Moonrise Kingdom

[malkovich]

I was worried, but then I saw that you really didn't seem to like Fantastic Mr. Fox so now I'm not so worried.

[modage]

Good luck with that.

From my blog:

There are Wes Anderson haters, Wes Anderson apologists and then there are those people who are correct in thinking that Anderson was at one time one of the most exciting and unique filmmakers working but these days he seems to be as much of a parody as he is an director. Sadly, his latest "Moonrise Kingdom," shows he has no interest in proving otherwise. (Please keep in mind this is coming from somebody who willing wrote up a 2200+ word essay on the trailer.) Set in 1965 - though one puzzles to imagine why, since it doesn't seem any more period specific than his other features - the story concerns two 12 year old's: Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) who run away to be together on a small island off the coast of New England. The film opens with the camera panning all throughout the Bishop household, laying out a geography that would basically prove to be useless later in the film. The opening of "Panic Room" does the same thing except it does it for the express purpose of establishing the spatial relation of the rooms which becomes important later in the story. This camerawork just wants to draw attention to itself.

After an introduction that establishes all of the major townspeople - Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton), Police Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) and Suzy's parents Laura (Frances McDormand) and Walt (Bill Murray) - we're finally introduced to our young lovers. After a brief flashback (the "What kind of bird are you?" shown in the trailers) the two set off on their adventure. There are fleeting moments that capture the awkwardness of adolescence and infatuation of young love but for the most part those emotions are buried. Anderson has lost his grip on character, story and sadly even humor. The adults are all posturing and the kids do their best line readings delivering dialogue that is neither realistic for that age nor as clever as it had ought to be to justify the stylization. To steal a page from the Red Letter Media critique of the "Star Wars" prequels, it would be difficult to describe the personality of one of the characters in "Moonrise Kingdom" without describing what they look like or what their profession is. They're all window dressing.

We're told that Willis' sheriff is dumb but we're never shown anything in his character that leads us to this conclusion other than the dialogue. And because the characterizations are so thin, there's no real catharsis here or scene that packs the emotional punch of Ritchie's attempted suicide in 'Tenenbaums' or Max's rejection in 'Rushmore.' Despite all the stylistic trappings of the earlier films, there was still real emotion there and moments that cut through the arch humor. Anderson proves to be his own worst enemy here, undercutting the intended emotions by not allowing anything to play realistically. And he also indulges some of his worst tendencies: Bob Balaban's onscreen narrator (no doubt cribbed from some French New Wave film or old TV commercial) is probably the most egregious. Despite the 60s setting Anderson has opted to stay mostly away from the pop music from the era that he's used in all his other films, opting instead for some classical music and score by Alexandre Desplat that has traces of (a less sinister) "Suspiria."

Future generations look back at the downward arc of Anderson's film career and ask, 'What happened?' The answer is a simple one: he's surrounded himself with Yes People, who confirm that everything he's doing is great and that has allowed him to block out any criticism, even when it may be true or for his own benefit. This unchecked ego led to many of the great filmmakers of the '70s to start making lesser films as because they started believing their own hype and it has ossified Anderson as a storyteller. Unfortunately as long as his fans continue to support him, it doesn't look like any kind of wake up call is on the horizon for him. His idea of growing is simply changing the setting of his films (New York, Italy, India, the 60's). And while you have to admire him for completely ignoring his detractors, one would have hoped that somewhere along the way he would have found his own way to evolve as so many others of his generation did. If it sounds like I'm being harsh, maybe I am. The movie is pleasant, certainly not a chore to get through, but for someone who has invested so much faith in a filmmaker who showed such promise, it's an incredibly frustrating thing to watch idly.

[Sleepless]

A more positive review of Moonrise Kingdom.

[Cloudy]

No disrespect to Modage, but I thought Moonrise was one of the most refreshing films I've seen in the cinema for a really really long time. It's just such a treat to watch. It almost feels like this years Midnight In Paris for me. Such a special film: technically, emotionally, innocently, the writing, the cast, the set design, music...a true treat. Would totally recommend it to the fans of Wes' earlier work.

[RegularKarate]

this years Midnight In Paris

NOT A GOOD SIGN!

[Ravi]

Unfortunately I agreed with Modage's take on the film. Most of the time I felt I was watching actors read lines rather than getting sucked into the characters. The characters always felt like constructs. We're told that Sam and Suzy are misfits for the sake of the story, but it doesn't ever feel organically fleshed out.  Everything is so unnecessarily stylized without any point to it that it often plays like a parody of a Wes Anderson film. OF COURSE Suzy listens to Francoise Hardy on a portable record player. And the trademark symmetrical compositions and orderliness feel utterly forced.

This film had a lot of potential. Wes Anderson directing a film with adolescents going on an adventure sounds amazing on paper. This could have been a marvelous, dreamlike film with perhaps a little wistfulness about those formative early teen years. But it is all over the place, with a lot of unfinished beginnings of potentially interesting ideas, and this time Anderson's filmmaking style feels like it is in the way of the characters and story rather than in service of them.

