out more than they should. But like I said earlier, any excuse to sit back and watch Paul Newman act his ass off is a great one in my book.

A cast this good could make even the weepiest of Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations into something worth watching and mildly notable. Such is the case here with Marvin’s Room, a movie that aims for the tear-ducts, but at least finds some humor, warmth and great acting along the way.

Based on an Off-Broadway play, Marvin’s Room sees an estranged family come back together to make peace with the past and face looming illness together. Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep star as sisters who are forced back together after 20 years apart. Keaton has spent the years devoted to taking care of their ill father (Hume Cronyn) and elderly aunt (Gwen Verdon). With a diagnosis of leukemia, Keaton is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant, so she calls up her sister and asks that she come visit and see if they’re a match. The role feels tailor made for Keaton, allowing her to be remarkably restrained and hit moments of quiet grace.

Streep gets the showier role of the chain-smoking sister who just escaped a bad marriage and now has to raise two kids on her own. Her oldest son (Leonardo DiCaprio) set fire to their house, and her youngest (Hal Scardino) is quiet and bookish. She ran away and stayed away for 20 years, and comes back with a list of resentments and the urge to drop everything and run away at the first sign of trouble. Streep does great work, which isn’t a shock, but given her recent run of domineering performances that feel out-of-key with everyone else (August: Osage County), it’s refreshing to look back and see her engaging in an ensemble so smoothly.

While Marvin’s Room is dominated by the story of the two sisters hashing it out, making peace, and bringing up old wounds and finding a place to heal, the supporting players are given ample room to do a lot of solid work. Cronyn has no lines, but is effective in crafting a small portrait of how awfully old age can wreck a person. Verdon just about steals the show as the absent-minded aunt, providing the film with moments of humor and small bits of relief from the emotional sucker punches. And DiCaprio creates an affecting look at a wild-child learning to be tamed in his supporting turn. Only Robert De Niro and Dan Hedaya feel like an unnecessary bit of distracting star casting and under-utilized character actor, respectively, in very minor roles.

While the film is glossy and clearly aimed at prestige picture glory, Marvin’s Room at least feels genuine in its sympathy and tear-jerking impulses. It never quite overcomes its stage bound origins, the dialog and narrative structure can often feel like a theatrical production, but it’s sensitively directed by Jerry Zaks. It’s a mixed bag, but as far as big screen movies about fractured families coming together that feels a little bit like a big budget TV movie go, Marvin’s Room is one of the better productions.

Steve Martin as a snake-oil salesman evangelist is an inspired bit of casting, and for much of Leap of Faith Martin makes the film vastly engaging and interesting. Martin and his cohorts don’t feel bad about grifting poor folks out of their hard-earned money because they put on one hell of a show. And it’s hard to argue with that kind of logic when you watch Martin make the sweat and brimstone sermonizing seem so convincing. It’s only when Leap of Faith decides it wants to transition from cynical look at a con-artist into a sweet film that buys into its own con that it falters.

I’ll admit movie endings are hard. Creating a sense of closure that is satisfying and logical to everything that has preceded it isn’t a neat or easy trick to pull off. But Leap of Faith sees its main character do a major turn-around that feels disingenuous. A happy ending hasn’t been earned by any of these characters. Debra Winger, who should really work more often, starts off as Martin’s second-in-command to being a lovey-dovey woman who grows a conscience because of a handsome sheriff (Liam Neeson). And the inclusion of actual miracles goes against the more biting satire of the first two-thirds.

But Leap of Faith is still enjoyable thanks to Martin’s central performance. His brand of comedy frequently seemed like a confidence game – do you believe that this man is selling you this character? This bit of self-invention and crazed lying is utilized effectively in the scenes where everyone just stands back and lets Martin riff on his role as a man of God, his wandering and misspent youth, where he works up a sweat and tries to sell you the possibility that this isn’t a mountain of bullshit. Leap of Faith might not use its fantastical elements effectively, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have energy and nerve to burn when it pulls back the current and gives us a jaded look at those who sell religion with bedazzled clothing and a large tent.

