Fish and Cherries Productions

Midnight in Paris was a wistful and thoughtful trip through French history and faces. Throughout the film, the idea of nostalgia for times long gone that a person wasn’t even a part of is destructed by showing its progression throughout the passing eras, a point which is admittedly spelled out in the end, but sometimes it’s best to abandon subtlety. There are other themes too, like the interactions of different creative minds, but the former is certainly the main focus. I’ll freely admit that I don’t think Owen Wilson is the greatest actor, but he fits perfectly here as a wide-eyed Francophile writer surrounded by strangeness, often embodying some of the traits of Woody Allen’s younger roles. Speaking of, one cannot ignore the all star cast that makes up the famous faces of Paris’ past, my personal favorite being Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali. Some people may be thrown off by the daytime scenes in the present day feeling a lot more mundane than the night scenes of the past, but rest assured that that was the whole idea and not a filmmaking fault. Overall, I feel like this movie was made specifically for me and encourage the rest of you to enjoy it like a rich eclair. Unless you’re vegan, in which case you should enjoy it like a dark chocolate-dipped strawberry.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a wonderfully quirky experience that left me smiling. Apart from the witty humor and dialogue, a big part of the charm is that the film keeps reminding you that it’s a story. A few of the backdrops are clearly beautiful paintings, a bit of the narration acts like the non-dialogue text of a book, a lot of the colors are so vibrant that no one would dare use them in any real establishment, and the film’s aspect ratio changes depending on when the scene takes place. The atmosphere and humor itself are delightfully quirky and there are even some dark comedy moments that never feel out of place or mean-spirited. The only nitpick I have is that none of the actors, whose characters hail from Europe or the Middle East, even attempt an accent and it’s a little distracting at times. However, the end result is a great film which brings an air of class and poetry that has been sorely missing from cinema lately.