[MacGuffin]

'Moonrise Kingdom': Wes Anderson's animated take on the film's imaginary books — EXCLUSIVE VIDEO
Source: EW

In Wes Anderson's indie mega-hit Moonrise Kingdom, 12-year-old Suzy (Kara Hayward) packs an unusual set of items for her runaway adventure with her pen-pal boyfriend, Sam (Jared Gilman): A half-dozen (fictitious) storybooks she stole from the library, three of which she reads aloud over the course of the film. Anderson commissioned six artists to create the books' evocative jacket covers, but initially the director wanted to take the artistry even further. "At one point in the process, when she's reading these passages from these books, I'd thought about going into animation," he says.

Anyone who's seen the film knows Anderson ultimately chose to simply hold on the faces of his cast as they listen to Suzy read, but with his experience making the stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox still fresh in his mind, Anderson never quite let go of the idea.

So in April, the idiosyncratic filmmaker decided to animate all six books anyway, as a supplementary treat to the film itself. "I wrote passages for the other books that didn't have any text [read aloud in the film], and we animated that too," he says. "So we now have this piece where our narrator, Bob Balaban's character, takes us through these little sections of each of these books."
You can watch the result exclusively below. (They contain no Moonrise Kingdom spoilers, so feel free to check it out even if you haven't yet seen the film.)

To pull off the animated shorts in just six scant weeks, Moonrise Kingdom and Fantastic Mr. Fox producer Jeremy Dawson worked to pair each of the cover jacket artists with professional animators. "We got the artist to do key drawings, and then someone else had to take those key drawings and animate them," he says. "One of these guys I believe was in Sweden, one in Paris, and one in L.A. They were all over the world and we did it all by Internet. For instance, the one with the hydrogoblin, The Girl From Jupiter – that artist does his work in oil painting, so someone had to kind of emulate that oil painting look in the animation."

After the cover jacket artists turned in their key illustrations, the animators, says Dawson, finished their work in only two weeks. "I think we all just pitched in and we pulled a lot of favors because it was not like we spent a ton of money doing it," he says. "People got excited about it because it was a creative thing rather than if they were making a Snickers ad or something."

The animated shorts and the stories they illustrate are strikingly evocative of an earlier era of children's and young adult literature. "I think it's kind of nice that rather than just doing one whole story, [we're] doing these little snippets," says Dawson. "They're about imagination — it's just more like a spark of this story."

Would the stories hinted at from these books ever be completed? "I think that's up to Wes," says Dawson. "I have no doubt he's capable of doing it."
So, Mr. Anderson, would you? "Well, I'll tell you one thing," says the director. "I'm not gonna write them."


http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/06/07/moonrise-kingdom-animation/

[RegularKarate]

I'm surprised to find myself LOVING this movie. I think this is different than something like Life Aquatic because while the stylization of that movie got in the way of the emotion of the film, the stylization of Moonrise enhances it.

I would not call myself a "Wes Anderson Apologist". While I never wrote him off as a filmmaker, I had stopped getting as excited for each film he made. I do; however, think that a lot of the people who are criticizing this movie for being over stylized and a bunch of wooden performances by actors just delivering lines already decided they didn't want to like Wes Anderson's style any more.  They're not really looking at what this movie is, a beautiful, funny story told in an interesting way.

I hate style over substance, but that's not what's going on here.

[Ghostboy]

Yep, I loved this too. The last 20 minutes were breathtaking, visually and emotionally.

[Pubrick]

Aaaaannnd modage is fired.

[Ravi]

Aaaaannnd modage is fired.

Maybe I should be fired too, because I just could not connect with the movie either. I dunno. I feel like I'm the only one who didn't love it. I'll watch it again. I didn't like Life Aquatic when I first saw it but I warmed up to it on subsequent viewings. Maybe I was pissed off that I had to sit in the very front row and watch it at a weird angle at the screening I went to

[Pubrick]

Maybe I was pissed off that I had to sit in the very front row and watch it at a weird angle at the screening I went to

What the.. I can't believe you're unsure about this. Whether the film sucked or not, you will never know, the front row invalidates EVERYONE.  Especially a Wes Anderson film where the exact look of what's in the frame is basically the whole point of the movie.

They shouldn't even allow people to sit that close to the screen. If the image is distorted then there should not be a seat there. And as a cinephile (or really just someone with EYES) you shouldn't tolerate that kind of cinema experience.

I mean, who the hell rests their TV flat on a table, screen to the ceiling and proceeds to watch it from one of the edges?

So the trend remains, of the people who have actually seen the movie, modage is the only one to not like it. (And my joke was a reference to his playlist gig, every time he doesn't read the zeitgeist correctly he puts his position a taste-maker in jeopardy).

[modage]

So the trend remains, of the people who have actually seen the movie, modage is the only one to not like it.

Trendsetter.  8)

Playlist Points in tact.

[Sleepless]

*intact

OMG - Playlist Points... the typo must have been intentional...

[modage]

Shit! I mean... double-points!