Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

Thelma Adams, Oscars, Playdate, Marie Claire, Movie Reviews, Interviews, New Releases, New York Film Critics, Celebrities, Personal Essays, Parenting, Commentary, Women, Women\'s Issues, Motherhood

MENUMENU
  • HOME
  • BOOKS
    • The Last Woman Standing
    • Playdate
    • Bittersweet Brooklyn
  • WRITINGS
  • MEDIA
  • EVENTS
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT

Bill Murray and The Secrets of Making ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’

June 18, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Bill Murray having the best time at Berlin flanked by co-stars Tilda Swinton and Soairse Ronan (courtesy of The Guardian)

Bill Murray having the best time at Berlin flanked by co-stars Tilda Swinton and Soairse Ronan (courtesy of The Guardian)


Last February I had the total treat of attending the Berlinale. It has become my favorite festival: great movies, a city that hasn’t been plastic-wrapped and priced-out like New York, and a cross-section of people from around the world truly interested in film punctuated by rounds of drink and great food.

Berlin still has that partially ruined, my regiment leaves at dawn feel.

While Fox held their The Grand Budapest Hotel (available on DVD as of yesterday) at the legendary Hotel Adlon (Yes, where the protagonist of the Philip Kerr novels, Bernie Gunther, worked as a house detective), Bill Murray showed up for the first roundtable of the morning — and then vanished with an I’ll be right back. He lied. Fortunately, I was there for that half hour when Murray regaled American press with stories and was in a buoyant mood following the rapturous reception the opening night film received. This interview first appeared on Yahoo Movies:

This year, Bill Murray is a happy man. Last year: not so much.

The 63-year-old comedy icon is a supporting-but-memorable character in Wes Anderson’s wickedly delicious movie about a randy, refined concierge named Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes) at a grand European hotel.

As M. Ivan in “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Murray plays concierge colleague to Feinnes’s Gustave — who becomes the center of intrigue following the suspicious death of one of his ancient, wealthy mistresses (Tilda Swinton) in a way that would have tickled Agatha Christie. At one point, Gustave calls on M. Ivan for support in his flight from villains zealously played by Willem Dafoe and Adrien Brody.

Watch Bill Murray in ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ Clip:

In case this fun fact has eluded you, Murray has appeared in every single Anderson full-length feature since 1998’s “Rushmore.” That’s seven films, counting “Grand Budapest.” The actor, also known for Wes’s “Rushmore,” as well as “Groundhog Day” and “Ghostbusters,” is clearly in his comfort zone amid the Anderson band of regular irregulars (which includes Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody).

We caught up with Murray as he arrived at Berlin’s legendary Hotel Adlon last month to discuss “Grand Budapest.” He exuded the bouncy energy of a game show host. With a dark knit cap perched on his long, wild wisps of gray, he looked very elfin for a guy who is 6-foot-2.

Mr. Congeniality hasn’t always been Murray’s M.O. As recently as 2012, when making the rounds for “Hyde Park on Hudson,” his prickly alter ego surfaced as critics fell on his casting against type as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The role that had begun the season with Oscar hopes, ended taking away a Golden Globe nomination.

But last month, when discussing “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which was received quite warmly at the Berlin Film Festival with an opening night slot and a Silver Bear Award for Anderson, Murray was a total pussycat… until he pulled a Cheshire Cat and disappeared completely.

Murray’s remarks about his own participation in Anderson’s genius movie were modest. “I didn’t have much to do with it. I just showed up and did what I was told. But it’s good, isn’t it?”

[Related: Critic’s Pick: ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’]

When we responded that we thought it was Anderson’s best, Murray warmed to the topic: “There’s no doubt about it: It’s pretty impressive. And that’s quite a vision to be able to see all that and achieve it.”

Since Murray’s role is relatively contained, we wondered what it was like in all those hours between takes, surrounded by Anderson, Fiennes, Swinton, Dafoe, Brody, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Schwartzman, Bob Balaban, and Saoirse Ronan, to name a few members of the sprawling ensemble cast. The short answer: It was great, great fun.

The actor leaned back in his chair and prepared to lay down a story: “Willem [Dafoe] said it was like the actor’s retirement home. We sort of had this small hotel in Gorlitz. It was all us. We were the only people in it.”

And for those who failed geography, we prodded: Where exactly is Gorlitz? “It’s on the border of Poland and Germany,” Murray explained. “It’s a town that’s been Polish, German, Polish, German, Prussian, German, Polish… over the last couple hundred years. We walked over to Poland. And it was closed.”

