The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

Ok, My Personal History Of Taste in Wes Anderson Films
(like you care, but here goes)  [Note: I haven't Seen Life Aquatic. Ie, I don't know what the fuck I'mtalking about]

* Caught Bottle Rocket on HBO when I was 14. My first thought was "This IS An Independent Film". Favorite line= "No, I just have short hair!"  I loved it, the end with Dignan walking away really hit me.  Didn't see it between the ages of 14 'til 19 and still cited it as my favorite film alongside Boogie Nights because it made me CARE.

* Saw Rushmore in the theatres when I was 16 hearing it was 'The most original comedy of the year' during a quest for originality.  I did NOT Get the Humor, or even the psychology of what the characters were going through! What was the point!?
A Year later, even after I knew it was by 'The Bottle Rocket Guys', and saw it with more people and they found all the humor in Jason Schwartzman that was way too dry for me to understand before.  Loved the Movie. Still Do, and still couldn't watch it everyday, but it's still great!

* Super-excited for the Follow-Up to Rushmore, I went to The Royal Tenenbaums with my family.  They called it 'quirky' as most would.  I actually thought it was great with alot of the cuts like 'This is my adopted Daughter, Margot Tenenbaum'.  My friend hammered it into my head that 'this was the best movie I've seen in years!' and watched it 192837897 times when we borrowed the DVD.  that kind of made it lose it's flavor. It's one of those Subtle hits you just want to enjoy for yourself, you know? Before anyone defines it for you.  In retrospect, I got sick of the movie because it was too Stiff.  Even the 'moving' parts.  I eventually understood where Wes Anderson was coming from with the film, and how he developed it more like a book for screen than a movie.  I'm over the stiffness. Although the movie had not enough Meat and too much Bread, yknow?

*SO! This 'Life Aquatic' movie looks absolutely great.  I rewatch parts in trailers because they work for me on the Super-fictional Wes Anderson level that only he can achieve, and I definitely can't wait to analyze things about it with my egghead friends.  I no longer expect 'Bottle Rocket 2'.  But this movie looks like a Masterpiece.
Better actually SEE it before I start praising it and calling it Hudson Hawk though. (damn, what a bashing THAT is!)

[ono]

I read all that and you didn't actually see the movie yet.  Now that was a letdown.  If you're going to post something that involving, why not actually have a reason for it?

[AntiDumbFrogQuestion]

I am absolutely the most bored person on this planet earth, and thank you for your support! Though I remind you, I put all those little bullets there so you could skip ahead to what you wanted to read about.

[russiasusha]

I will be seeing this film tomorrow.  I will give some kind of report tomorrow night.

[pete]

I will be seeing this film tomorrow.

how?

[russiasusha]

some cell phone company is showing it for free at the University of Colorado, which I am a student of.

[The Perineum Falcon]

some cell phone company is showing it for free at the University of Colorado, which I am a student of.

I hope they turn their phones off.

[russiasusha]

This movie is awsome.  If you like wes anderson movies, you will like this one.

[ono]

Best report ever.

[Slick Shoes]

Well, I just saw this thing for the second time last night. Wes Anderson movies tend to get better upon subsequent viewings. This one is no exception. However, I can now say with confidence that this is probably his most uneven film. Perhaps Owen contributed more to the scripts than was previously thought. Anyway, the person I saw it with is a pretty discriminating viewer. He thought it was good, but could have been great. Jessica Biel was sitting two rows ahead of me.

[Ultrahip]

Did you tell her that you liked her body and wanted to clean fish with it?

[mutinyco]

This movie is awsome.  If you like wes anderson movies, you will like this one.

Funny. I like Wes Anderson movies. But this is still an overindulgent mess without a script.

And...although I may be mistaken, I find it a bit odd that a film opening in just a couple of days doesn't have advance reviews (or raves) at either Rotten Tomatoes or MetaCritic...

[russiasusha]

After thinking about The Life Aquatic all day, it does have its problems (quite a bit in fact) which makes the movie just "good" (I take back my awsome).  It could have been great.

I still stand by my comment that if you like Wes' movies , you will like this movie.

[Pozer]

How bout hella good? Would you give it a hella good?