Stolen tells two stories, separated by fifty years, that collide together and mirror each other in very neat, tidy, and obvious ways. The narrative is smoothly constructed, but at the expense of crafting a compelling narrative. Stolen is more concerned with a series of closed-circuit repeating imagery than creating a more nondescript story.

First-time director Anders Anderson makes for a decent debut, it’s watchable if nothing else. But much of that credit goes to a solid ensemble of actors who are trying their best to make something out of this middling material. Jon Hamm stars as a detective obsessed with his son’s disappearance eight years prior. When a body is discovered, he assumes that it is his son’s remains, only to be the body of a boy who disappeared fifty years ago. The two crimes are linked, obviously, but Hamm does his best to display this man’s growing struggle for closure and how this case has become a coping mechanism for the death of his child.

Josh Lucas is the father of the boy who disappeared in the flashback story, the obsessions of the two men, and their frantic behavior to find their sons, feel like inevitable mirror images of each other instead of interesting parallels. Perhaps the major problem is that Anderson tips his hand so often that the man responsible is glaringly pointed out, his character might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign for the duration of the film. Or maybe it’s a problem of tone – the film positions itself as a serious examination of obsession with a story that is loosely inspired by true events, but plays out like an overly long episode of a procedural.

When you think about, X-Men: Days of Future Past is an ingenious way to go about rebooting a property without actually having to do it. Based on one of the greatest X-Men stories yet to be adapted to the big screen, Days of Future Past sees the return of the original trilogy along with the First Class ensemble. It is also a welcome return to form, arguably the best movie made out of this material since X-Men: First Class. It also sees the return of Bryan Singer to the franchise, both a blessing and a curse as it expands upon the problematic aspects of the franchise while still making a solid entry, a righting of the ship, if you will.

Days of Future Past follows the basic template of the original story – apocalyptic future in which a small band of X-Men are the last survivors fighting against the encroaching Sentinels, sending back the consciousness of a team member to the past to stop a series of events deemed responsible for this bleak future. While the comic saw Kitty Pryde sent back, the movie positions Wolverine in the central role, a common problem in the franchise.

We begin in the bleak future, and the film returns to the Holocaust imagery of 2000’s X-Men. Like the comic book property, the films have always been at their strongest when siding with the Other and positioning these elaborate conflicts as mere allegorical fantasy. This time around, it’s not a flashback to WWII, but a flash-forward to a desolate Manhattan in which mutants and their human sympathizers are rounded up and killed in concentration camps. Mass graves and emaciated bodies are some of the first sights we see, and this is a big budget comic book movie.

We soon reunite with a few familiar faces and some new ones (mostly fan service glorified cameos, but Blink and Bishop turn out aces), and they hide away in a hidden Chinese temple, protecting Kitty Pryde while she uses her powers to send Wolverine back to the 70s and stop this horrific future before it starts. The film then sends us back to 1973, and we watch as Wolverine tries to get Xaiver and Magneto to cooperate long enough to stop the future genocide.

It’s a rousing comic book adaptation, filled with brainy action scenes and a real sense of weight to the action. The scope of this film is massive, but there’s a strong story to tie it together. Which doesn’t mean parts of it aren’t problematic – Halle Berry’s Storm is still pretty much it for major diversity in the core cast, but of the five new mutants (only one of whom isn’t in the future scenes), four of them are characters of color and a female. This is a step in the right direction, as one of the great things about the comics was how wide the scope of characters was. The film series leans hard on straight, white males, mainly Wolverine, Xaiver and Magneto, and positions Mystique as the female lead, then sacks her with having to choose between the two.