From there, Murray rhapsodized about his time in Gorlitz, which sounded just a little bit like summer camp — an experience at the center of Anderson’s last film, “Moonrise Kingdom.” The actor continued, “So we all were in this hotel. We had the, we owned the hotel. We were in the old part of Gorlitz which was really beautiful. They shoot a lot of movies there because it’s intact. It’s a part of Germany that wasn’t affected by the war. There are these beautiful, impressive clock towers that are 500 and 600 years old.”

[Related: Bill Murray on Literally Chilling Out on the Set]

And that setting, far away from the cell-phone culture and disposable gratifications of the typical Hollywood set, made for some very good times for the cast and crew. “We had this old, small hotel there. You’d pad down in the morning, you’d have breakfast. It was our restaurant. It was our hotel. And then you’d sort of walk across – ‘Hi, good morning!’ ‘Good morning.’”

Murray continued his tale, “On the other side of the lobby was the makeup and hair place. So, you’d say, ‘Excuse me, hold on a second, I’m gonna go get another croissant,’ you know, and you’d march back over there, you know, all the time like in your slippers and a robe, like a bunch of old men dying in a hotel.”

Given the remote nature of Gorlitz, the communal fun spilled onto the quaint streets of Germany’s easternmost town in the state of Saxony. “We were on a little town square with a church at the end of it and there was a bar across the way. It was about 40 steps, but it was snow, all snow the whole time we were there. And if you were awake, you know, you’re in the wrong time zone, you’re jet-lagged, you just kind of wake up and go, ‘Eh,’ and you’d walk over there. There’d be someone from the movie over there drinking. (At any hour of the day there’d be someone drinking.) Like, ‘Oh, hi.’ You could just roll in there and talk and listen to music and there was always something to do.”

[Related: 14 Oscar Contenders to Watch for in 2014]

And there were also restaurants. “There were only a handful of places that we went to but they were all really interesting. The restaurant had great food and it had like nine separate rooms in it that you could just go hide in. It was like a hide-and-go-seek town, the whole thing. It was nice.”

While Murray’s part was short — Ralph Fiennes has the largest chunk of the movie, along with newcomer Tony Revolori, who plays Lobby Boy and acolyte to Gustave’s concierge — he stuck around for the camaraderie. “I was only there a couple weeks,” he confessed, “but we laughed about it yesterday like, why do people work with Wes and I said, ‘Well, it’s long hours and little pay.’ And so, and that’s sort of true. But you get this great experience of going to these places.”

Gorlitz is not the farthest Murray has traveled with Anderson. For their film “The Darjeeling Limited,” Murray went all the way to India. Of that trip, he said, “I was supposed to have like three days of work which I got done in a day and a half and then I was supposed to work one other day — and I did — and it was 45 minutes. But I got to go to India twice and spend like a month in India just hanging around for these couple of days of work. So you get a great experience. You get to see and do things.”

And that journey, between moviemaking and real life, between Murray and Anderson, continued through the morning and into the night. After Murray spent a relaxed and generous 30 minutes delighting American journalists in Berlin, he played hide-and-seek with the European press waiting nearby.

Rumor has it that Murray told a publicist he was just stepping out for a minute — and then disappeared. That night, Murray and Anderson allegedly hopped the first-class, five-hour train to Prague to check out that elegant, old-world city.

Who knows: Anything can happen when you’re deep in Anderson-ville. Come for the movie. Stay for the adventure.

“The Grand Budapest Hotel” is now available on DVD.

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV Tagged With: Berlin Film Festival, Bernie Gunther, Bill Murray, Hotel Adlon, Philip Kerr, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson

Bill Murray on Literally Chilling Out Shooting ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel.”

March 9, 2014 By Thelma 1 Comment

Murray the 6 foot two inch elf reveling at the Berlinale (Fox Searchlight)

Murray the 6 foot two inch elf reveling at the Berlinale (Fox Searchlight)


Always improvising — not! It may seem like the actors on the set of Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” were always just bubbling and burbling with their own antics. But Bill Murray, who has appeared in every Anderson film since “Rushmore,” set the record straight while talking to a small core of American press in Berlin:

“Well, it’s pretty much done as written. Wes is very specific about it. But, once again, it’s that third-dimension thing, where when you put it on its feet. There’s something required that’s not there. You go, “Uh oh, I got to get from there to here.’…

So, did Bill add something to the mix on the fly? Murray, secure in his place in the Anderson firmament, took the modest road. “Maybe. I kind of, the, the speeches are tongue twisters. Try to speak some of those lines sometime. Especially in the cold, because we were shooting outdoors, like in the cabs and all those sort of escape scenes where you’re in the car talking. Those were shot outdoors. [CHUCKLES] At night.”

Cold much in Gorlitz, Germany in the dead of winter? Yes. “It was freezing cold. Now you think, ‘Okay, how cold can it be?’ Well, it’s zero. Let’s just say it’s zero. Okay? So it’s zero, but it’s not zero really, it was about minus ten or fifteen. So let’s say it’s minus fifteen. What they call minus fifteen over here, which is about ten degrees here. And you’re doing this scene for hours because the camera’s not right, the light’s not right, you know?