[modage]

SPOILER FREE

Few films in my life have I been looking more forward to than The Life Aquatic.  Perhaps Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love following my discovery of Boogie Nights in the theatres, the first Star Wars prequel following a lifetime of watching the originals, and The Royal Tenenbaums after the discovery of Rushmore on video.  As my obsession with movies has grown deeper over the past several years, so has that obsession with my favorite two directors working today: the Andersons.  TLA is a film I have built myself into an absolute fury over.  

My specific history with TLA goes back to 3 years ago when I met Jason Schwartzman only a month or so after the opening of Royal Tenenbaums in January of 2002.  I asked him the obvious question if he had seen it and he said he had, and he loved it.  I told him I also had seen it, and also loved it, and had even driven 9 hours from Virginia to New York (in some serious traffic) to see it opening week, only to arrive there, run 30 blocks with our bags to make the show time and have EVERY SHOWING ALL DAY/NIGHT be sold out.  But having worked in a movie theatre in high school and being the obsessive that I am, I was determined to find a way in and we did.  We bought tickets to something else, and decided to wait till the next showing an hour or so later so that we could the first ones in (as opposed to not having a seat at all in the current showtime).  It was a simple enough plan that I was pretty sure would work, or at least be worth the effort after all the trouble we went through to get there, except a friend who I was with, started freaking out a little that we would be caught and ejected.  Soon his delirium started to spread and infect my girlfriend and me.  So, there we sat, there trying to play it cool, our hearts in our stomachs waiting for an hour or so, as employees walked by and we tried to nod and play it cool assuming they the whole time they knew what we were up to!  They of course, didn't, and after all the waiting we went in and the film started and we had a great, if not somewhat delirious time.  We were, after all very VERY tired.  After hearing my story he said something to the effect of 'wow, I'll have to tell Wes that."  Shock and awe across my 20-year-old face.  He continued, "yeah I'm meeting with Wes tomorrow night to talk about his new movie."  I asked for any details, and all he would let slip is that it would be "crazy."  That was the first inkling of news about the Life Aquatic that had been heard anywhere that I was aware of.  And I thought that was newsworthy, so I even sent in my tidbit of news to Wes Anderson Blog, which was the only active fan site I could find at the time covering that sort of thing.  

i just met and talked to jason schwartzman while he was here in philadelphia with his band PHANTOM PLANET filming a music video and he said that he is having dinner with wes tomorrow nite and going to be talking about the wes' next movie which they will be doing TOGETHER! i asked him if there was ANYTHING he could tell me about it, but he just said it would be "crazy".

After that first tidbit I followed all the ensuing news about Schwartzman no longer being involved, other cast speculation/cancellation, potential titles and anything else that could fill the wait till it arrived.  Finally that day was soon to arrive as the past several months have been a flurry of the first pictures/trailers/ EVERYTHING.  (Nothing like waiting till the last minute!)  Although I have watched the trailer a dozen times, I've did not watch the clips posted online in the interest of trying to preserve as much of the movies surprise as possible.  So I planned, again, (since the last several Anderson pictures we have driven to NYC for, to catch in their limited release) to try to do the same thing for this one, and tie in a little Christmas shopping too as long as we were there. (Actually to all sane relatives, etc. it was the opposite, but for me it was really only the film I was excited for.)  So about a month ago, hearing the pretty certain news that it would open in NY/LA on December 10th and not until TWO WEEKS LATER everywhere else, (damn you extra long exclusive engagements!), we would definitely be planning a trip up there that weekend.  So we tried to book a hotel so we could go up Saturday and have two days to hang out and shop and come home on Sunday.  All hotels had either been booked, AND I MEAN EVERYTHING, or were UPWARDS of $300.  So we tried to gather up a few other participants to take the trip with us and help divide up the costs but nobody wanted in for that much dough.  So the trip was shortened to a daytrip on Saturday the 11th, that we expected to be taking alone.  It was almost that simple.  

Over the past month, just about every day I have been checking out the Yankee Racers message board, (although never posting, as I'm loyal to my xixax and only have time for one), and doing a Google search on "life aquatic advance screening", or "life aquatic free screening", etc.  At first my searches yielded little but extremely jealousy inducing news that NYU students as well as LA residents would be getting not only a screening a month in advance but a Q&A with Wes as well!  (Steam comes out of ears now).  However, with persistent looking I also stumbled upon my very own DC film society, which is basically what I always knew I wanted but thought you had to donate like thousands of dollars to join.  You don't, actually its more like 40$ for a whole year of free movie passes to every advance screening in the area.  Never had I been so happy as this discovery.  (Haha, a few weeks later I have now officially MISSED screenings for Closer, Oceans 12 and Spanglish and soon I will be missing A Very Long Engagement!  Damn you busy schedule!)  So anyways, I also found out about a few contests to win tickets to advance screenings of TLA in New York so I entered a few of them with mine and my girlfriends name figuring there was little chance I would win, or even be able to attend on whatever short notice on whatever day of the week.  

