"CODA" and "Swan Song"

This year's big winner at Sundance was Sian Heder's "CODA," a coming-of-age film about teenager Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member in a deaf family.  Her father Frank (Troy Kotsur), mother Jackie (Marlee Matlin), and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) all depend on her to translate for them, and she expects to join the family fishing business after high school.  However, after joining the school choir, the music teacher Mr. V. (Eugenio Derbez), encourages her to develop her talent for singing and audition for the Berklee College of Music.  Inevitably, the pressures from her family and her desire to pursue her own dreams result in Ruby having to make some difficult choices.

"CODA," an acronym for "child of deaf adults," is an earnestly humane film that does the work of making its deaf characters much more well-rounded and emotionally complex than we see in most media.  The parts of the film featuring them, and their struggles to keep their fishing operations afloat, are so much more compelling than Ruby's fairly rote transformation from insecure ugly duckling to songbird, and her twee romance with a classmate, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo).  I so enjoy that the scenes of Ruby with her family have rough edges and real texture to them, which makes the flatter, more glossy scenes at high school immediately seem more tedious and incongruous with the rest of the film.    

Emilia Jones does a decent job of carrying "CODA," but the best performances come from the adults - Eugenio Derbez as the exuberant Mr. V., and Marlee Matlin delivering one of the best performances that I've ever seen from her as Ruby's loving mother.  The deaf characters are so earthy, so funny, and so lived-in - their personalities and foibles come across so clearly.  There are subtitles for the conversations that take place in sign language, but I think they're optional.  The characters perfectly communicate their feelings even if you can't understand a word they're signing.  "CODA" is very formulaic at times, and the filmmaking is too generic for my tastes, but there's no denying that this is a sweet little film that I hope finds its intended audience. 

"Swan Song" is the latest from Todd Stephens, who returns to Sandusky, Ohio to relay the tale of the aged "Mister Pat" Pitsenbarger, based on a real local hairdresser and fixture of the gay community.  Pat (Udo Kier) is gathering dust in a local senior home when he receives word that one of his old clients, the wealthy Rita Parker Sloan (Linda Evans) has died, and requested that he handle her hair for the funeral.  This sends Pat on an odyssey across Sandusky to rediscover himself and reconnect to figures from his past.  Along the way he meets his former protege Dee Dee (Jennifer Coolidge), Rita's grandson Dustin (Michael Urie), drag queen Miss Velma (Justin Lonesome), and his old friend Eunice (Ira Hawkins).

At first, "Swan Song" seems to be a small scale, comedic version of something like "Paris, Texas" or "Nebraska," where a man comes back to the remains of a life he abandoned long ago, to have an overdue reckoning with the ghosts of his past.  However, the deeper into the story he goes, and the more details are revealed about Mr. Pat, the more poignant the character is revealed to be.  It becomes apparent after a while that "Swan Song" isn't just paying homage to the figure of Mr. Pat, but the bygone era of LGBT culture that he represents.  Pat being a gay hairdresser, one of the stock types of the '80s, is so perfect, and having him played by camp icon Udo Kier feels terribly appropriate.  

Kier is wonderful as Mr. Pat, especially as he slowly regains the confidence to reconstruct the persona of the fabulous man he was in his youth.  Stephens plays with his screen image and that of the long absent Linda Evans, not afraid of making them a little ridiculous, and a little grotesque when necessary.  "Swan Song" feels like is occupies such a specific place, as a love letter to Sandusky and an attempt to acknowledge a certain type of friendship between gay men and straight women, and comes across as very honest and genuine in its aims.  This one surprised me, and I'm glad I took the trouble to track it down.     

  

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A Spooky "Last Night in Soho"

Edgar Wright almost pulls off a great film here, doing a fabulous job of creating a film that pays homage to 1960s London, and then stumbling when it comes to delivering on the thrills and horror.  It has a stellar cast, including two of the most promising young actresses currently working, and several British acting luminaries who were made famous by the '60s movies that Wright draws his inspiration from.  I'm awfully tempted to recommend the film on the strength of its aesthetic pleasures alone.