“So it’s okay in the first hour or so, you’re speaking kind of normally and then [SLURS WORDS INTENTIONALLY]. It’s starting to get a little heavy like that. And then, third hour, you’re just trying to get the words out. And all the time you’re trying not to breathe too much because you don’t want to blow smoke everywhere ’cause your air, your breath is making all this smoke. So you’re trying to really kind of control your [MUMBLES INTENTIONALLY] so you’re sounding a little bit like this. [MUMBLES] And that’s what that was like.”

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV Tagged With: Berlinale, Bill Murray, on-set, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson

Critic’s Pick: ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

February 17, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Grand Budapest HotelBill Murray whisked onto the stage wearing a small black hat and funeral formal wear to introduce Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” at the opening night of the Berlin International Film Festival. Murray proclaimed that this was Anderson’s best movie. “It will blow the hair right off your head,” he told the overflow crowd at the Friedrichstadt-Palast with the kind of hyperbole audiences get accustomed to at premieres.

Right, Bill. We’ll be the judge of that!

But here’s the surprise: Murray was absolutely right!

The “Moonrise Kingdom” director has conquered scale and story, and found a perfect balance between humor and deep emotion. His antic period piece about a “liberally perfumed” concierge of a once-grand Eastern European resort, Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), and his lobby boy protégé, Zero Moustafa (newcomer Tony Revolori), is charming, wondrous, nostalgic and dazzlingly original.

[Related: ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ Clip: The Concierge Did it?]

At the center of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is a radiant character study, illuminated by a brilliant yet soulful performance from Fiennes. In his best comic turn to date, Fiennes inhabits a man dedicated to his profession and a fading social order beautifully described in voiceover: “His world had vanished long before he entered it.”

Fiennes gives color and depth to his preening gallant with a penchant for elderly women. Sure, he is blond, vain, and needy, but he also has an abundance of old-world charm. And he demonstrates a genuine affection as he services the elderly widows that regularly visit his hotel. So, if they leave him lavish gifts, does that really diminish their passion?

The plot thickens, as it must, when one of these tottering grande dames (played by Tilda Swinton in aging make-up that would have made Leonardo DiCaprio’s J. Edgar Hoover swoon) dies under dodgy circumstances. Her will names Gustave as a beneficiary, setting into motion her avaricious son (Adrien Brody) and his vicious henchman (Willem Dafoe). The pair pursues Gustave to The Grand to squash him like an unwanted codicil.

All of this is fun and fluid, fueled by marvelous set pieces: a slalom chase down a snowy mountain with sled and skis, a Rube Goldberg of a jail break, a reading of the will straight out of a cockeyed live version of “Clue.” The supporting characters curtsy in and out: Swinton and Murray, F. Murray Abraham and Edward Norton and Bob Balaban and Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan as the Lobby Boy’s beloved baker.

[Related: ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ Clip: The Police are Here]

Anderson has mastered a hipster Barbie Dream-house style of set and costume design in movies like 2012’s “Moonrise Kingdom.” Bolstered by a dry wit, with an irony allergy and an ensemble cast of regulars, his movies can come perilously close to being “twee.” The danger is that they glitter like groovy snow globes, but never achieve the kind of emotional resonance toward which Anderson is reaching.

That’s absolutely not the case here. The whole is larger than the set pieces, although those work, too. And Anderson has scaled new heights at the corner of storytelling and emotion. The love he clearly feels for his characters — flawed though they are, petty, vindictive, with an array of sexual peccadilloes and peculiar hairstyles — flows from the screen and seduces the audience.

And, while the elements reflect the merits of “Moonrise Kingdom,” or my favorite, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Anderson paces it perfectly. He gets the balance right between the big and small characters, reveling in the set decoration and costumes but not tripping over the furniture or becoming tangled in the wigs.

The danger here — like Murray’s superlative pronouncement at the premiere’s start that this is Anderson’s best — is to raise expectations too high. This is delicate fluffy stuff, a glorious pastel macaroon of a movie. And it should be savored, not over-thought or overcooked.

