Ty Watches "The French Dispatch"

For date night last week I picked "The French Dispatch" to watch. My wife and I are both big Wes Anderson fans, and before the pandemic we had planned on seeing this in the theaters. Then we all know what happened. The movie was recently put on HBO Max though, so we were good to go for a watch.

For the record, I adore Anderson's movies. I think "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Rushmore" are two of the best movies ever made. "Rushmore" reminds me so much of RD it is crazy. I love "Isle of Dogs" and "Fantastic Mr Fox". I really enjoyed "Moonrise Kingdom". I even like "Bottle Rocket". The only movies of Anderson's that I am not so crazy about are "Life Aquatic" and "The Darjeeling Limited". Those two movies never hooked me. But I was excited for "The French Dispatch". After "Grand Budapest Hotel", I felt like Anderson was on a hot streak. He has such a unique style and he is going full bore ahead. No one can stop him seemingly. He is having a moment. And boy oh boy is "The French Dispatch" about as Wes Anderson as it gets.

The movie is told in three stories from three writers from a newspaper in the 60's I assume. The setting is very whimsical and very colorful, when the movie uses color. There is a ton of black and white in this movie. But when the color shows up, boy does it pop. The sets are also very Anderson-esque. They look quaint and old timey and are like a mashup of all of his movies in one. It has feelings of everything he has made prior to this movie. The movie also takes place in a city called Ennui Blase. It does not get anymore Wes Anderson than that.

Outside the sets and the look, this movie moves and is written in Anderson's singular style. The actors, and my goodness is this a murderers row of actors, all talk fast but look sad. Bill Murray is the head editor, and he is as ennui as they get. Some of the writers we meet, played by Tilda Swinton, Jeffery Wright, Frances McDormand and Owen Wilson, just to name a few, really go for it in Anderson's style, and they nail it. Tilda Swinton is as weird as ever. McDormand is rough and tumble and sweet and straightforward. Wright is fast talking and smart and unique. And Wilson has the silliest and quirkiest story of them all. Some of the actors who play the people being portrayed, like Timothee Chamaleet, Benecio Del Toro, Adrien Brody, Lea Seydoux, Lyna Khoudri, Mathieu Amaric, Steve Park, Bob Balaban, Henry Winkler, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Defoe, Liev Schrieber, Edward Norton and Tony Revelori all really crush their respective performances. I enjoyed the Del Toro story the most, he plays an insane painter who is in jail. But the story Wright tells, which features Ronan, Defoe, Amaric and Park is fast paced and has a kick ass animation scene attached. Also, Chamaleet is the main character in the McDormand story, and he does just a tremendous job. I have become a big time fan of his as of late. He has made some great choices on the roles he has picked recently.

When we were done watching the movie I asked my wife what she thought. She said she enjoyed herself, but it wasn't her favorite Anderson movie. She is partial to "The Royal Tenenbaums". I have thought about it since Friday, and I liked the movie too, but I prefer many of Anderson's other movies. "The French Dispatch" is a very good, very Wes Anderson movie. But it is dark at times. It can also be a bit slow. But Anderson is at a point in his career where he can do what he wants, and what comes out is fun and interesting to watch. I definitely recommend checking this movie out, especially if you are already a fan. I had a good time, and I think you would too.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Better Late Than Never on "Isle of Dogs"

I'm writing earlier than usual today because I literally just finished watching the movie "Isle of Dogs", and I have some thoughts.

I'm a Wes Anderson fan. I like pretty much all of his movies, save for maybe "Darjeeling Limited", but even that movie has its moments. I was first introduced to Anderson by RD, when he showed me the classic movie "Rushmore". I was immediately in love. The way he shot and directed the movie, that is how I like my independent comedies. A little dark, but usually with a fairly happy ending. After "Rushmore" I dug very deep into the world of Wes Anderson. I watched his first movie "Bottle Rocket" next. That is a great, very underrated movie. Then I saw "Royal Tenenbaums". That is, not only one of his best movies, but one of the best movies ever made. It is nearly perfect. RD and I then saw "Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" on Christams day in 2004. I think that is a very solid movie. It doesn't get the love his other movies do, but I enjoyed it. My wife and I, who at the time was my girlfriend, watched "Fantastic Mr Fox". That movie is an achievement. It was so cool. The stop motion was neat and the story was great. My wife and I, to this day, still walk around the house saying, "I'm more of an athlete" all the time. We then sat down a few years later and watched "Moonrise Kingdom". That is one of the sweetest movies ever. It is also a great story about childhood. I'd take "Moonrise Kingdom" any day over "Boyhood". I then watched "Grand Budapest Hotel" by myself in the theaters. That movie is cool. It is neat to look at, the story is fun and it is very adventurous. I also love the detail that went into it. I liked it so much that I convinced my wife to watch it on a flight we were on to Mexico for our anniversary.