As it turned out, one of these contests, I won. Apparently a magazine called Giant, which I had never heard of, was handing out passes to see TLA on the Wednesday before its release in NYC.  This works out well because Wednesdays are the day my girlfriend has off from work, and my job is flexible enough that missing it wouldn't be a problem as long as I could make up the hours on other days.  So it was decided, we would now be going on Wednesday.  This meant that now, we would have to see the film at the 7:30 time, and not much earlier in the day as we had planned, which would mean we wouldn't be able to head home on our 4-5 hour trip until around 10pm.  It didn't seem like too big a deal.  

As you know, I put out the word here on xixax that I had won two sets of passes (one under my name and one under my girlfriends), and anyone who wanted to go could just let me know to meet me at the theatre.  This would be good for two reasons: firstly, a pass wouldn't be wasted, secondly: someone who REALLY wanted to see the film early would be able to, and thirdly: if that person was willing to get there a little before I did and hold a spot in line (if there was one), I wouldn't have to spend all day worrying that I needed to get there by 4pm or else I wouldn't get in!  This was what I was dreading, because you never know.  Perhaps this would be some sort of divine punishment for something I wasn't aware of.  God's way of getting back at me for spending so much time on this board instead of with my girlfriend! (for cinephile).  Luckily for me, meatwad responded that he would be willing to go, and get there early to hold a spot.  And all was right with the world.  

Every one of the movies to be released in the interim between an Anderson movie for me is just filler, just killing time, waiting for the movie that will surely be my new favorite film of that year to be released.  Just loving what I can until the real colossus arrives to put all other films to shame.  A year without an Anderson film is a dark one for me as 2000 and 2003 were.  Because no other director, no other film is able to 'hit the spot' in a way so perfectly as theirs do.  So far this has been without fail.  They are a sure thing.  They are to be counted on.  They are 'money in the bank.'  And so, begins my review...

This is not an easy film.  What is it about the 4th film that a director decides to break out of his comfort zone?  For PT, Punch-Drunk Love was a film that nobody could've expected.  It was SO different, and yet when you saw it, it made perfect sense.  "Ah, so THIS is what a PTA Adam Sandler romantic comedy looks like".  For Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill was the same thing.  SO different from anything he had done before, but completely his.  If those directors first three films you can see a natural progression and a shared likeness between the films, the forth ones go out of their way to say "lets do something different. No, lets do something REALLY different."  Some fans of those directors loved the results, and for some it became their favorite.  Some people thought they had gotten a little too indulgent, gotten further away from those trademarks they had fallen in love with from their earlier films and given them something so different, so unfamiliar, that they didn't want to accept it.  TLA is no different.  For anyone who read Owen Wilson's quote ""I saw the movie recently, and it's very odd; to me it seems like the oddest thing that Wes had directed. It links Tenenbaums with, like, Die Hard."" and just couldn't imagine what he was talking about, when you see this film it will all make sense.  The preview doesnt even begin to hint at how different this film is from his previous efforts.  

This is a difficult film.  It will not play well with general audiences AT ALL.  Whereas his previous films have been pretty accessible to Regular Joe who may stumble into the theatre and actually end up enjoying this 'quirky' little film, this film will probably make Joe get up midway through and demand his money back.  It is bizarre.  I found it, contrary to an earlier review here, to be his LEAST plot oriented film as the middle hour and a half just sort of floats by from scene to scene without much aim or any plot to speak of.  There is very little to grab onto in the way of story, and most of what there is has already been laid out in previews and synopsis.  Oceanographer Steve Zissou goes hunting for a mythical shark that ate his best friend and tries to connect to Ned Plimpton who is probably his son.  That's really the bones of this movie.  Other than that, it's just glimpses of character development and whatever oddness happens along the way.  .  I found myself barely able to stop smiling during the films beginning, to wondering when it would end.  Or how?  Maybe it had something to do with being exhausted, or maybe because during the last hour I REALLY had to pee.  The opening is familiar and comforting but very quickly the film becomes a very different beast.  Brace yourselves, you will be SHOCKED.

