jmydgeek There are a lot of wannabe filmmakers and writers out there, and this would seem to be made by one of them. Wes Anderson has made some movies, some of which actually have characters and pacing, but is somehow reverted to wannabe status. He created a situation straight out of a loser's fantasy, the sort someone wallowing in self-pity over a breakup might come up with. The anguished, devastated hero (with nothing in him to attract anyone) gets to be morose and unforgiving and his (ex) girlfriend still comes more or less begging like no ex ever has or will. Sure, people get back together, or see each other, but the whole interaction was as false and fantasy driven as a GI Joe cartoon. The girlfriend was essentially a prop, not a character with recognizable motivation. Nobody behaves like the people in this movie. Writing like this comes when you don't know who your characters are, but you know what you want them to do. Ugh. And they all say exactly what they mean, totally on-the-nose writing, like nobody ever talks. No subtext, perfect self-knowledge, such character as is revealed is done through dialogue. "Show, don't tell" Anderson should try making a silent movie. And of course, nobody has any material worries. Watching "Hannah and Her Sisters" long ago, it struck me that nobody had any place they had to be, no bills to pay, every Manhattan apt. was a palace. This strikes that same false note without any real characters or desires, which HaHS did. I'm glad it was a short, and I'll skip Part II.

MisterWhiplash Hotel Chevalier is the kind of thing Wes Anderson could've written in his sleep- or for that matter written in his sleep while on the plane from the US to France to shoot in two days and edit on his computer. But in such a quick burst of minor creativity he has created a stark, amusing and tragic little situation that makes clearer (if not totally clear) the disconnect between Jack (Schwartzmann's character from Darjeeling Limited) and the 'ex-girlfriend' (Portman, with her V for Vendetta cut coming back in and her attitude like that of a pure b***ch). At first Jack has no idea she's coming, by the long pauses they have (albeit he asks why she pauses so long, when he paused longer), and orders a grilled cheese sandwich. She arrives. She brushes her teeth. She decides against going into a bath Jack's specially prepared- as in Darjeeling we see the obsessive-control side to the Whitman family via the IPOD machine playing the song- and instead they go into a very 'French' kind of torturous love scene. It's erotic in what isn't shown; one might expect this to finally be *the* one, for skin-flick fans anyway, where Portman goes nude. She does, by the way, but tastefully in the Anderson sense- we're not getting the wacky nudity of the girl from Life Aquatic who never has a shirt on, or the lesbian girlfriend of Paltrow in that one shot in Tenenbaums. By the end, it doesn't make any grand statement about love or love in a hotel room or Paris, but in a self-contained way Anderson's created a mini-masterwork of emotional frustration in the midst of crazy lust. And, by a stroke of something of a quasi-in-joke, like one of the 'brilliant' short stories that the character Jack writes that are 'fictional' though never really at the same time.

movieman0791 Not a real big Anderson fan, but you can count me in on any piece of film that shows off any part of Natalie Portman's impressive ASSETS! Ever since she first enthralled me in her debut performance in Luc Besson's classic The Professional, I have been entranced by this siren of modern cinema. She is a great actress and one of the most beautiful women on the planet, as far as I am concerned. O.K., so this really isn't a review of this short film but more of an homage to a really spectacular female. Check this short out if you want to see Natalie's soft and tender side, get it? You will be somewhat teased, no actual money shot, but for what Anderson gets out of her to put on the screen must have taken considerable trust from Natalie on her part. The short is alright maybe a 6 or 7, but overall gets a 9 from me for Natalie's gorgeous bottom! Check it out guys (and girls, you know who you are) and enjoy!

Veritas_Lux_Mea This is a wonderful short film to introduce us to one of the main characters in Wes Anderson's film The Darjeeling Limited. A broken romance sends Jack (Jason Schwartzman) off to a Paris hotel to lick his wounds it seems. In this short the ex-girlfriend has arrived and Jack must come face to face with her and his pain. Pay very close attention as you watch this as I think it will pay off. Personally I found this to be a nice little gift from Anderson as we wait for the release of The Darjeeling Limited. I don't really understand the question about it appearing in theatres as part of the main film but I think it does a nice job revealing the characters a bit. I enjoyed it and it certainly is very much like Anderson's previous work. I know that many fans of Wes Anderson tend to be very thrown by each new film he creates and they tend to have a favorite that they won't stray from. I have never really understood this because I think his body of work is really quite consistent and he seems to improve with each film. The key to all of his films, at least to me, is that you feel that you have stepped in to each one and lived with the characters because he takes such care revealing their quirks to you. I think what causes the discord among his fans is that they feel so close to certain characters they have trouble letting go of them. So, we end up with passionate arguments about why Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, or The Royal Tenenbaums were "better" than The Life Aquatic.