Then I kind of forgot about Anderson. He didn't make anything for a couple years. I remember seeing the preview for "Isle of Dogs", but I never got the chance to see it in the theaters. Luckily I have HBO, and I was up early today and it was on. I watched it before taking my son to school, and I really, really, really liked it a lot.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, because Anderson is a writer and director I have come to really enjoy, I think "Isle of Dogs" is his best movie. And this is not recency bias. While watching "Isle of Dogs" I thought about his other movies, and while some may be better in smaller aspects, I feel like "Isle of Dogs" is the perfect amalgamation of everything that Anderson is, and wants to be, as a director and writer. First of all, he goes back to the stop motion that made "Fantastic Mr Fox" so cool. Except in "Isle of Dogs" I think it looks so much better done. He really honed his skills and the people that worked on this movie with him are really good technicians. The dogs looked real. Their fur, when the wind would blow, looked just like my dog when he rides in the car with me and I have the windows down. The humans in the movie looked real too. They didn't have that Claymation feel that so many stop motion movies have. Sure they had wild hair and wild costumes, but they looked like real people. The voice work in this movie is amazing too. The people Anderson got are all amazing. He has his usual people, like Edward Norton, Greta Gerwig, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Harvey Keitel and F Murray Abraham. But the people he added to the cast are a who's who. Frances McDormand, Liev Schreiber, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Courtney B Vance and Bryan Cranston. And they were great. Cranston is the voice of the main dog and he is tremendous. Vance as the narrator of the story was the perfect person to tell this story. He has a great voice for a role like this. McDormand as a translator was so good too.

That was another thing I loved about this movie. It takes place in the future in Japan, and the Japanese people in the movie are voiced by Japanese people, and then the dialogue is translated via text or people playing translators. And the kid who plays the main human, Atari, voiced by Koyu Rankin, is so easy to root for. Yoko Ono plays a voice of a scientist in the movie. The evil mayor, Kobayashi, voiced by Kunichi Nomura, was so threatening, but does have a heart of gold. The real bad guy, Major Domo, voiced by Akira Takayama, was so scary my kids were afraid to watch when he was onscreen. He was phenomenal.

Which leads me to the story of this movie, and what I interpreted it as. This movie is about classism and judging one without really knowing them. Sure, the main characters are dogs, but that doesn't mean you cannot tell a story like that. And the way Anderson pulls it off is glorious. The mayor sending these dogs to "Trash Island" because he believes them to be "bad dogs", just casting them aside, was so sad. Funny thing about that, I could see our current "government" doing something very similar. Hell, they already are trying to do this, separating families at the border like a bunch of terrorists. Looking at this "fake" government in "Isle of Dogs" was so eerily similar to what the real "government" is trying to do right now. Anderson drew a perfect parallel. Then, to see the dogs side of the story, it was just amazing. To see them trying to survive, to hear their stories, to see some of them thrive, it was great. Also, seeing the opposition's story, which included the mayor's "son", had me wanting to start a revolution myself. I love to see the resistance win, and they certainly win in "Isle of Dogs".

I feel like this movie is the best work that Anderson has done to date. I have zero problems with it. I want to watch it a million more times. I do not think I will ever grow tired of it. I have a newfound respect for my dog after seeing it. I want to treat people better, not that I was treating anyone bad, after seeing this movie. The movie also makes me like Anderson even more. I don't care if that makes me sound pretentious either, the dude makes good to great movies pretty much all the time. I almost wish I had seen it prior to this morning because it definitely would have made my best of 2018.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He was going to make a movie about his dog, but the only compelling drama he could find is when Charlie spent ten minutes going in a circle looking for a place to pee.

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