The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

[poliphilo]

The critics gave this one a hard time, but I thought I'd like it and I did.

It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but it keeps up a constant drizzle of tiny, small absurdities and sight gags. And of course it stars the great Bill Murray, who gets quieter and more mesmerisingly watchable with each succeeding film.

Wes Anderson (too many Andersons in Hollywood already!) is a great stylist. He creates zany, alternative universes, only a little off to the side of the one we all know and love. You could lose yourself in this one.

If Life Aquatic isn't eventually elevated to the status of cult classic I'll eat my patented Zissou diving helmet with special built in bunny aerial for the reception of music underwater.

Comments

[frumiousb.livejournal.com]

I thought that it was pretty great. The NYTimes liked it a lot, actually. So I don't think it really got panned.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read critics who found it pointless.

I think they were wrong.

The point is the in the creation of this charming, ever-so-slightly bonkers, but internally consistent world.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I think I must be the only person in the world who does NOT like Bill Murray.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Why don't you like him?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Far as I'm concerned, he's always got a smirk on his face, even when he doesn't.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You have a point.

His early performances were very smirky. And those were the sort of characters he played- self-confident, wise-assed jerks.

But recently he's gone out of his way to do something very different. It's as if he were setting out to be the polar opposite of Jim Carrey and that whole bunch of mugging, prat-falling comics.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

have you seen "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind"?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have. And, yes, it shows that Carrey can turn in a very quiet performance when he wants to. I wish he'd do it more often.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

so do i.

[humblenarrator.livejournal.com]

i loved the truman show for that reason, also.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When the Truman Show first came out I thought it was far-fetched, but as Reality TV continues to take over the globe it's starting to look like a documentary.

[violaviolet.livejournal.com]

Wes has yet to disappoint me. His films are some of the few modern pieces of cinema I pay any attention to.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hate contemporary Hollywood. Wes is one of the very few film makers who is able to buck the system while still working within it.

[violaviolet.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. There are those that see his work as pretentious and boring, but I find it hilarious and refreshing. I can only hope that Wes doesn't go the way of his writing partner, Owen Wilson.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Owen Wilson has spread himself kinda thin recently. But I liked him in Life Aquatic.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

hmm. of all his films, I like the royal tenenbaums best. the life aquatic seemed... i'll always love anderson from a stylistic standpoint, but this time it seemed like the characters were quirky just for the sake of being quirky. also, the world created in the life aquatic is a much colder world than that of tenenbaums.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I prefer this to Tenenbaums (not that I didn't like that film too.) Tenenbaums was so very Franny and Zooey that Salinger might have put in for a writing credit. Life Aquatic, on the other hand, struck me as wholly original.

Odd that you found it cold. I sort of fell in love with all the characters.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i've never (i'm horribly ill-read, you know) read salinger, so i guess i missed that aspect of tenenbaums. but that is interesting to know. i should read more.

life aquatic seemed to me to be, in the context of wes anderson's other films, wholly UNoriginal-- a mismash of bottle rocket, rushmore, and the royal tenenbaums, like he went through a cafeteria of past plotlines and character quirks and picked out a sufficient quantity to make into a film. there didn't seem to be any reason for anything (i don't mean reason in a logical sense, but that nothing seemed earned)

as for the cold, perhaps it was the thought of all that ocean water, but i found the characters a lot less likeable than in any of his previous films--maybe because i didn't feel that they were genuinely developed?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My friend Judy bullied me into reading Franny and Zooey. I was glad she did. It's a very strange little book.

I haven't seen Rushmore. (Memo to self: must see Rushmore!) but it didn't strike me that he was stealing from himself. I just thought; this is his world, we've been here before and now we're seeing the underwater bit.

Maybe I'm just a sucker for any movie that has pirates in it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"Salinger loved 'the Glass family more than God loves them'"

That's priceless.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I liked it, too.

When Bill Murray is being droll, he is the best.

God, he was funny in that stupid diving gear.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He doesn't have to work hard to be funny, just stand there.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

i too felt like the quirkiness was there for no other reason than to just be quirky. tenenbaums was quirky and that made it cool and hilarious. life aquatic was quirky and it just kind of annoyed me cos yeah, there was no point. it was neither as funny or as cool as tenenbaums.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess I just love quirk. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What an extraordinary photo. It looks like it was taken in the 1940s. I don't think I've even seen a mugshot of Wes before. How adorably geeky!

And Angelica, of course, is divine.