Thomasin McKenzie stars as Ellie, an aspiring fashion designer who has trouble adjusting when she comes to study in London, and decides to move into a bedsit owned by elderly Mrs. Collins (Diana Rigg).  This move seems to trigger Ellie having dreams and visions of an aspiring singer in the 1960s named Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is lead astray by her manager, Jack (Matt Singer).  Ellie is haunted by Sandie to the point where it starts affecting her waking life, jeopardizing her new relationship with a fellow student, John (Michael Ajao).  Eventually, Ellie believes Sandie was murdered, and her murderer may still be on the loose.  

The first act setting up the premise is great, the second act trying to pivot from nostalgia to horror runs into some trouble, and the third act is frankly a little maddening.  I want to let the film's deficits slide just on the strength of its considerable aesthetic pleasures, but I've been doing that with way too many of Wright's films lately, and I'm getting worried about him.  As you might expect, when the film works, it's a marvel of beautifully reconstructed '60s glamour, a lovingly curated retro soundtrack, and McKenzie and Taylor-Joy effortlessly delivering fun performances.  When it doesn't work, it doesn't work in all-too familiar ways.  The film is poorly paced, Wright's ability to orchestrate his various conceits falls apart by the ends and is largely abandoned, and the denouement feels weirdly tacked on.  In short, these were the exact same problems that plagued "Baby Driver," and to a lesser extent, "The World's End."  It's especially frustrating this time, because Wright's got all the right pieces here.  The execution just doesn't quite work as intended.

I think a large part of the problem is that Wright is trying to juggle too many balls, as usual.  This absolutely should have been a more straightforward psychological thriller instead of a full-on horror film with too many too-clever twists.  While I liked the subversive ending, it also royally muddles up some of the messages about the dark side of nostalgia, and how misogynistic and terrible the '60s could be for women.  The film's male lead, John, is so woefully underwritten that I was sure that he must have been intended to be a twist villain at some point.  If you know the usual tropes of horror films, you can guess who the actual villain is pretty easily - Wright clearly spent a lot of time setting up little hints that make him look very clever upon a second viewing, but I was exasperated enough with his poor handling of his characters that I don't particular feel inclined to take in a second viewing. 

However, I still think the film is worth a watch.  The first act manages to evoke some real magic in its '60s sequences, and it's great to see Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, and Terrence Stamp getting some screentime.  Wright is still able to orchestrate some really inventive, stunning visuals, and his use of mirrors and filters and kaleidoscopic compositions is really lovely.  Sadly, blending this style with horror seems to be beyond his capabilities, and it doesn't help that there's another British director who has recently done very good work in this space - Peter Strickland.        

I wanted to love this movie, and instead I wound up appreciating it in bits and pieces.  It's a shame that this didn't do well at the box office, because I want Edgar Wright to keep making original films in the way that only he can.  At the same time, it's becoming clear that his films are exercises in style first and foremost.  And that would be fine if he weren't so committed to making the kinds of genre films that depend on better scripts than he's giving them.  Here's hoping he can course correct before he the audience's goodwill runs dry. 

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The Other "Casino Royale"

Some very silly spoilers ahead.

Since I'd watched all of the EON produced James Bond films, I figured I should watch the non-EON films too, because I'm a completionist.  This brought me to one of the most notorious runaway productions of all time, the 1967 adaptation of "Casino Royale" that was put together by Charles K. Feldman and distributed by Columbia.  Feldman had the rights to the original Ian Fleming novel, and after being turned down by EON, decided to make the film anyway as a spoof of the other Bond films of the 1960s.  The resulting "Casino Royale" is not a good film, but it is an absolutely fascinating film, and I'd argue that it's a must watch for die-hard Bond fans.

Originally, the film starred Peter Sellers as Evelyn Tremble, a baccarat expert who is recruited by Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress) to challenge the evil Le Chiffre (Orson Welles).  He trains as an agent and impersonates James Bond for the job.  Sellers, unfortunately, quit the film before it was finished due to rumored behind-the-scenes tensions with Orson Welles.  So, bookend sequences featuring David Niven as the original James Bond - who hates what his successors have been doing to his previously squeaky-clean reputation - were created.  More Bonds were thrown into the mix - a new recruit, Coop (Terence Cooper), intended to take over the 007 mantle, Bond's weaselly nephew Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen), and Bond's daughter Mata Bond (Joanna Pettet).  Ultimately, the film had five different credited directors, a wildly chaotic storyline, and had to piece together scenes from unused footage of Peter Sellers.  The budget ballooned from $6 million to $12 million.  Somehow, it was a box office hit.  