Whoever said that this is really Wes Anderson's movie about making movies was right on the money.  It was so apparent during the beginning of the film with the autograph hounds, disappointing premiere and little touches of things that seemed to be so thinly veiled, it would be hard for anyone to actually believe this was a movie about oceanography.  In a way though, much more than Wes doing Die Hard, this film is Wes doing Fellini.  It's his 8 ½, but it's completely HIS 8 ½.  Complete with all his Anderson flourishes as well as reaching far out into unfamiliar territory (like Die Hard.)  For me it really did have the feel of an arty 60's Italian film, of course shot through the Anderson lens.  This will make some of you rapturous with joy.  It's a bold step, and a huge risk and if you are open to it, you will love this film for its direction.  

This is a very loose film.  VERY loose.  Like I mentioned earlier, for mostly the length of the entire film (barring the introduction and the ending), the film wanders from moment to moment with a strange rhythm not seen before.  While watching Royal Tenenbaums, you can feel how tight the film is.  Every scene, every camera movement, every song cue, every stage direction has been meticulously storyboarded and planned out in advance.  And in my opinion, it completely works for that film.  But that's a different film.  TLA has some sequences that must've taken the same sort of planning to achieve, the zooms and amazing boat 'tour' shots, both seen (at least partly) in the preview.  But most of the film has the feeling that it was done on the fly.  Cameras are occasionally shaky (!), the scenes don't always cut together well, there are brief interludes of songs and the film has the meandering feeling that it was being made up as they went along.  Like the ending to 8 ½, Wes almost went searching for the meaning of this movie while he was making it.  The ideas were in place as well as the finale (which is beautiful and moving), but how to get there was a mystery bigger than where the hell to find that fish.  Which becomes fairly obvious was never the point of the film; but its macguffin.  

The movie is also hilarious, but that's to be expected.  So many moments that I wont dare spoil for people who haven't seen it yet.

There will be fiercely different opinions on this one.  When Bill Murray referred to it as "That death ship known as The Life Aquatic" you begin to imagine the troubles that might've went into making it.  Some people will say that Wes got in over his head, that his budget was too big, his ambitions greater than what could be achieved, and perhaps they all (along with the plot) got lost at sea.  Whether this works to the films advantage or not is going to depend on you, the viewer.  But when somebody who named Gerry one of last years best complains that THIS films weakness is it didn't have a script, you have to wonder about what criteria this is being judged on?  Because it's all subjective and it really just depends on what you're looking for.  Maybe mutinyco didn't want Wes to 'do Fellini', or maybe he just didn't like the results when he did.  It's a step that would probably be celebrated for a director like Gus Van Sant but will be questioned and scrutinized under Wes Anderson because this isn't what he was 'supposed to be doing'.  All I'm saying is "who knows?"  Sometimes it all depends on what you're looking for.  

Although other films can be referenced, this is really a film not like anything I've ever seen before.  The film is uneven, but there are moments of beauty here.  Fantastic moments that everyone will be talking about.  "Search and Destroy" is probably my favorite along with "The Way I Feel Inside" and "Staralfur" and finally "Queen Bitch".  (In the interest of not spoiling ANYTHING, the songs indicate the scenes in the film I'm referring to.)    Another point of criticism has been Owen Wilson's come and go Foghorn Leghorn accent, but it didn't bother me.  Is anything in this film even accidentally resembling reality?  Not really.  It is a film of excesses, and indulgences.  Those of you who long for the days of Bottle Rocket, when things were simple, will find yourself wondering where that director went.  Because this is not that director.  This is the film of a director who is out on a limb.  This is the film of a director who is working outside of his comfort zone and trying to do something new.  On a superficial level, it's his first film without Luke Wilson acting, a Rolling Stones song, and without Owens co-writing.  (Critics of this film may say that Owen might've been the glue that kept their movies together, but maybe without him Wes is free to truly go 'out there' and explore.)  But really it's just a completely different sort of Wes Anderson movie.  The same way that Punch-Drunk Love was a completely different sort of PT Anderson movie.  Where either goes from here is yet to be decided, but this was without question an interesting step along the way.  

So, I loved it but what do I know?  I was delirious and for the last hour, REALLY had to pee.  Actually, I need to see it again before I form my opinion.