You’ll have to wait until 2014 to see Grand Budapest Hotel, but in the meantime, Wes Anderson made this eight-minute short film for Prada, Castello Cavalcanti. It’s about a racecar driver named Jed Cavalcanti, played by Jason Schwartzman, who crashes his rig during the Molte Miglia rally, in September 1955.
No one likes a moderate, but I feel compelled to find a middle ground between the “Wes Anderson is a hipster fag!” and “Wes Anderson is an infallible super genius!” camps that internet commentary invariably seems to divide into. Castello Cavalcanti is a solid example of why people both love and love and hate Wes Anderson. The whole thing is beautiful to look at, and you know instantly who made it, but it’s also so cutesy and schticky that you kind of want to puke a madras scarf. I think I could’ve closed my eyes and imagined this whole thing just knowing that it was made by Wes Anderson.
TRACKING SHOT! UNIFORM! CHECKLIST! JARGON!
ETHNIC TYPE! SCHWARTZMAN! YELLOW STUFF! HAMMING!
TELEPHONE! MUSTACHE! FRENCH MUSIC! SWISH PAN!
LITTLE KIDS! CENTER FRAMED! RADIO! ITALIAN!
Was I close? This is almost pure self-parody at this point.
The worst part about this is that he missed a golden opportunity for terrible Italian accents.
“Eh, skifozo, wassa matta for you? You crash-a you car in-a my store! Who-a gonna pay for alla theess a-cabbage? Mama, she no canna make-a the pizza pie without-a no cabbage! Now-a she guana cry. What-a you mama ever a-do for to-a deserve a no good-a sanamabeesh a-like you! Vaffanculo!” (*bites hand, spits on the ground*)