Nobody talks about this movie anymore, and not just because MGM eventually got the rights to the film and happily buried it for ages.  The critics savaged it at the time of release, and despite a few brave defenders pushing for a reevaluation in recent years, it's still considered one of the worst, most inept big budget films ever made.  Watching "Casino Royale" now is a bizarre experience.  The POV character switches every ten minutes, from Niven to Cooper to Sellers to Pettet.  The film feels like a series of spy-themed sketches more than anything else, and some of them are pretty good.  Some are not.  Niven and Woody Allen are entertaining whenever they're onscreen, and Orson Welles is pleasantly odd - apparently he demanded that his character perform magic tricks and illusions throughout the film, including making a woman disappear at the baccarat table.  The film grows more and more chaotic as it goes along, finally culminating in a bonkers finale in the casino, where all the Bonds get into a fight, there are celebrity cameos everywhere, and Woody Allen finally blows it all up. 

Compared to the four Sean Connery films that had been produced by the time, "Casino Royale" is more fun in some respects.  A lot of this has to do with the film's Bond girls, who are shameless sex objects, but sex objects with more agency and active parts to play in the film.  The gimmick here is that Niven's Bond is a cold fish, Sellers' Bond is totally inexperienced, and Woody Allen is a geek, so the most sexually aggressive characters are the women.  In addition to Andress and Pettet, this includes agents played by Daliah Lavi, Deborah Kerr, and Jacqueline Bisset, and a bored Miss Moneypenny played by Barbara Bouchet.  You can see the influence of raucous sex '60s comedies like "What's New Pussycat?" which "Casino Royale" directly references multiple times.   

The production is also nothing to sneeze at.  The sets include some real gems of '60s psychedelia, including a spy school designed to look like the set of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," and the villain's eye-poppingly mod secret lair, which clearly had more influence on the look of the "Austin Powers" movies than any of the actual James Bond films.  The music and songs by Bruce Bacharach are top notch throughout, and do a lot to help everything feel like they're all part of the same universe.  Even if I completely lost track of the story, I was content just watching the film play out, introducing one wild setpiece or improbably dressed Bond girl  after another, and enjoying a lot of very good actors pretend that they have any idea what's going on.     

"Casino Royale" is a mess, but it's a beautiful mess, and I kinda dig it.

Your 2022 Oscar Nominees

Oh boy, this is a chaotic year.  We've got some good nominations.  We've got some questionable nominations.  We've got some very questionable nominations.  

Among the Best Picture nominees, our frontrunners are clear: "The Power of the Dog," with twelve nominations, is Netflix's best shot yet at a Best Picture Oscar.  "Belfast" and "West Side Story" represent the only real competition, with seven nominations apiece.  "Dune" has ten, mostly thanks to craft awards, though noticeably no Director nod.  Ditto "King Richard," with six nods.  "Don't Look Up" and "Licorice Pizza" are still in the race, but the lack of acting nominations is not a good sign.  On the other hand, "Nightmare Alley" did much better than expected, with five nods.  "CODA" and "Drive My Car" round out the list, though I'd much rather have "Tick, Tick… BOOM!" "The Lost Daughter," or "The Tragedy of Macbeth," which did get a few nominations in other categories.    

Let's take a look at the acting categories.  Best Actor was pretty well predetermined, and I can't really argue with any of the choices.  Nicholas Cage should be there instead of Javier Bardem, but as wacky as the Oscars are this year, that was never going to happen.  Best Actress delivered the biggest snub of the morning, which was Lady Gaga.  She's the only reason “House of Gucci” holds together at all.  Meanwhile, Chastain was pretty meh and Kidman and everyone else from "Being the Ricardos" seem to represent the worst of the Oscars' voting inertia, favoring familiar names over more deserving ones.  J.K. Simmons has no business being in Supporting Actor, and yet somehow Nina Arianda isn't in Supporting Actress?  And "Belfast" got nods for Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds, helping to crowd out anybody from "Mass" or "The French Dispatch" or "Don't Look Up."  I loved "The Power of the Dog," and Kirsten Dunst in general, but she shouldn't be here over Ruth Negga, and Ann Dowd.  Jessie Buckley was a nice surprise for "The Lost Daughter" though.  

