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DOPE: Geek power

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by cinepam in Reviews

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Dope, Kiersey Clemons, Rick Famuyiwa, Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori

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It’s Boyz n the Hood meets Revenge of the Nerds meets After Hours for three geeky teenagers navigating the mean streets of Inglewood, CA’s tough Bottoms neighborhood in Rick Famuyiwa’s delirious coming-of-age/drug dramedy Dope. A boy’s crush on a girl leads to all sorts of complications for the trio as they are challenged to prove that they are every bit as street-smart as they are book-smart.

Gangs and drugs are part of life in the Bottoms, but lifelong friends Malcolm (Shameik Moore), Diggy (Kiersey Clemons), and Jib (The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Tony Revolori) ignore that world as much as they can. They are a self-contained unit dedicated to all things ‘90s, particularly hip hop. They are college-bound kids and Malcolm is determined to get into Harvard. It is a dream firmly within his grasp until Malcolm’s crush on Nakia (Zoë Kravitz) leads him and his friends to step out of their comfort zone and attend drug dealer Dom’s (A$ap Rocky) birthday party. By the end of the evening, they are in possession of a backpack full of molly, squeezed by both Dom’s allies and rivals and petrified of being caught with the stuff by the cops.

How Malcolm and company deal with their problem is the stuff of much raucous humor and more than a little suspense. The genius of the film, though, is not in its plot, but in its sly observations. As geeks, Malcolm, Diggy, and Jib have run of the school, particularly the areas no one else bothers with in a distressed public school where few of their peers are on an academic track: the science lab, the computer room, even the band room. As geeks, they also have an air of innocuous respectability that gives them a measure of freedom.

Within the world Famuyiwa creates there is room for everything from debate over the “n” word to Malcolm’s pointed conclusions on the all-important college application personal essay. It’s funny stuff, but what pushes Dope over the top from goodness to greatness is the charm of its three young leads. –Pam Grady

 

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Review: Wes Anderson evokes a lost era in the magnificent GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

14 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by cinepam in Reviews

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Bill Murray, F. Murray Abraham, Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Tilda Swinton, Tony Revolori, Wes Anderson

Fiennes_RevoloriPastry looms large in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, the product of Mendl’s, the most sublime bakery of all in the kingdom of Zubrowka, its treats packaged in pretty pink boxes. In a way, those baked goods stand as symbols of the whole movie: absolutely gorgeous, irresistible and completely delicious. Set in two opposing eras—the opulent years between the two world wars and the drabness of the Cold War—The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson’s most ambitious work to date, evident in his attention to every detail.  It is hilarious, but also a film of great heart as he once more visits the relationship between a father and a son.

Or a faux father and a son, as the case may be.  Like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore,   Grand Budapest Hotel concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his new lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori) are not related. Yet, once the older man takes the teenager under his wing, it doesn’t take long for that relationship to develop.  It seems unlikely at the outset. M. Gustave is an excellent concierge, always willing to provide extra service to his guests—particularly the elderly ladies—but he is also  vain, imperious and shallow. If he barely noticed Zero at all, it would be unsurprising. Instead, he responds to the boy’s loyalty, respect and work ethic. By the time, aged Madame D. (Tilda Swinton) dies, earning M. Gustave the enmity of her vicious son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) when she remembers the concierge in her will, M. Gustave and Zero share a solid bond. Nothing can break it, not Dmitri’s machinations, separation or even a fascist invasion.

It is the elderly Zero (F. Murray Abraham), the 1960s-era owner of the Grand Budapest—now long gone to seed—who tells the story to a curious guest, a writer (Jude Law). In the old man’s memories, his youth is almost a fairy tale. Certainly, Zubrowka resembles someplace out of a fable, its luxury exaggerated, the hotel exterior and the mountains surrounding it made of miniatures. At key points, Anderson turns to Fantastic Mr. Fox-style animation. Adam Stockhausen’s (Moonrise Kingdom) production design is exquisite. Anderson’s films are always jewels, but The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most glittering one of them all.

A huge ensemble populates Zubrowka, including Murray, Schwartzman, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, Léa Seydoux, Mathieu Amalric, Saorise Ronan and Edward Norton, yet it is an intimate comedy, focused on Fiennes and Revolori. The movie is a gift to Fiennes, an actor whose looks and manner have stood him well in such films as Quiz Show, The English Patient, The End of the Affair and his own recent The Invisible Woman. He was built for period pieces and The Grand Budapest Hotel hits his sweet spot.

Anderson’s love for classic films is evident throughout The Grand Budapest Hotel. Somewhere Ernst Lubitsch is smiling. But in evoking a lost era, Anderson does not pay mere homage, he instead applies his unique humor and sensibility to that time.  What emerges is something magnificent. In fact, it’s pretty grand, this Grand Budapest Hotel. –Pam Grady

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