Wes Anderson is one of those filmmakers whose work is difficult to adequately describe. Now, the team behind Honest Trailers tries, by taking on his entire body of work in a single epic video. While Anderson's films are unlike anything else being made today, it has to be said that taken together, they have a great deal in common. Check out the Honest Trailer for every single Wes Anderson movie, as performed by a fairly mediocre Alec Baldwin impression.
The Honest Trailer starts out properly be referring to Wes Anderson's productions as "films" rather than "movies" because, to whatever degree there is a difference between those two terms, we can probably all agree that Anderson's movies are one of the reasons the terms are not synonymous. Anderson is clearly trying to make "art" rather than simply tell an entertaining story. Thus the need for a replacement to the traditional Honest Trailer "Epic Voice." Wes Anderson movies aren't exactly epic. They need a voice-over that sounds like it belongs on NPR.
From there, we move on to the protagonists of Wes Anderson movies, men with personal emotional hurdles to overcome. As it turns out, that pretty much sums up all of them, except perhaps the fox, though it is a male fox.
Ultimately, the trailer seems to come down on to two important points regarding the work of Wes Anderson. His movies are awfully similar when it comes to characters and plotting, and that really doesn't matter because there's something about them that still makes them charming and compelling.
Finally, the trailer ends with the traditional "starring" list, but quite possibly the longest one on record, pointing out every repeated character and visual cue that seems to come up in every Wes Anderson movie. Does it count as a trope when it's just the one guy who does it over and over again?
Wes Anderson may repeat himself a lot but there's little argument that in the big picture of moviemaking right now the guy is unique. There's nobody else making movies like him and his movies are a nice occasional palate cleanser among the box office blockbusters that seem to only become more prevalent.
As the trailer mentions, Wes Anderson's new movie is Isle of Dogs an animated feature in the vein of The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which follows a pack of dogs and a Japanese boy on an island of trash where all dogs have been exiled. From all indications the new film is excellent and, dare we say, something of a departure from all the items that get poked fun at here.
After watching a summary of all previous Wes Anderson movies, you'll be able to watch the new one this weekend.