And with a cast of characters this large, the film-makers were bound to skip out on certain things – it’s a pity that wigs and makeup where those things. Bringing back Toad was an odd enough choice, but his makeup job isn’t particularly convincing. While Quicksilver is a scene-stealer, his wig is terrible and costuming even worse. It’s only thanks to Evan Peters playing up the cocky wiseass that Quicksilver is bought and sold by the audience. By the time he’s done, Peters has threatened to steal the entire film whole seeing as how he’s got the wittiest display of powers, best action scene, and gives a gleefully madcap performance. Mystique’s new makeup job is a bodysuit, and it’s solid matte color looks cheap, as is the paint job. Compared to the makeup in X-Men, Days of Future Past’s look is a disappointment. Same with the choice to make Beast into a blue, furry Hulk-lite character, an odd choice to be certain, as he spends most of the time in human-mode and only rarely appears as he should. And more than a few special effects shots look half-done and poorly rendered. Magneto on the train – remember that phrase, and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

While these aspects are highly problematic for various reasons, at least Days of Future Past has a game cast. Despite being regulated to a few brief scenes, Omar Sy, Booboo Stewart, and Fan Bingbing make the most out of Bishop, Warpath, and Blink, respectively. They seem to be having fun, and I wanted more of them. And it was nice to see returning faces like Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, and Ian McKellen. Ellen Page, so perfect as Kitty Pryde, is finally given something to do, and makes the most of her limited screen time.

As for the past X-Men, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender continue to be a blast to watch as the men who would be Stewart and McKellen. Jennifer Lawrence gives a fantastic performance as Mystique, even if she is somewhat hampered by bad makeup and problematic plotting. Luckily, in the end, she chooses for herself and sets out on her own. And Nicholas Hoult continues to make for a winning Beast, even if I did long for him to spend more time in blue and furry mode (not that I don’t appreciate staring at Hoult’s pretty face). But the franchise has always belonged to Hugh Jackman, who continues to improve as an actor and dig deeper into Wolverine. Here he gives his most complex performance as the character, it’s enough to make you forgive the trespasses of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: The Last Stand. And call me crazy, but when he awakens in the new, corrected timeline, the succession of quick cameos made me giddy. It was nice to spend some time with those characters, and those particular actors, again. It’s imperfect – too many characters are given nothing to do besides appear for one scene and vanish, wigs/makeup are frequently cheap, bad special effects work – but I generally think that this is another example of pretty smart, fast-paced, fun summer popcorn film-making. I’m once again excited for where this franchise will go, and I haven’t been able to say that since X2: X-Men United.

Judge me if you want, but Gareth Edwards’s new take on Godzilla may just be my favorite summer 2014 blockbuster. This version of Godzilla does not make the same mistakes that 1998 abomination did; instead, it defers and refers to Ishiro Honda’s masterpiece. 2014 also just so happens to be the 60th anniversary of the original film, so it was probably in the best interest to attach itself to that film, however elliptically it goes about it. But what lingers in mind about this version of Godzilla are the same things which makes the original a still vibrant and intelligent monster movie – a focus on man’s helplessness in the face of ecological forces greater than us, the folly of our nuclear weapons, the possibly misplaced security we have in our military-industrial complex. This is a summer blockbuster with a bit of brains and consequences for its scenes of violence and destruction.

Compare Godzilla’s almost poetic scenes of carnage and half-viewed chaos to the meaningless spectacle of The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s many problems into sharper contrast. After having viewed Spider-Man, I could barely tell you what any of the action scenes looked like or why they mattered (except for one at the very end), because they, largely, didn’t truly matter or advance the story. Godzilla does not operate under this system of more is more, preferring instead to take plenty of time in-between to develop a quiet unease, slowly building us up to the last thirty minutes in which Godzilla and the two other creatures have it out across San Francisco.

I can close my eyes and remember the first appearance of the MUTOs, or Godzilla’s first full reveal, or the teases of the large protruding scales on his back breaking the waves. Edwards smartly rolls them out in waves, recalling the reoccurring visual of seismic activity. A scene which features American troopers parachuting down in a desperate attempt to annihilate all three of the monsters with a nuclear warhead is featured in the trailers, but they don’t do the full scenes majesty any justice. As we fall back towards earth, we glimpse everything from their point-of-view, so we can only glimpse in tiny detail the destruction and violence that these monsters are leveling upon the city. Edwards has put humans and humanity back into the spectacle, borrowing this trick from the original Godzilla. (The segment that sticks with me the most about the original is a frantic woman’s screams to her children to remain calm in the face of death, for they shall reunite with their father.)

