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Comments 1 - 15 of 17

Yousef Mousa's avatar

Yousef Mousa

Other than the mesmerizing shots and colorful palettes used, the movie had an incoherent story-telling and awfully boring stories. Had higher expectations.
1 year 4 months ago
Ray Anselmo's avatar

Ray Anselmo

The Wes Anderson Repertory Players Perform Wes' Greatest Hits. Not his best work, but still cute and delightful. I could've watched another hour of it without complaint. 8/10
1 year 9 months ago
chunkylefunga's avatar

chunkylefunga

Beautiful but lacklustre.
2 years ago
SpacedJ's avatar

SpacedJ

The audience were uncertain. Some found themselves to be enchanted, surprised and delighted by the grandiloquent expository characters and bento box mise en scene of Ennui-sur-Blasé. Mellifluous to some, discordant to others. The restless ones rolled their eyes and whispered to each other, ever certain that their own utterances were indeed more delicious and valuable than those of the presentation they now patronized. True, it was the style the artist was known for, technically excellent as always but many believed that he had gone too far and had contorted himself beyond their understanding of acceptable limitations. One detractor (a reporter for a rival publication whose name I shall not share for I do not wish her ill) decreed that "...the ironic smelling of his own farts has now become a misguided expedition up his own ass". I found myself mystified by these coprophilic antagonists around me. I went outside and smoked a cigarette against a backlit doorway, and wondered what might become of the world if joyless voices such as these became so clamorous that we could hear nothing else. I then took inventory, arranging my possessions before me in a grid and spoke their names out loud before returning everything to my vintage designer briefcase, then walked animatedly (literally and figuratively) into the night.
2 years 2 months ago
karic's avatar

karic

Visually stunning as always, but that's about it when it comes to Wes Anderson's stuff. The typical unlikable quirky characters, and the boring/pretentious dialogue in his movies never made me care at all about whatever message it's trying to convey, if there is even one. I still enjoy his movies thought for the art that it is.
2 years 3 months ago
LiterallyMe's avatar

LiterallyMe

Wes Anderson: Unleashed
2 years 3 months ago
Siskoid's avatar

Siskoid

If you thought The Grand Budapest Hotel was the most Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson ever Wes Andersoned, think again. The French Dispatch is so rich in both dialog and imagery, it's going to become a freeze-framing favorite. The film presents the last issue of a writerly American magazine based in an imaginary French town in the 70s, the work of its staff behind the scenes, but also the articles as short films, recalling Jacques Tati and Chris Ware and God knows what else. If you're a French speaker, you'll even get jokes non-bilingual audiences won't. The whole package is a cinematic delight and one of the best anthology films I've ever seen. At one point, I got the giggles, and though it was triggered by a line of dialog, it was really due to an accumulation that had been building since the beginning. Funny-sad, since it's a movie filled with a strange nostalgia, and clearly a tribute not to journalists, but to writers, especially those stylists who have worked in journalistic avenues. True voices. This is where the humor is most subtle and ironic. Frances McDormand's character, for example, has this terse, two-words-a-sentence style, but somehow fills reams and reams of pages. Jeffrey Wright's has an ironclad memory when it comes to remembering his own texts, but none when it comes to other things, second-hand mnemonics that puts doubt on everything he says. And I bet there's a lot more to dig up on repeat viewings. The French Dispatch is a stylish bullet train Wes Anderson fans will want to take again and again until every compartment has been fully delighted in.
2 years 4 months ago
anthemforadoomed's avatar

anthemforadoomed

The French Dispatch is an intriguing installment in Anderson's filmography. In many ways, here we see him pushing his visual and storytelling techniques outwards to more experimental limits than ever before. The narratives and dialogue are fast paced (even when they feel slow), and the film really requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate how the many tiny gears fit together. While The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom felt like a fine-tuning and polishing of Anderson's trademark style, The French Dispatch is a departure. Telling stories within stories is a trademark of Anderson's style, but this is his most ambitious use of vignettes and character study to create an overarching narrative to date. I found his approach to difficult subjects depicted here mostly tasteful and always humorous. There are so many beautifully edited moments to be found and the editing is perhaps the most avant garde feature of the film, but there are also a handful of small but noticable continuity errors or harsh cuts that are unfortunate given how successful most of the editing is. The performances and sets are brilliant as always, and the art and occasional animations are fabulous and always fit the story's tone just right. Make sure to watch the credits for all the lovely "covers" made for the Dispatch. This film is perhaps Anderson's most polarizing and like any artistic departure, will turn off some viewers (as the comments below attest) but it will also surely be a favorite for others. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
2 years 4 months ago
Panunzio's avatar

Panunzio

Very much in the vein of the Grand Budapest Hotel, the films presents various stories in the fictional Ennui sur Blase. Clearly inspired by Paris, the setting helps provide a sort of magical quality that really helps bring the setting and characters to life.

Compared to Grand Budapest, the French Dispatch is much more subdued and reflective, but there's still plenty of good humour, and the stories are all interesting in their own right. As many other commenters have already pointed out, Anderson dives even further into his signature style, with some really beautiful results (thinking especially of the tableaux shots).
2 years 4 months ago
nowhereman136's avatar

nowhereman136

I think Wes Anderson is an insanely talented director, but sometimes gets too worked up in the style that the pacing, character development, and storyline suffers. This film is more of an anthology where each character gets their own arch, one after another. This gives the film much better pacing and character development. I think its what Grand Budapest Hotel shouldve been. I would still like to see him get back to the pseudo realism of Royal Tenenbaums but I did enjoy this film
2 years 4 months ago
Ebbywebby's avatar

Ebbywebby

This is a film that should be read rather than seen. Why use 10 words when you can cram in 30 words instead? I'm worried about Anderson now -- he seems to be headed down a Peter Greenaway rabbit hole, where he's just oblivious to everything beyond his own encoded fascinations and elaborations.
2 years 4 months ago
floatsuit's avatar

floatsuit

I appreciate Wes Anderson's shot composition, but I wasn't a fan of the storytelling in the French Dispatch. A little too stream-of-consciousness. I usually found the asides frustrating and distracting, not charming. The juxtaposition of shots felt repetitive. Not his strongest movie.
2 years 4 months ago
TomReagan's avatar

TomReagan

As of now, my least favorite Wes Anderson film. Extremely uninteresting stories.
2 years 4 months ago
peterskb45's avatar

peterskb45

In which Wes Anderson tries to outdo Wes Anderson.
2 years 4 months ago
george4mon's avatar

george4mon

If I didn’t pay to see this i would have walked out at several points. I can respect the immense amount of work that must have gone into making it and it is Beautifully shot But I don’t remember disliking a film I’ve seen in the cinema as much as this and I say that as a fan of Wes Anderson’s films as a whole.
2 years 5 months ago

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