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Berlinale, Bill Murray, comedy, Fox Searchlight, Movies, Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson

Movie Review: ‘Moonrise Kingdom’

May 25, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

 

Moonrise, Moonset: a Wes Anderson fantasy (photo by Focus Features)

I try to love Wes Anderson. Really. I do. Give me “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” any day, or “Rushmore;” even “The Royal Tenenbaums.” But his latest twee tableau shortchanges story and character development (oy vey – is the point arrested development again?). The retro comedy waves a banner of cleverness, where insight would be more welcome. The whole enterprise reminds me of the shrewd little rodent boxes made by Steve Carell’s character in “Dinner for Schmucks.”  Admittedly, the story is slight: twelve-year-old outcasts Sam and Suzy run away from home and camp, respectively, on one of those adventures straight out of the children’s novels Suzy pointedly schleps along. Their disappearance has a Rube Goldberg effect, as the eccentric inhabitants of their small New England island freak out searching for the adolescents in what promises to be “Lord of the Flies” fashion, and becomes an episode of vintage tween Nick. The whole enterprise is elevated by the playful production design and art direction, although it very much reminded me of the Shine Gallery at LA’s Farmers Market. That’s the memorabilia store that has all those artifacts from my childhood when the market was rundown and there was no Starbucks or Pinkberry. “Moonrise Kingdom” suffers from suffocating nostalgia for a time of innocence that never was, bolstered by an array of A-list stars like Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and the ever compelling, typically underused Frances McDormand. Bill Murray, who not-so-bravely bares his bear-belly, plays Suzy’s father, and has become tedious playing characters weighed down by their own self-indulgent, world-weary angst. Is this sad-sack suicidal father of the runaway an example of the conformist authority figures that the pint-sized lovers Suzy and Sam are escaping – or what they’re unwittingly running toward as they pair off so early in their young lives?

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Angst, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Dinner for Schmucks, Frances McDormand, Moonrise Kingdom, Nostalgia, Steve Carell, Wes Anderson

Thelma Adams on Reel Women: What Does Cannes Have Against Women?

May 18, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Women directors, Woodstock Film Festival,Nancy Savoca,Mira Sorvino,Susan Seidelman, Debra Granik

Straight shooter Savoca

No one ever claimed that women had bridged the director’s-chair gender gap, but it’s a complete kick in the can that this year’s Cannes Film Festival has not a single female-directed film among the 23 in competition.

I love contenders like David Cronenberg, whose Cosmopolis — starring Robert Pattinson — has been welcomed into the competition, and who headed the Cannes jury in 1999. I was a champion of his cerebral period drama A Dangerous Method, which had a terrific star turn by Keira Knightley. But, really, not a single film by a woman? I’m just gobsmacked.

It is, however, a good year to be a North American male: In addition to Cronenberg, Lee Daniels (The Paperboy), Jeff Nichols (Mud), and Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom) will premiere at what is considered the most prestigious film festival on the planet. The other 51 percent be damned.

There won’t be any shortage of sexy female actresses in evening gowns to attract paparazzi — so why does the female-director shortage matter? To paraphrase: It’s the sexism, stupid. Despite some recent indications to the contrary, women have yet to gain substantial ground in cinema’s most powerful positions. And beyond its inherent prestige, Cannes is significant because it’s at the forefront of the awards season. Last year, for example, The Artist debuted at Cannes, where Jean Dujardin won best actor honors, and went on to sweep the Oscars.

Half-full thinkers can still hope that there will be a bounty of female-helmed movies at the early fall Toronto-Telluride-Venice nexus. Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow has her as-year-unfinished Osama bin Laden film, Zero Dark Thirty (horrible title alert!), slated for the holiday season.

And, in a pleasant surprise, the Tribeca Film Festival, which is currently in full swing, overflows with female-directed films of all stripes. Among the most prominent are Sarah Polley’s quirky dramedy Take This Waltz, featuring Michelle Williams as a straying Toronto wife; Julie Delpy’s shrewd kooky relationship comedy 2 Days in New York, which pairs the actress with Chris Rock; and Lynn Shelton’s sexy sibling rivalry drama with Emily Blunt, Your Sister’s Sister. While not all movies are Oscar-bait, Tribeca presents a bounty of promising women filmmakers, including Tanya Wexler (Hysteria), Malgorzata Szumowska (Elles), Julia Dyer (The Playroom), Sharon Bar-Ziv (Room 514), Lucy Malloy (Una Noche), Kat Cairo (While We Were Here), and Beth Murphy (The List).

It’s unconscionable that the Cannes selection committee, which received in the neighborhood of 1,800 movie submissions, considers this artistic bias a non-issue. It’s up to bold filmmakers who are part of the boys’ club — Cronenberg, Daniels, and Anderson among them — to squawk about the inequity. We love them; now it’s time for them to return the love.

This column first appeared on AMC Filmcritic.com, and was edited by Nina Hammerling Smith

Filed Under: Essay, Movies & TV Tagged With: AMC filmcritic.com, Cannes Film Festival, David Cronenberg, Emily Blunt, Festivals, Lee Daniels, Thelma Adams on Reel Women, Tribeca International Film Festival, Wes Anderson, Women Directors

Copyright © 2023 · Dynamik-Gen On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in