The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[SiliasRuby]

I'm slightly frusterated because when I ordered it I preordered the Casino Special Edition with it so I won't be getting my 2 disc till June.

[meatball]

I'm slightly frusterated because when I ordered it I preordered the Casino Special Edition with it so I won't be getting my 2 disc till June.

Woe, Wooooeeee is you!

[Pubrick]

he was buying ... the new Weezer

poor sod.

[w/o horse]

I just watched this movie two times in a row, having only seen it in the theater once.  After the first time I wasn't sure if I liked Rushmore or The Life Aquatic more, but now I can say with minor emphasis that The Life Aquatic is warmer, more personal, more ballsy, and smarter than any prior  Wes Anderson effort.  Also, it has action sequences.

But this is the 47th fucking page and everyone else probably already knows how everybody else feels.  So if I'm agreeing with someone from page six or twenty three or thirty nine or whatever than awesome.

[modage]

no, you're wrong.  its more flawed.  the characters arent as good.  and the pace is weird.  its a good loose sketch for a movie to be finished sometime later.

[grand theft sparrow]

The bad: Those stupid briefcase snappers.

My 2-disc didn't have those.  My condolences to anyone whose copy does.

It's so much better the second time around, now that I can pay attention to what it actually is instead of what I expected it would be.

[MacGuffin]

All bads are outweighed by the fact that we get an affordable 2 disc criterion release.

I'm not a complicated man. I just like the simple pleasures like butter in my ass, and no latches on my DVD case.

[w/o horse]

no, you're wrong.  its more flawed.  the characters arent as good.  and the pace is weird.  its a good loose sketch for a movie to be finished sometime later.

I think the pace is fucking perfect.  I think it's a pace that isn't beset by rules and abritrary traditionlism, but is allowed to flow natural, this natural flow becomes cumbersome, but this is true to life.  I think the structure of the movie buttresses the character of Steve Zissou, and it is only as flawed as he is, that it is a flawed human making a movie about another flawed human.

I think scratching the surface of this movie brings up a lot more than any previous film of Anderson's.  By the end of Life Aquatic I know the characters as my friends, it is inviting and comforting, I think the Life Aquatic creates a world that we can step into, not observe from afar like Royal Tenenbaums.  The progression of characters makes more sense in this movie, the sequence of events is more surprising and more jarring, the camera is looser and subsequently more provocative.  The Life Aquatic is ballsy as fuck, there's no argument to me made there.  Wes attemtped to evolve, he attempted to probe the human condition, to share one man's burdening, one man's uncompromising path.

I completely fucking disagree, basically, personally.

[modage]

yeah, i know what wes attempted to do.  but the movie comes off forced.  everything wes was able to do so naturally, (the humor, the music, the characters) all the 'quirks' that made his previous movies so great seemed shoehorned into this movie and overall, it just did not work.  its good, mostly and nobody is arguing whether its admirable.  but its just a miss.  sorry/.  go back a bunch of pages and read my 3000 word review.  i tried to make excuses for it, too.  

[w/o horse]

yeah, i know what wes attempted to do.  but the movie comes off forced.  everything wes was able to do so naturally, (the humor, the music, the characters) all the 'quirks' that made his previous movies so great seemed shoehorned into this movie and overall, it just did not work.  its good, mostly and nobody is arguing whether its admirable.  but its just a miss.  sorry/.  go back a bunch of pages and read my 3000 word review.  i tried to make excuses for it, too.  

Alright, I'm game.  It's on page 30, by the way.

I must, once again, disagree. I don't think the film is diffuclt, I don't think it's an unexpected or even illogical advancement for Wes, and I don't see the film as loose.  I think that this is exactly where Wes Anderson needed to go.  On page 31 I found A.O. Scott's review, which had a very smart observance:

He is a child's fantasy of adulthood brought to life, and at the same time an embodiment of the longing for a return to childhood that colors so much of grown-up life.

Wes Anderson's previous films had a large barrier between their characters and their emotions, but the Life Aquatic is Anderson at his rawest yet, the greatest attempt at sublimation he has had yet.  Anderson's discomfort with himself is in every frame.

I've said other times on this forum that the most important quality in a film for me is its effort in sharing an idea about the human spirit.  If you like your films non-confrontational themodernage02, than I can completely understand why the Life Aquatic is not favorable to you.  But for me, the movie does more soul searching and character deconstruction , it goes beneath the surface and becomes a revelatory piece.  This makes sense too, seeing as how the story was over a decade old for Anderson.  You can see him getting tired of the story, you can see the shift go entirely to the struggle of Steve.  That's fucking great movie making to me, when the filmmaker loses his self-consciousness.

It doesn't need excuses made for it.

[meatball]

All bads are outweighed by the fact that we get an affordable 2 disc criterion release.

I'm not a complicated man. I just like the simple pleasures like butter in my ass, and no latches on my DVD case.

Good news. There's no latches on the 2-disc DVD case. Bad news. You're out of butter.

The Life Aquatic is Wes Anderson's The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. And it plays better on the small screen.

[modage]

theres latches on my 2 disc dvd case.

It doesn't need excuses made for it.

alright, just for you.  when i watch it again i will make a list of 100 things that bug me about the movie.

[meatball]

I guess I got lucky. Since latchless is a precious thing here on Xixax, who wants to buy my case?

[w/o horse]

It doesn't need excuses made for it.

alright, just for you.  when i watch it again i will make a list of 100 things that bug me about the movie.

But then you'd be judging the movie by the quality of its presentation and not the quality of its essence, which is what enamors me.  I've already said:  Yes, if you like your movies nice and tidy, his earlier works are obvious choices.  Hell, you could even say that his earlier movies are just as personal, it is just that for me The Life Aquatic is reflective of his fucked up, human side, not his usual idiosyncratic, perfectionist side.

So spare me the list.

[meatball]

To me, Wes' movies are like intimate bedtime stories. Not meant for the theatrical masses, which is how I saw Life Aquatic for the first time -- and hated it. Now that's it's humbly spinning in my DVD player, it's much more enjoyable.