after finally finding xz’s new blog (thus experiencing the same phenomenon that bpress did of only relying on rss readers and thus not knowing where the new one was), i saw that he reported on the movie that we saw the other day, wes anderson’s new film, the life aquatic with steve zissou. his assessment was that it was essentially “craptastic”, and that wes should be put out to pasture (maybe i’m paraphrasing a little).
i, however, ultimately liked it. in fact, i went so far to say that i liked it best out of all wes anderson’s films. and given that this is “fuck shit up in 2005”, i’m obliged to say so. but i guess the corollary to that is that i need to explain it to, not just make random reckless proclamations. (that, however, may be the theme for 2006: “talk random smack in 2006!”)
so honestly, i’ve never been that big a wes anderson fan. ok, i guess that blows my whole argument right there, as i don’t know what i’m talking about, right? i mean, if someone said to me, “i’m not a kurosawa fan, but i didn’t like the seven samurai,” i’d write them off right then and there. however, it’s not just that i haven’t been a fan, but it’s that i feel like i should be a fan, but somehow he’s never quite clicked for me. i get the sense that i’m the perfect demographic: strange quirky humor, odd performances, sometimes senseless plot twists, yet fairly deadpan delivery all should result in a movie that i’d just out and out love. and yet i don’t. every time it just leaves me feeling like that it didn’t quite hit the mark. like it should have been hilarious and not just kind of humorous and odd. or that i should have thought that it was brilliant, but instead i found it a little clever and no more. rushmore, tenenbaums, bottle rocket, all pretty much left me with the same feeling. in fact the only thing that i really loved were those shorts he did for the mtv movie awards with the max fischer players.
if that’s the case, why did i like life aquatic? honestly, i don’t know. i was watching the movie, and having that same feeling during it as i did during the other ones, thinking that it was humorous but not hilarious, some really nice little bits in there, but not really coming together as a whole. and then at the end, it did come together as a whole. i don’t know, maybe where they all reach out and touch steve in the sub. maybe the fact that steve comes to accept who he is and can be himself again. or maybe it’s all those david bowie songs sung in portuguese.
it was a little like lynch’s wild at heart for me: i wasn’t really sure about it until the very last scene, and then it somehow won me over.
so there. i liked it. it’s no malkovich, but at least i enjoyed it. can’t we still be friends?
as for the rest of the year 2004 in film, was it as craptastic as xz says? well, i certainly liked eternal sunshine. and the incredibles was great. and so was super size me. does hero count if it finally came out here in 2004? if so it might be the best film of the year. certainly better than flying daggers. oh, and if by that standard, then also last life in the universe was pretty wonderful. i guess then shaolin soccer counts too.
so that’s three movies, maybe six on technicalities. that’s not a bad year in my book, and i haven’t even got around to seeing almodovar’s bad education yet.
Posted at January 4, 2005 11:30 AMi did like the scene where he tells cate that the article is good. but the sub? i mean, bill was an ass. he was fun to watch, but who cared about him? nobody and that includes me. i’m not sure why they were reaching out to him then.
i think he was misunderstood. by me.
but we can still be friends, we’ll just have to talk about Sunshine and Incredibles.
and let’s not forget Once Upon a Time in Mexico!
Posted by: xz at January 4, 2005 11:49 AMi think OUATIM was last year. i believe this year’s horror was ghost in the shell 2: (interminable) innocence.
Posted by: e at January 4, 2005 12:17 PMi just love this (new?) word “craptastic”! i know it’s xz’s word and i should be putting this on his blog…but i’m here right now, so there.
if i ever get around to blogging again, i will be utilizing this fabulous word for sure….yay! CRAPTASTIC!
it’s pretty much summing up my year so far…guess we are both having a wonderful start to 2005…
Posted by: rlv at January 4, 2005 2:40 PMjumping into the fray, i add this: life aquatic was just as good at catwoman.
Posted by: mac at January 4, 2005 4:37 PMWOW. and i’m certain that you mean that it was not just as good as catwoman, but that it was *only* as good as catwoman. now i never subjected myself to catwoman, but i’m pretty sure that’s an incredibly low standard, despite the added allure of lots of T&A (although there was that script girl in aquatic life who was almost always topless).
Posted by: e at January 4, 2005 5:14 PMall of my comments about life aquatic have one ginormous caveat, because i saw it at doc films on campus and the projectionist screwed up reels 3 + 4 (inadvertently skipping 3 altogether and then stopping 4 partway and going back to three and then showing 4 as it should be showed (again)…that really threw me. somehow before that flub, i was laughing up my lunch. but after…well, it was stilted and confusing, because i was thinking *hey, do we even need the 3rd reel anyway? it was sorta all still making sense*. maybe i should just see it again before commenting, but what the hell. i’m among friends..
in a nutshell. bottle rocket was a dry run. rushmore had heart. tenenbaum’s had heart, smarts, soul and hilarity. life aquatic just feels like a warmed-over, super-annuated attempt to recreate the perfection of the tenenbaum’s. murray’s role a pale gene hackman - where hackman was ultimately lovable, murray remains a schmuck. angelica houston doing the same damned powerful/weak spurned/spurning wife thing plus other interchangeable roles and jokes. the warped sealife feels like a lil stretch before his soon-to-be-released animated feature.
i do agree with you about the bowie in portuguese. charming and hard to beat. oddly enough, the thing that made me sour on it altogether was the lois cover that was played during the funeral at sea, which so happens to be one of my favorite little heartbreaking songs ever. it made no sense in the movie at that point at all. and it wasn’t in portuguese. ruined the whole thing for me, but when i tell my friends here that, they just roll their eyes at me. sigh.
Posted by: roo at January 4, 2005 6:28 PMI saw this with Mojo and he’s a Wes Anderson fan…I was like “who” … oh yeah Rushmore, unmemorable for me.. Tannenbaums..it was fucked up I liked it. Aquatic: Bill Murray is kind of a jerk…good part for him. There were moments I really liked it and times when I wondered when it would end. No character really grabbed me, but the diarama-effect ship set was pretty cool. The Pee-Wee’s Playhouse fish were annoying made me laugh. Ultimately I don’t know what he was trying to do, ultimately I didn’t care.
Rating: Fairly amused.
HMCH, EMCH, Come to the Dirt Room Sessions on Friday!
Posted by: cheryl at January 5, 2005 1:28 AMComments are now closed for this entry. Thank you for playing.