Granted, much like the original, this version of Godzilla is thin on fully realized characters, but Edwards has also assembled a tony cast to deliver this material. Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, and David Strathairn have little to do, but they bring their distinct personalities to these archetypes and sell the hell out of the material. Ken Watanabe fares better as man who has spent his entire life obsessing over the prospect that Godzilla may exist, and is the lone voice in the film who will say aloud that we are powerless to stop him, no more than ants to him.

Those going in expecting an outlandish star presence in the central role will be sorely disappointed. In a less intelligent film, the lead role would go to a Tom Cruise or Will Smith type, an actor who has built his career on being extraordinary. They would entire the frame and all of our fears about survival would fade away, because we know that they’re capable of leading us toward salvation, get the girl, and land a few trailer-worthy quotables. Aaron Taylor-Johnson gives a solid performance, but he doesn’t have leading man charisma, which makes his everyman character more believable. He also establishes a nice rapport and believable relationship with Elizabeth Olsen in their brief scenes together.

And I will concede that Godzilla does have its fair share of stupid plot points and dumb images, but that is common territory for a big summer popcorn film. But how many of those other films will be this somber? Godzilla positions us as ineffective to the magisterial strength and frightening indifference that natural disasters cause. This Godzilla picks right up where the original’s atomic anxiety left off, and adds in fresher doomsday potentialities – climate change imagery, pursuit of new weaponry, the search of the God particle. What other film would feature an image of men falling from the sky like heaven crying red tears, and then end the film with a shot that’s both menacing and serene? There is no triumph here, only a reminder that we’re not as big and powerful as we think we are. Before a prehistoric beast, we are but helpless and hopeless gnats.

In a summer that’s already seen Captain America, and is about to see X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ninja Turtles, and the long-delayed Sin City sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had better live up to that title in order to secure a place in the memory. It only does so by half, and just proves rather frustrating. Instead of correcting the problems of the first film, it makes them worse. This is a shame because within The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are some of the best character moments and action sequences to be in any Spider-Man film. Pity that the other half of it is a half-baked mess of poorly thought characterizations/motivations and rushed story developments.

Much like the first film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 excels at making us believe in the romantic coupling at the center of the film. In fact, character interactions with Peter Parker are a strong point. The romance between Parker and Gwen Stacy is one of the few in a comic book movie that feels real and authentic. It helps that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are dating in real life, but it’s rare that chemistry off camera translates to on-camera. But Stone makes for a tough, smart Girl Friday to Garfield’s caustic Spider-Man, and it’s nice to see a female character in a big budget franchise display some agency and not just be a damsel-in-distress.

Another high point is Sally Field’s motherly, tender Aunt May. There’s a scene between Parker and May where he pleads for her to tell him about his parents, and she tells him that she’s always thought of him as her son. It’s a nice quiet moment in-between very loud and long action scenes. Field’s anxiety and stress of trying to keep it all together was a touch that was missing from Raimi’s depiction of the character.

Marc Webb is good at detailing Parker’s immediate circle, and many of the fight scenes come complete with gorgeous special effects and blessedly clean rhythms. At every moment it’s clear to see which character is where and what they’re trying to do. But Webb and his writers never fixed a major problem from the first film – half-formed villains. So while these scenes are dynamic and exciting, they rarely matter because character motivations are opaque at best.