  

Foreign films are doing very well this year.  "Drive My Car" got Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay nods.  "The Worst Person in the World" popped up in Best Original Screenplay, and Penelope Cruz got a Best Actress nom for "Parallel Mothers," an Almodovar film I haven't managed to watch yet.  Meanwhile, the animated foreign language refugee documentary "Flee" secured Best Animated, International, and Documentary nods.  I sincerely hope that it manages to win one of them.  "Drive My Car," unfortunately, is a film that didn't work for me at all, and I'd much rather have Denis Villeneauve in the Director category and "Tick, Tick… BOOM!" in Best Picture.  Best International Feature Film is always a mess because of individual countries' choices about what to submit.  "Titane" and "Memoria" were never in the running, but I'm surprised that Asghar Farhadi's "A Hero" didn't get a nomination.     

There are so many contenders this year that I can't help seeing an awful lot of snubs.  It saddens me that "The French Dispatch," "Passing," "C'mon C'mon," "The Green Knight," "Mass," "Pig," and "The Last Duel" came away with nothing.   I wasn't much of a fan of "Annette" or "The Harder They Fall," but they're both conspicuously missing from Best Song.  "The Rescue" feels oddly missing from Best Documentary Feature.  Meanwhile, there are a lot of films that got much less attention than they were hoping for.  Personally, I consider "Spider-man: No Way Home's" single nomination for Visual Effects a bullet dodged, considering that they were gunning so hard for Best Picture.  "Cyrano," "House of Gucci," and "Spencer" also walked away with a lone nomination each.  

Honestly, it's not a bad year.  I may want to roll my eyes at "Belfast" and "CODA," but "The Power of the Dog" is great, and there are a lot of unexpected choices and interesting little stories.  I'm oddly very proud of the Academy voters for not nominating Jared Leto for "House of Gucci," and for slipping a Best Makeup and Hairstyling nomination to "Coming 2 America."  I'll be rooting for Questlove and and Lin Manuel Miranda and Maggie Gyllenhaal.  And really, Diane Warren won't ever stop, will she?  

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Looking Ahead to the Next Bond Movie

Spoilers for "No Time to Die" ahead.

Before we talk about the future, I want to make it clear where I'm coming from.  I like the Daniel Craig films more than most Bond fans.  I like that they were serialized, that they were more serious in tone, and that they made significant changes to the characters.  "Quantum of Solace" was really the only installment I didn't like because it essentially had no script, and I was perfectly happy with the ending, messy and compromised as the execution was. 

So, after five films and fifteen years, we're definitely due for a new Bond actor and maybe a new approach to the Bond films.  I've now watched all the theatrically released ones, so I'm very familiar with all the different versions of James Bond over the years, and how the franchise has changed with the times.  The biggest new development going forward will be that 50% of the franchise will be owned by Amazon, via their acquisition of MGM.  The Broccoli family will still retain creative control, so we don't have to worry about a proliferation of spinoffs just yet, but they're probably coming in the not-too-distant future.  We nearly had one with Halle Berry's Jinx character from "Die Another Day," and there's been some chatter about Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas's characters from "No Time to Die" too      

The Bond franchise seems to cycle between Bonds that are more serious and gritty, like Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig, and films that are more irreverent and fanciful, like Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan.  As a response to the "Austin Powers" franchise, largely built around spoofing older Bond films, and following the lead of the more grounded Jason Bourne films, "Casino Royale" and its direct sequels embraced realism, though they slowly got more stylized and outlandish over time.  Most fans are predicting a shift to a more lighthearted Bond, since nearly all the big, current, action franchises like the "Fast" and "Mission: Impossible" series are goofier and less self-serious.  I'm not a fan of the sillier side of the franchise, but films like the first "Kingsman" have shown that you can do an updated version of the Roger Moore style Bond movies successfully.

There's a lot you could do with the Bond franchise outside of the rigid parameters that he's existed in so far.  You could backtrack the way "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." did, and do a tongue-in-cheek Bond set in the '60s.  You could put Bond in the near-future where his propensity for wild gadgets would make more sense.  You could double down on the Craig-era serialization and plan out a more intricately plotted  series over multiple films from the outset.  Maybe an alternate timeline where the Cold War never ended.  James Bond has been around long enough and proved resilient enough that the formula can handle some tinkering.  "No Time To Die" already went so far as to kill him off, so the franchise could absolutely lean into the absence and spend the next film with M, Q, and the rest searching for a replacement.       

