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Grand Budapest Strikes Gold

Wes Anderson isn’t your typical film director.
The “Moonrise Kingdom” director is back with his next masterpiece “The Grand Budapest Hotel”.

If you are unfamiliar with Anderson’s style, be ready for a fantastic adventure; his focus is on seemingly real life story telling with a touch of fairytale comedy. The dialogue is hilariously dry and his camera style is absolutely stunning.

Anderson has created classics like “Rushmore”, “The Royal Tenebaums” and “The Darjeeling Limited”. Did I mention that Bill Murray makes an appearance in almost every one of his films? Yes, the Bill Murray.

You can’t pass on this folks.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel” is traditional to Anderson’s mythical style. The story is centered around a hotel in pre-World War II time. It’s a majestic hotel that sits at the top of a beautiful mountain in Austria.
The story begins in 1968 with a curious writer (Jude Law) inquiring about a guest in the now rundown hotel. The guest turns out to be the owner of the hotel, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). Moustafa has quite the story to tell.

Next, Anderson brings the story back to 1935 which was the heyday for this once highly revered hotel. Ralph Fiennes plays the hotel’s loved concierge, Gustave H. He treats his customers in a particularly loving manner and takes his job quite seriously.

When one of Gustave’s most loved clients, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) reaches an untimely death. Alongside lobby boy in training, Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the Grand Budapest’s concierge, receives the news that Madame D. has left her most valuable possession to him.

Madame D.’s family is furious, including oldest brother Dmitri (Adrien Brody). They frame Gustave for the murder and police inspector (Edward Norton) hauls him to jail.

This movie is jam packed with a rich cast of actors and entertaining characters. Also, you will quickly learn just how important a cupcake can be to a prisoner.

The beauty of the story is that it sheds light on a tragically war-stricken Europe, while still holding true to ironically pure humor.

It is easy to fall in love with Gustave’s con artistry masked in cheesy poetry and Dmitri’s malicious agenda in conjunction with his three unfortunate looking sisters. Anderson has an eye for flipping a camera shot perfectly to set a hilarious yet serious tone to the movie.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a quick Wes Anderson classic that you cannot miss out on. For the price of one movie ticket, enter his world and be jealous of the characters that get to live in this strange version of reality.

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