The worst offender is Jamie Foxx’s Electro. Much like the preceding film’s Lizard, Electro is one of the few classic rogues that Raimi never touched upon. Unlike the Lizard though, Electro has always been a cooler power than a terribly interesting back-story. Sure enough, many scenes with Electro seem engineered due to what cool stuff the writers could do with his powers and never bothering to give him a clear motivation or reason for becoming villainous. Also confusing – he develops a costume out of nowhere, again it looks cool, but it doesn’t add up to much. Foxx, while game, is given nothing to do, tries valiantly to give his character some pathos, but cannot overcome the bumpy writing and eventually just coasts on hammy acting.

Rhino and Green Goblin also have half-formed personalities. Rhino, another classic rogue that Raimi never got around to, is particularly embarrassing. Paul Giamatti is an actor I normally admire, but he’s so over-the-top here that it becomes cringe-worthy. He’s also wasted in a role that amounts to a glorified cameo that doesn’t make any use of Giamatti’s talents. Once more, it feels as if the film-makers came up with an interesting idea (Rhino’s mech-suit), but didn’t bother developing or investing any interest in anything else. Dane DeHaan isn’t bad, but he’s lost amid everything going on. His scenes with Garfield have a pleasing ease of two old friends reuniting, but can’t seem to grasp Harry once he breaks bad. Chris Cooper, on paper a perfect choice for a comic book bad guy, amounts to a cameo appearance in a five-minute scene. Why an actor of Cooper’s tremendous gifts have been used in such a way is a question I kept asking numerous times.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 also suffers from bloat. Too many needless characters, too many subplots, not a clear focus on what I should or shouldn’t truly invest my attention in. In addition to appearances from named villains – that’s Rhino, Electro, Norman Osborne and Green Goblin for those keeping score – Felicity Jones and BJ Novak cameo as Felicia Hardy and Alistair Smythe, respectively, not to mention visual references to Vulture and Dr. Octopus, and an audio ones for Venom and Lizard. That equals about ten villains totally, not even counting shady executives and doctor’s who feel transported from an entirely different film. There’s just way too much going on, and the movie is two and a half hours long. I haven’t even mentioned anything concerning Peter’s parents, which is awkwardly handled and features the stupidest hidden laboratory I think I’ve ever seen.

While the first film was never necessary, at least it was fun and focused in on a small group of characters for us to cheer on. The sequel takes the mindset of more is more, and more is always better. This is a shame, because the first one pointed in a different direction. It pointed towards a franchise that was more personal. I’m fairly astounded that it went straight into Joel Schumacher’s campy neon aesthetic so rapidly. Oh well, at least they have the perfect Spider-Man in Andrew Garfield.

Call me crazy, but I actually think of most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as widely adequate and nothing more. And I say that as a long-time comic book reader, I learned how to read and draw from the damn things. Films aren’t comic books and treating them as such has proved to be most problematic. But there’s something about the Captain America franchise that I think manages to avoid a lot of the problems of the other films.

Much of the MCU is so concerned with connecting disparate characters, jamming in cameos and plot details that won’t make sense or be explained until the next movie starring a totally different main character. Think of how loaded with exposition and story Thor: The Dark World was. That film only truly felt alive when it spent time on Asgard, but it had to shoehorn in references to Guardians of the Galaxy, add in stuff for the human characters to do, and somehow managed to give little attention to the titular villainous world and inhabitants. Captain America: The First Avenger was alive and fun because it was free of baggage to the other films, the only thing it had to do to tie in to the rest of the franchise was make sure he ended up frozen in ice at the very end. Which was an easy enough thing to accomplish; no origin story would be successful without its inclusion.

So what does this all mean for The Winter Solider you ask? Simple enough question, and here’s why I would say this was the greatest film in MCU since Iron Man, Captain America is allowed to be an autonomous character, one who doesn’t have to interact with anyone but S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and survive at the end to make sure he appears in the next installment of the Avengers. Other than that, Steve Rogers is allowed to be an isolated character experiencing his own unique adventures. It helps that the character is literally a man out of time, struggling to come to terms with the modern era.

