Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel

I re-learned a lesson thanks to Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel.

When I saw the first trailer for the film, I was very excited; I posted it on this blog because I loved every single frame. And—oh my God—seeing Ralph Fiennes as a comedian thrilled me (as I have written here). I even watched one of Mr. Anderson's past films, The Fabulous Mr. Fox, and revelled in a state of excited anticipation for Budapest Hotel.

But I did not like it at all. I fell asleep twice while I was in the theatre. For style, I would give it a 9.5, but for writing and content, I'd call it a 2. What I re-learned concerned the risk of excited anticipation.

At some time during my high school teaching career (1970-1972), a student named Bruce Davies reduced me to a puddle of tears telling me about Woody Allen's movie, Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask. I could hardly wait to go, and when I did, I hated it.

Conversely, I have been rendered euphoric by the unanticipated or even the dreaded. My experience with Nebraska, is an excellent example. I was vaguely interested but only viewed it because sa friend gave me a free DVD; even then, as it began, I doubted I would stick with it. But not only did I stick with it, I loved it.

When people tell me about their travels or when I read about or watch travel stories, if the narrator says something akin to being the first ("first world") person to visit the place or one of the very few, my attention drifts away. I cannot understand how the past experience (or non-experience) of others has anything to do our experience, so statements like that strike me as really odd.

But the sentiment speaks to our species' need for or love of discovery and I think "discovery" is a big part of being an art viewer or consumer. We love discovery. So I believe that when we see a movie or a play or hear something like Allegri's Miserere for the first time without anyone pushing us to it,  the experience can feel like a discovery which adds to our thrill.

When A Chorus Line opened on Broadway, it got a 22-minute standing ovation and nothing like that ever happened again during its long and international run because once that night had happened, critics and viewers for every ensuing production, all over the world, went to see a what they knew was a phenomena. Happily, A Chorus Line  was able to sustain its hype. Audiences were never disappointed, despite their knowledge, because it was such an intimate masterpiece in so unique a form.

However, discovered or recommended, Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel is a beautiful bore. If only his story-telling could match his eye for design.

Easter's On 4/20 This Year

Bungalow

Exterior

Interior

For more "books" unreadable by their covers, go here.

Life with WOW

Wow Wow: She phoned at 4:50. My glasses were ready, so I bolted to the store to get them. Two pairs: one for walking around and the other for the roughly 35% of my time awake that I spend at my computer.

Walking home from the store—in fact all the time, so far—I read EVERYTHING. And seeing people's faces with one mouth and two eyes is amazing. And that night when I watched something on TV, it was like communion with God:  HD TV plus 20/20 vision is amazing. I am constantly giddy.

•

On another front…. I have been getting love letters. Two former students from the two academic years that began my working life wrote to recall my positive influence in their lives. How great a gift is that? It is particularly lovely because a decade ago I wrote to every teacher who did the same for me. they wrote because they saw my final column in the Opus Newsletter.

•

Boo Hoo: The Grand Budapest Hotel gets a very bad review in the New Yorker. But the criticism is all directed at Wes Anderson.

I am still going to see it because I truly love seeing great acting and actors and I am going to see Ralph Fiennes. Unfortunately, I saw The English Patient. It is one of my all time Most Hated Films, but I had no trouble accepting Mr. Fiennes as the romantic lead. He is a hottie.

Then came In Bruges, one of my all-time favourite films and he very convincingly played a psychopathic killer. I could watch that film every year for the rest of my life. And then there were the Potter films. Life is too short to take in Harry Potter either in print or film for me, but the Internet was overrun with images of Finnes as a villain.

And now, comedy. And from the clips I have seen, he aces it. The guy is an amazing actor.

•

Yay: And speaking of talented actors, I went to see my dear friend Nicola Lipman in Driving Miss Daisy at the Arts Club. I loathe the script but the extraordinary actors made caviar out of macaroni.

•

Big Step: I have lived in this condo for six years. When I moved in, I gutted the place and remodelled but I never finished neither the kitchen cupboards nor my bedroom closet, I have never been satisfied with the closet doors on my two closets so…. Yesterday Pablo and Sam were here to do the measuring and the talking to enable them to come up with an estimate.

In May, they will do the work and I will live out the rest of my life in a space designed exactly to my needs and desires: Small but (my) perfect, and my closet doors will be shoji screens built to my choice of materials. I am set.

•

Spring is like bipolarity: One day is warm and bright and dry and you feel inspired and have to be outside, and the next is cool, dark and wet and you want to stay inside.

Sniffing a Stranger

(Parody of previous post.)

Kissing a Stranger

When we're not home