The casting of James Bond always invites plenty  of speculation.  Daniel Craig got some pushback for being blond, of all things, so I doubt that we'll see anyone too different from the template of the straight, white cis-gender British male ideal that Bond has always embodied.  There's been enough progress with colorblind casting that we might have some wiggle room on ethnicity, but definitely not gender, sexuality, or especially nationality.  Bond has always been a very British operation, to the point where Cary Joji Fukunaga has the distinction of being the first non-British director of the Bond franchise (and only because Danny Boyle dropped out).  I don't have any specific candidates in mind for the new James Bond, but I'm afraid Idris Elba is too old for the part now.

And nobody has the balls to continue the series with the Agent 007 played by Lashana Lynch, but that's a rant for another day.

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My Top Ten Films of 1950

This is part of a series of top ten films for the years before I began this blog. And it's the last entry for the time being, until I watch enough films to continue into the 1940s.  Entries below are unranked.  Let's go.

Sunset Boulevard - I admit that I have a rough time with noir.  However, even I couldn't resist Norma Desmond, Billy Wilder's enduring symbol of every once-bright star cruelly forgotten by Hollywood.  Not only is the film a wonderfully executed examination of the dark side of the silver screen, but has all these wonderful little references and nods to Hollywood's past.  Erich von Stroheim, a real silent era director, appearing as Max, is one of my favorite performances of all time.

Born Yesterday - Yes, I'm aware I have both of the Best Actress winners of 1950 on this list, but can you blame me?  Judy Holliday is one of my favorite actresses of this era, and this is her best performance.  The transformation of her character, Billie, from uncultured bimbo into a gleefully empowered figure of feminine ambition - and patriotism! - is immensely entertaining.  The comedy is so well written, and the laughs build on each other so beautifully, I can never resist its ample charms.

Harvey - I've learned to appreciate this film over time.  The premise, where an eccentric man insists that his best friend is an invisible six-foot tall humanoid rabbit, is fundamentally silly.  However, Jimmy Stewart's performance as Elwood P. Dowd is so gentle and so winning.  All the sensible people around him go to pieces in the face of adversity, but Elwood's madness keeps him sane.  Eventually, I was won over the way so many others have been by this sweet, whimsical fantasy. 

Beauty and the Devil - Rene Clair's take on the Faust legend is an elegantly made piece of fantasy cinema, full of Clair's usual flourishes.  Michel Simone stars as a wonderfully watchable Mephistopheles, while Gerard Philipe plays Faust.  Clair manages to inject some social commentary into the story, mirroring the downfall of Faust's kingdom with the French revolution.  However, the film's best moments are its presentations of dream imagery and dream logic that you could only realize on film.

Orpheus - And on that note, absolutely no one was better at poetic dream imagery in French cinema than Jean Cocteau.  His modern retelling of the Orpheus myth depends greatly on its command of mood and tone, with a few inspired uses of special effects.  Jean Marais' poet must traverse Cocteau's underworld, a nocturnal dreamscape of mystery and magic, where the laws of nature don't apply.  And it's vision of Death as a lovely princess is one of French cinema's great triumphs.   

La Ronde - The individual love stories told in Max Ophuls' "La Ronde" are not especially compelling.  However, there's something about the format and the structure of the film that I find endlessly appealing.  I think a lot of it must be due to the presence of Anton Walbrook as the Master of Ceremonies, who sings us from story to story with such wit and such warmth.  And Ophuls has such a light touch, which keeps everyone's sexual misadventures from ever feeling tawdry.

Cinderella - I tried to resist, but it was useless.  "Cinderella" remains as lovely a piece of Disney animation as it ever was.  Historically, it's credited with jump-starting the studio's fortunes in the post-war era.  The real heroes of the picture are the mice, of course, part of an excellent ensemble of caricatured characters that may draw some attention away from Cinderella herself, but have also helped to distinguish this version from all the other Cinderella movies that came before, and have come since.  

Stromboli - My favorite collaboration between Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini is about a woman in a psychic battle with her environment and circumstances.  Bergman plays a struggling outsider, Karin, who comes to live in an isolated community on a volcanic island, to be met only with hostility and suspicion.  It's a very bleak film, full of discomfort and dark implications, and I'm not surprised that it wasn't well received at the time of its release.  Its harshness, however, also makes it unforgettable.

