Anyone either surprised, or negatively taken aback by Wes Anderson’s latest clearly hasn’t sampled the “Royal Tenenbaums” director’s more recent work, namely 2014’s “Grand Budapest Hotel.”
Much like the latter, “The French Dispatch” is an ensemble in every sense of the word, and tells many separate stories with Rube Goldberg connective tissue. Think Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen’s 1989 short film compendium “New York Stories.” Except here, Anderson takes sole possession of making an obviously Andersonian version of France come alive.
The king of creating quirkily-drawn characters and landscapes accomplished such through the journey had by its symbolic protagonist: an oral and visual history of Paris’ lone American outpost newspaper – the fictional Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun – as it puts together its final issue.
Within the context, you don’t have to argue, because you downright know it represents Anderson; his myriad of feelings, his meta meditation on the real-life artistic pursuit of narrative gold he often deems obtainable over (and sometimes on) seas.
With “The French Dispatch,” avid cinemagoers deprived of live-action Anderson for more than half a decade, and believers in the virtues held by old guard newspapermen and readers alike, will find their patience through the modern-day “franchise film” frenzy rewarded. At play throughout: a handful of stories that add up to an unshakable whole far grander than the sum of its parts; as is the case with any sacred-by-comparison newspaper held in one’s hand, especially in today’s news-in-our-pocket world.
Moreover, the film reminds its audiences – who are treated with intelligence, and not pandered to with kid gloves – of the beauty in seeing the printed word come alive, and why a migration toward film as an exploratory medium helps otherwise buried text survive the test of time.
After a lukewarm-performing detour and rare audience-dividing misstep with Netflix’s “Six Underground,” Michael Bay will head back where he belongs come February 2022: on the biggest screens possible.
Screened before mostly every major release this awards season, “Ambulance” casts Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul Mateen II (HBO’s “Watchmen;” Netflix’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7”) as the frontal duo for a Los Angeles-set, “Four Brothers”-meets- “Heat” cinema experience.
If the action-packed, if not overly long (but for all the right reasons) trailer indicates anything, it’s that the explosive visionary behind “The Rock,” “Armageddon” and “Pearl Harbor” won’t disappoint with his foray into the daytime heist caper subgenre.
“Dune” nation breathed a collective sigh of relief with the announcement weeks ago that “Dune: Part Two” would come to pass. Thanks to the success of Denis Villeneuve’s elevated-in-scope, visually-darker counter to David Lynch’s ironically beloved 1984 adaptation of the 1965 novel, aspirations even beyond that may just as quickly gain substantiation.
“I always envisioned three movies,” Villeneuve told Entertainment Weekly earlier this year. “It’s not that I want to do a franchise, but this is ‘Dune,’ and ‘Dune’ is a huge story. In order to honor it, I think you would need at least three movies. That would be the dream. To follow Paul Atreides and his full arc would be nice.”
As it’s largely held the “Dune Messiah” sequel novel would serve as the blueprint for a hypothetical third installment, here’s hoping the minority of the filmgoing population still down on
Timothée Chalamet become converted yet. While Zendaya’s Chani is set to lead “Dune: Part II,” due for an exclusively-theatrical release in October of 2023, ‘Messiah’ would be pure Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides (Chalamet) territory.
Tabbed to play the boyish, dreamed-consumed and destined-to-lead son of a Duke in “Dune,” the Oscar nominee will next plug “Wonka” as the titular chocolatier in an unforeseen but certainly welcomed origin story. He is also still attached to play folk-rock music legend Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s “Going Electric” as well.
