'The Grand Budapest Hotel' (R) **1/2
The adventures of Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, told from the perspective of Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The pair deal with rather interesting hotel guests, other hotel concierges, a murder mystery, legal disputes, and a military occupation. The huge ensemble cast includes F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Saiorse Ronan, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzmen, Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Goldblum and Lea Seydoux. The latest from Wes Anderson, the director of many other quirky movies like 'Moonrise Kingdom', 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and 'Royal Tenenbaums'.
The only Wes Anderson movies I've seen were 'Moonrise Kingdom' and 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'. Both aren't necessarily bad, but they're just.....different. Colorful, odd, a bit slow, quirky, sarcastic, and a sense of humor that's pretty bone dry. 'Grand Budapest Hotel' is more of the same, but I at least laughed more times during this than in both 'Moonrise' and 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' combined. But what really drives 'Grand Budapest Hotel' and separates it from the other Wes Anderson movies I've seen is a very strong performance by Ralph Fiennes as Gustave H. This is a peculiar character that you WANT to follow around and watch his misadventures and hear his many one-liners. But even with this good of a performance I still can't shake off that I felt that this was just an okay movie. Perhaps Wes Anderson movie just aren't my thing.
TRAILERS
- 'Belle' - the last time I saw a trailer for this was in front of '12 Years A Slave' last fall, and to be honest I more or less completely forgot about this until I saw it again in front of 'Grand Budapest Hotel'. It looks like an okay, stuffy period piece that I could easily find on BBC or on Masterpiece Theater.
- 'Dom Hemingway' - A dark British crime comedy with Jude Law in the title role. I'll be perfectly honest: I don't quite know what to think of this trailer.
'Heaven Is For Real' (PG) ***
Small-town father and pastor Todd Burpo (Greg Kinnear) must find the courage and conviction to share his son Colton's (Connor Corum) extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world. With Kelly Reilly as his wife, and Thomas Haden Church and Margo Martindale as members of Burpo's congregation who have their doubts about Colton's experiences.
The book is a quick read and while it initially stumbles by telling about events that really have no relevance to the main story, I still liked it. The movie follows the book for the most part, but being an adaptation of course things have been taken out and creative liberties have been taken with certain events. And while the plot may sound like it's very heavy-handed Christian propaganda, I can assure you it's not as heavy-handed as one might think it is. The highlight of this movie is the acting. Greg Kinnear is very charismatic as a pastor, and his moments where he is having a crisis of faith about his son's experiences are very well done and you can understand why he is having this crisis. Kelly Reilly as his suffering wife who doesn't know what to think of her son's experiences and wants to focus on their present problems was also really good, and a far departure from the previous movie I saw that she was in (as Denzel Washington's heroin addict girlfriend in 'Flight'). Margo Martindale is also really good, having her own time to shine in a scene later in the movie in a cemetary with Greg Kinnear. And for a first time child actor, Connor Corum actually is pretty good. The movie does have the same problem as the book in that the first 30 or so minutes for the most part have no relevance to the main story. The scenes in Heaven, admittedly, are really cheesy and feature some really poor CGI. And some of the time as Greg Kinnear searches for a rational explanation to all of this the movie does seem like it's arguing against itself. And yeah, you poke holes in Colton's story (he was never actually pronounced dead at any point during his surgery) but at the same time...there are some things that he knew about that there is quite possibly no way he would have know. Overall it has issues, but I did like the movie. If you're a non-believer, you're not going to like this movie at ALL simply because it's a religious movie. If you do believe, I do recommend it.
TRAILERS
- 'Earth To Echo' - looks like it could be okay.
- 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' - the Internet seems to hate this movie already and it doesn't come out until August.
- 'If I Stay' - Look. This movie doesn't look bad in any way, shape or form. A story about a near death experience and someone having to choose between living or dying sounds like it would be a sad movie. Then it goes into overdrive by playing that "Say Something" song during this trailer, making me feel that instead of seeing this I should probably see something that's a bit more upbeat.
- 'When The Game Stands Tall' - Has the potential to either be a really good sports movie or something a little more heavy handed and bland.
REDBOX
'Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones' (R) *1/2
In this so-called spin-off of the 'Paranormal Activity' series, Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) begins experiencing a number of disturbing and unexplainable things after the death of his neighbor. He decides to film everything after getting a camera for his high school graduation. I say so-called because this basically is a sequel. Heck, it's more of a sequel than 'Paranormal Activity 4'. Well, if the 'Paranormal Activity' movies decided to mash up with the found footage superhero movie 'Chronicle'. The acting in this ranges from okay to bland, it's an okay story, it does have a few ridiculously awesome moments towards the end of the movie but.....it's just not scary. A few creepy moments, sure, but largely devoid of anything that has made the overall 'Paranormal Activity' franchise so popular. It is better than 'Paranormal Activity 4' in that this at least advances the overall mythology of the series but it's still not very good. Later this year will bring 'Paranormal Activity 5'.......which I will only go see because I've seen the other movies in this overlong franchise that really should be put to pasture. And undergo an exorcism or two.
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