Tag: Tilda Swinton

[EXPRESSO] The French Dispatch (2021) | Tales From Ennui-sur-Blasè

Yes, i was quite excited when this was announced, i love me some Wes Anderson, especially when he’s doing stopmotion animation, but the live action casts for his movies have everyone in them, so i’m willing to “overlook” the issue time, though i’m not entirely sure about William Dafoe not being made out of clay to some degree.

After his japanese themed envorimental tale of samurai dogs, this time we’re dealing with a story about the world of journalism, as an anthology of stories adapted from the fictional “The French Dispatch Magazine”, here presented as a “real” side column to the Kansas-based paper “The Evening Sun”, originally conceived for travel logs and such but eventually got big and based itself in the little french town of “ Ennui-sur-blasè”, attracting the best journalists from all over the globe.

All framed as the newspaper founder dies and by his will the French Dispatch itself will close, with the writers and staff selecting the best stories for the last issue of the magazine itself, ranging to a student protest to a romance between a psychotic prisoned artist and his warden.

As you can guess, expect and tell, this sound indeed like an ensemble cast for a huge “vignette variety hour” on the subject of journalism, promising all the zany quirks of Wes Anderson’s eccentric directing and writing style… and sure as hell you’re not gonna change opinion on his works with The French Dispatch, which plays to all the strenghts and flaws of Wes Anderson with even more vigor than before, for best or worst.

Personally i loved it, but i think it’s fair to say it could have been better.

Especially since we have reasons to expect a lot.

Even so, at the very worst it’s good, so i do recommend it.

[EXPRESSO] The Personal History Of David Copperfield (2019) | Paupers, Please

Based on the novel by Charles Dickens… one i will admit to be not THAT familiar with.

So don’t expect me to compare it to the many other film or TV adaptations of the story, i simply can’t and won’t. But i will describe the basic plot, just in case.

Starting at the end, the movie has David Copperfield chronicle his life, from his brief moment of idyllic joy visiting the family of his nanny at their bout house in Yarmouth, to her moment remarring to a a cruel man who exiles him to London, making him work at his factory, and meeting many colorful characters that live in similar if not more crushing and dismaying poverty. After hearing of his mother’s death and funeral, he escapes from the dismal life at the factory to his eccentric aunt, and her even more eccentric lodger, flip-flopping between the wealth of the “gentlemen’s lifestyle” and his past miseries coming back to him.

So, i saw “The Personal Life Of David Copperfield” yesterday… and it was good. Perfect casting, amazing performances, the characters are charming and memorable, it gets a good balance between the whimsical positive attititude and the abject squallor of the poor in victorian London (as you would expect), and the themes of class conflict still work, even with the whimsical tone and the over the top characters.

Quite funny, but at times its so enamored with his “british comedy wit” that comes off as a bit grating. Still charming, absolutely, but a bit grating and self-indulgent, even if it’s deliberately done. That said, it’s a good one from director Armando Iannucci, i’d say. Not great, but good.

I really don’t know how it stacks up against the other film adaptations of the tale, but in its own, i’d recommend it.