Stars in My Crown - This Jacques Torneau western starts out in typical fashion, with a new preacher played by Joel McCrea coming to a small town, and winning over the locals.  However, the rest of the film gradually turns to more personal matters of faith, and concludes with one of the most tense, exciting finales I've ever seen, where the preacher has to rediscover his faith and go up against the Ku Klux Klan.  The film is an odd sort of hybrid of different genres that stands out for being so singular and so sincere.

The Gunfighter - I like to think of this film as something of a precursor to "High Noon," and "The Shootist," since it shares many of the same themes of personal responsibility, and looks at the heavy costs of being a man with a gun.  Gregory Peck's bitter performance is one of his best, and the black and white cinematography is stunning.  And let's all be grateful to Darryl F. Zanuck, for insisting that the ending be rewritten so that the villain could get the real comeuppance due to him.   

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"The French Dispatch" is Joyous Cinema

Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun" is an anthology film, and it seems odd that this is his first anthology film, as so many of his previous films have felt like anthologies, or catalogues of eccentric human behavior.  "The French Dispatch" is structured to be a visual representation of an issue of a fictional, little-read arts magazine - its stories taken from a French foreign bureau based in the fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blase.  We get a brief travel report, three features, and an obituary of the paper's editor, Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray).

"The French Dispatch" takes the familiar little aesthetic idiosyncrasies of the usual Wes Anderson feature, and lets them all run amok.  The individual stories being told are fairly simple comedic romps - homages and gentle sendups of French media - but the real fun is the style.  There is so much style here - all the different framing devices and production design to make the film feel like an issue of a print publication, the incredibly dense shot composition stuffed with graphic puns and jokes, the over-the-top characters played by Anderson's usual ensemble of sterling character actors and a few newbies, and of course the script, dripping with deadpan absurdity and a wide assortment of esoteric flourishes.  This may be the most Wes Anderson-y Wes Anderson film ever made, and I adore it to bits.

The amount of sheer indulgence onscreen is hard to overstate, but it's all done in the name of comedy, and it's executed with so much energy and verve and fun, that I couldn't resist.  Let's take "Revisions to a Manifesto," the segment where a reporter, Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand), becomes involved with the leader of a student revolutionary movement, Zeffirelli (Timothee Chalamet), helping him with his manifesto and his relationship with a fellow revolutionary, Juliette (Lyna Khoudri).  The whole thing is an homage to the French New Wave, especially the films about Leftist activism like Godard's "La Chinoise."  However, you don't need to know a thing about the French to follow along with the breathlessly told story, or to guffaw at Chalamet's ridiculous hair, or to enjoy the absurdity of the revolution being played out through a literal game of chess between the students and the stern authorities.        

If there's a running theme in this movie, it's about the loneliness and struggle of artists and writers.  The other two features are "The Concrete Masterpiece," about an imprisoned artist, Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio Del Toro), his muse Simone (Lea Seydoux), and an art dealer, Cadazio (Adrien Brody), and "The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner," about a food journalist, Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright) who joins the Commissaire (Mathieu Amalric) for a meal prepared by the famous chef Nescaffier (Stephen Park), only to be caught up in a kidnapping.  Then there's the obituary, which serves as a fond farewell to print journalism.  Several of the characters, like Roebuck Wright, are caricatures of real people, and there is a long list of beloved writers and journalists who are listed in a dedication at the end of the film.

Anderson's filmmaking here is more visually dense and fast-paced than ever.  There's really little difference between his live-action and animated films now, with the complexity of his camera work, incredibly detailed mise-en-scene, and the fast pace of his editing.  Notably, there's a chase sequence in the third story that is done in traditional animation, I assume because it would have cost too much in live-action.  Then there's this fantastic shot that tracks Roebuck Wright through a meticulously constructed police station, through multiple rooms and detailed tableaux.  It feels like watching a Roy Andresson or Peter Greenaway film, except constructed for the sake of silliness and amusement instead of grandeur.  

"The French Dispatch" will likely be considered too lacking in substance for some viewers.  It never lets us get to know any of the characters well enough to tug on the heartstrings the way that something like "The Grand Budapest Hotel" does, even though most of its individual stories end sadly or wistfully.  However, this is such a fabulously whimsical, joyously convoluted piece of filmmaking that has so much fun playing with the cinematic form and celebrating all of its myriad influences.  "The French Dispatch" is absolutely brilliant at being what it set out to be, and it's a joy to see it.

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