The First Avenger was one of the more artistically successful and fulfilling movies in Phase One because it decided to focus on the things that many people groan at concerning Captain America. It took him, and placed him in a film that recalled a 1940s serial adventure. It was goofy, wholesome, earnest, and featured a character who was the eternal underdog doing right by the gifts he was given. The Winter Soldier smartly picks up with this character’s melancholy and isolation, having him attend meetings for soldiers struggling to return home after being in combat, replacing a personal life with increasingly dangerous missions. It also experiments with a different tone, while the first was a rollicking adventure serial; this one is a 70’s political/espionage thriller with comic book characters. I would love to see more comic book movies take these kinds of chances than rely upon needlessly long scenes of destruction with no consequences.

Granted, The Winter Soldier has its fair share of problems, chief among them a third act which sees it descend from action scenes that had weight and consequences to a prolonged one of destruction that doesn’t. And the underutilized presence of Robert Redford, whom I’m still shocked agreed to appear in one of these things. Redford, it must be said, is clearly having a grand time playing in this world, so it’s a bit disappointing that he doesn’t appear more.

It is nice in an era when so many superheroes are given needlessly gritty and cynical makeovers (just because it works for Batman doesn’t mean every hero needs it done), that they’ve kept Steve Rogers as a naïve man still capable of disillusionment and betrayal. I had my initial reservations about Chris Evans taking the role, but he has crafted as perfect a reading of the character as Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, Christian Bale’s Batman or Christopher Reeve’s Superman. He plays the part for all of its earnest potential, finding the heart and strength in the everyman, the fighting spirit in the former runt. He also has great chemistry with Scarlett Johansson’s feisty Black Widow, a character who really needs to be used more often. Johansson went from window dressing in Iron Man 2 to the more mysterious, sexy and strong character seen here.

And while Sebastian Stan plays Bucky really well, and seems game for playing with the mental fragility and confusion of the character, the film lets him down. Despite being named after him, Stan isn’t given a hell of a lot to do, a reoccurring problem in the MCU. But the eventual fate of the character is nicely alluded to in the end credits Easter egg. The film is less concerned with the Winter Soldier proper, and instead on the corruption within S.H.I.E.L.D. and forcing Rogers, Widow and newcomer Falcon (Anthony Mackie, having a blast) to go underground and uncover just how high up this poison goes.

Still, the film excels where it counts, and whenever bloat sets in (that 132 minute running time is a bit much), at least we know an exciting action sequence is just around the corner. Or the chemistry between the idealistic Boy Scout and his shape shifter partner-in-crime seeking atonement which elevates numerous scenes. Or the paranoia of big government and shadowy politicians that’s been carried over from the Watergate era. (anyone else think Redford was cast simply for the cachet?) So one can forgive the characters introduced for no other reason than to be expanded upon in future films, or the random bits of crumbs which will lead us to Avengers: Age of Ultron. This is popcorn film-making done right.

Comparing Wes Anderson’s films to a Swiss Watch is an accurate comparison, but that gives a false impression of his films as mechanical and cold. On the contrary, Anderson’s films spark with a wit and stylization that is at once like a storybook and a monument to artistic stuffiness and singularity of vision. With each subsequent film, Anderson is refining his style, loading up his stories with gags, star cameos, subdued emotions, and playful artifice. The Grand Budapest Hotel might just be the apex of this work thus far.

Grand Budapest is a memory play, one fraught with strange plot twists and Anderson’s unique brand of precociousness. Told from the perspective of Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham as an elderly man and newcomer Tony Revolori as a young man), The Grand Budapest Hotel details the events leading to Moustafa going from lobby boy to owner of the decaying hotel. The story includes a murder mystery, a priceless work of art, and a heavy gloss of farcical whimsy.

The hotel remains a towering monument reminder of Europe’s prewar Belle Epoque, and plays an elegy to that long lost period. The film takes us back to a period in time when the service industry wasn’t frowned upon, and no other character more perfectly personifies this idea than Gustav H (Ralph Fiennes), the former concierge. Gustav is an effete man who entertains wealthy patrons to keep his high-class aspirations and lifestyle in check. He doesn’t just perform his duties, he feels a deep connection and responsibility to them. The comfort and adoration of his guests and staff isn’t just a piece of corporate jargon for him, but a lifelong dream and tremendous source of pride.

