Andyland, USA

I don’t know if this will lose me any “cred,” not that I should worry about that with all the imposter syndrome I have anyway, but I have a little theory about three-hour-long movies I’d like to share with you. Simply put, if your movie is going to be in the ballpark of three hours or more, you’d best have a good reason for it, and it’d best not feel like a three-hour movie. “Anatomy of a Murder” is the one I always point to as my example, it feels like it’s an hour and a half, not nearly three.   It’s been a good stretch of years since I last saw director John Sturges’s wonderful 1963 film “The Great Escape.” When the wonderful new blu-ray edition by The Criterion Collection showed up at my doorstep, I was quite surprised looking over the back of the case to see the film was almost exactly three hours long. My memory of watching the movie was not of a three-hour movie, maybe one that was two at the most. As I watched “The Great Escape” yesterday afternoon, I was reminded

People tend to be split on the work of filmmaker Wes Anderson, folks either don’t care for his unique, inventive worlds, or they’re all in on them. I, am the latter, and have been ever since “Rushmore” came out in 2002, though I don’t think I fully fell in love with his work until “The Life Aquatic” in 2004. The Criterion Collection has recently issued a wonderful new blu-ray of Anderson’s 2014 film “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which I hadn’t seen since it first hit theaters.   “Grand Budapest” features many from familiar faces, several from the “Wes Anderson repertory” in its large cast. Throughout the course of the film’s 100 minutes running time you’ll see: Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, William DeFoe, Jeff Goldblum, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Edward Norton, and Jason Schwartzman. Set In Europe, largely during the 1930s, “Grand Budapest” tells the story of a charming concierge at an opulent hotel who is soon framed for the murder of