Anderson Countdown Part 8 - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Hello everyone and welcome to Some Like It Scott's newest Countdown miniseries: the Wes Anderson Countdown. To honor one of the great still-working indie writer-director auteurs, who's next film ASTEROID CITY comes out later this year, Scott, Scott, and Jay will be watching all 10 of the American filmmakers' works to-date, from his origins with the '90s heist-comedy BOTTLE ROCKET, all the way to his latest feature, 2021's star-studded anthology drama THE FRENCH DISPATCH. Join us each week over the next 10 weeks as we progress through Anderson's full oeuvre in the buildup to ASTEROID CITY!

 

On Part 8 of the Anderson Countdown, Scott, Scott, and Jay revisit one of Wes Anderson's most widely acclaimed works: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Solo written and directed by Anderson, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL is the auteur's 2014 comedy-drama and has the unique appeal of being a bit of a story within a story within a story... within a story, when a young woman visits the shrine of a renowned, unnamed author in the former nation of Zubrowka. The woman reads the author's most cherished book - The Grand Budapest Hotel - in which the author (Jude Law) recounts his vacation several decades prior to the once-grand, but now-decaying titular hotel. There, he meets the hotel's mysterious, aging owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), who over dinner with the author tells his rags-to-riches story from the day he stepped foot in the hotel. Enter the film's lead, Ralph Fiennes, who stars as Monsieur Gustave H., the famed concierge to one of the most renowned resorts in all of Eastern Europe. After quickly learning of the younger Zero (Tony Revelori's) commitment, takes the youthful lobby boy under his wing. Gustave mentors him, gives him responsibility, takes care of him, but inadvertently also puts him in danger when one of Gustave's mistresses, Madame D. (Tilda Swinton), dies suddenly and leaves a valuable painting to Gustave that her villainous son, Dmitri (Adrien Brody) covets. Cue a heist, a prison break, a cross-continent chase, and plenty of hi-jinx along the way, all in Wes Anderson's now-iconic style. The countdown crew reflect on the massive ensemble cast, the film's humor, the maybe-surprising emotional heft, and whether it is indeed Wes Anderson's magnum opus to-date.