When one of his favorite clients (Tilda Swinton, in an amusing cameo) turns up dead, Gustav discovers he’s the recipient of an incredibly valuable painting. Her son (Adrien Brody, snarling and amoral) tries to pin her mysterious death on Gustav and reclaim the painting, and what transpires is equal parts Ernst Lubitsch fantasia and James Bond-style action set pieces and intrigue. And it winds up being a little sad about the passage of time, how the sweet innocence of this time is about to be eradicated by the rolling storm of WWII. But Grand Budapest is still mostly funny.

Anderson is known for getting great work from his actors, and no one shines brighter in this than Fiennes. Has he been secretly hiding his gifts as a comedic actor for any particular reason? He shines brightly here, turning up a memorable performance that should get him awards season contention if there’s any justice, but we’ve still got a long way to go before nominations for that begin. Anderson regulars Brody, Willen Dafoe, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Jeff Goldblum, and Swinton all turn in fine work, much of it in smaller character parts. Abraham mostly shares scenes with Jude Law, and they have a nice back-and-forth and do well with what they are given. Tom Wilkinson, Mathieu Amalric, Saoirse Ronan, and Lea Seydoux all make appearances, not given too much to do, but adding their distinct charms to the overall effect.

But much of the film rests on Tony Revolori, and he gives a great deadpan performance. He must go from wide-eyed youth in awe of Gustav to his protégé and end up as the proactive hero of the story. Revolori must assail the various cameos and plot twists, helping Anderson keep the numerous plot strands working in perfect harmony. It’s a lot to ask of a young actor to hold his own against actors of Ronan and Fiennes caliber, but Revolori does an admirable job.

The Grand Budapest Hotel sounds like many plates spinning in the air, but Anderson makes sure they never waver or falter. Anderson finds a great rhythm that makes the entire story come together and continually move at a great energy. We’ve come to expect a certain matter of farce, melancholy and whimsy with Anderson, and he doesn’t disappoint. Yet here he is adding new layers to his oeuvre by trying to do some action, unapologetic romanticism and he does both supremely well. But did I mention the frantic humor, and that Grand Budapest is a charming comedy?

Warmed over Red Dust, lacking in the original’s erotic charge, classists undertones, and exotic atmospherics, China Seas is a competent enough film, but pales in comparison to the film it’s obviously trying to recapture. Yet the real heart of the problem is Harlow’s China Doll, as written she’s loose cannon, not a bad type of character to throw into this mix. But China Seas rests on the idea that she would betray the man she loves just because she was upset, causing the ship to be infiltrated by pirates and the deaths of numerous people falling squarely at her feet. The film treats her character as an overly sexed infant who needs her emotions appealed to at all times.

Harlow still manages to be a pro at all times, bringing in her particularly zany, looney type of sex appeal to the role. She and Clark Gable have an appealing chemistry, but it doesn’t come anywhere near the scorched earth sexuality of Red Dust. China Seas is far more polite, even the upper-class love interest, Mary Astor being traded out for Rosalind Russell, is more polite flirtations than anything. Astor’s brittle, slowly falling apart wife gave Red Dust a nervy energy that China Seas never allows Russell to even try to emulate. Russell is professional and delivers solid work, but nothing much is asked of her.

Wallace Berry in the largest supporting role is like watching a glazed ham slowly cook. He’s not awful, but it feels like a totally different movie than the other three characters. His character is instrumental in accelerating the action, and I will admit that for all its problems China Seas is tightly constructed and moves at a good pace. There’s a propulsive energy here, but the twin romances are fairly bloodless. The film really picks up whenever there’s a big rousing action scene. The ship getting battered by a storm is one, and Lewis Stone’s climatic sequence in which he saves the day is another. China Seas is a B-list production on every level, except it was given to an A-list exterior.