The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

A writer (Tom Wilkinson) recollects when as a young man (Jude Law) he spent time at the once glorious Grand Budapest Hotel. It was there when its owner (F. Murray Abraham) gave him the account of when he was a young man (Tony Revolori) working as the hotel's lobby boy and the eccentric concierge (Ralph Fiennes) who mentored him. I'm all over the place with director Wes Anderson's films. My feelings toward his films range from outright loathing (THE DARJEELING LIMITED) to modest enjoyment (THE LIFE AQUATIC) to major love (THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS). I adored his last movie, the charming MOONRISE KINGDOM and if BUDAPEST doesn't quite match it, it's pretty damn close. Like MOONRISE, it's a fable about a world that doesn't quite exist anywhere outside of Anderson's head. It's quirky with off the wall humor and if the film has any primary faults, it's that it's possibly too pleased with itself but not to the point of smugness. There's lots to admire here from Adam Stockhausen's stylish production design to the myriad of idiosyncratic performances. Anderson and his cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman shot the film in three different ratios: 1.85 for the present, 2.35 for the first flashback and 1.33 for the second flashback. The massive cast includes Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Adrien Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban and Lea Seydoux (BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR).