Seems I'm not a fan of Wes Anderson

[ForrestGump]

I just watched Rushmore, finally, and I was pretty much underwhelmed, I can understand how some might point to subtleties that flew over my head but I submit that they're wrong and that it just didn't 'resonate' with me.

A few months ago I saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and felt like I'd wasted the better part of two hours. A while before that I saw The Royal Tenenbaums and, as was true for the similarly hyped (here, for instance) Rushmore, it really didn't blow me away too much, though I think it's my pick of the three films.

It's not that I hate the movies, or think they're intrinsically bad, but they just don't excite me. They all have parts that I like a lot -- whether funny or not -- and great acting and actors, but, in general, they feel like they're too desperately trying to be quirky. Kind of self-conscious and pretentious in that way.

A week or two ago I saw I Heart Huckabees (Jason Schwartzman, the lead in Rushmore, was also its protagonist) and, though it wasn't a Wes Anderson production, I got the same kind of feeling from it -- some good stuff, with excellent acting from a superb cast, but just too conscious of its own quirkiness and feeling as if its whole raison d'être was to be surreal and inaccessible.

Not bad, but not films that really do much for me.

[Ravenseye]

1. Same

My wife loved The Royal Tenenbaums, but all three films I felt were sort of intentionally...something...It's hard to put my finger on it. I think I liked Rushmore the best, because it has less of it, and whatever 'it' was 'it' grew in the next two movies.

I don't DISLIKE them. Like you said, there are parts in all of them I like alot.

I don't know. My first gut word use was pretentious, but I don't think that's it. They give me the feeling of being slightly stoned...or rather, that I'm at someone's party in manhattan where everyone else is lightly stoned. Pretentious and slightly stoned...

Dunno. Same here though. They didn't really do anything for me.

[ForrestGump]

2. Whatever you are trying to say

sounds like whatever I was trying to say, but closer to it.


Hey...cool: if we keep this dialog up, we'll have produced a new Wes Anderson script. Far out. :D

[Ravenseye]

3. Is there a word for this feeling....

What's the word for the feeling you have when you've been up for about 20 hours, the last 10 of them partying, and now you're sitting with 3 people you don't know from a hole in the wall, and you're all sitting at a diner listening to the 80's music coming from the hollow jukebox on th eother side of the diner car, while you all smoke cigaretes and wait for your food, while still feeling somewhat stoned, tired, but not tired, curious about the peopel in front of you, but not really...

that feeling. That sort of bored stoned apathy. That's what those films make me feel like...is there a word for that? Probably there's one in german that's like a 40 letter long compound word...

Anyway I don't like that feeling. heh.

[ForrestGump]

4. Yes, I believe there is:

achtungenglanderschweinhund.

I don't like it, either.

It makes me feel verbotenkamerad.



Just don't mention the War...


And he picks weird, distinctive incidental music...the dudes who made I Heart Dingleberries chose the same kind of music, from what I can only assume is the Quirky Collection. How avant-garde. If Wes Anderson plays his cards right, they'll let him direct the next Napoleon Dynamite movie.

[Ravenseye]

11. Trying to hard to be avant-garde

Maybe that's part of it as well. There's avant-garde, and then there's the white kid from the suburban high school who went to the University of Texas at Austin TRYING to be avant-garde. Poseur Avant Garde.

Anything that leaves me feeling like I should be saying "how witty yet oh so droll" while golf clapping...meh I can do without.

[mitchum]

14. That is a very good summation of his aesthetic

Hell, that's not very good...it's great

[mwdem]

5. I really tried to like these movies, but I can say they did nothing for me

and I'm disappointed in saying that. I know what you mean.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. I really wanted to like his work...

but instead of finding it humorous, I find it kind of depressing. :( I am normally a fan of quirky/dark/surreal, but his stuff just leaves me cold and sad.

I have to say, I did love "I Heart Huckabees", though -- perhaps it's because existential angst has been a major theme of my life. :P

[Radical Activist]

7. They seem intentionally understated

which I like. I actually liked most of his films better weeks or months later when I think back on them and watch again, more so than when I was watching it for the first time. I enjoyed life aquatic very much but I wasn't expecting a lot either. They probably are pretentious but then my favorite director was Ingmar Bergman, who couldn't have been more introspective and pretentious.

[Shakespeare]

8. The Life Aquatic is one odd film (yet I liked it, I think).

I'd like to see Rushmore again, because it didn't have my full attention the first time I saw it (but it didn't really grab me).

And I can't begin to explain why I like The Life Aquatic, or why I think it's a good film. But something about it stuck with me for days after seeing it. Not to put him on this level (and I don't), but it stuck with me the way some of Wallace Steven's more avant-garde poems do.

At least I'm not alone--Rogert Ebert was fascinated by it, too, but also didn't think it qualified as great (yet found it compelling, as I did):

"Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" is the damnedest film. I can't recommend it, but I would not for one second discourage you from seeing it."

Here's the rest of the review:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041223/REVIEWS/41201010/1023

Oh, and the soundtrack of Seu Jorge's Bowie covers is oustanding.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

9. Life Aquatic was MUCH better the second time around

I should mention, though, that I'm a fan of his other work.

But Life Aquatic did absolutely nothing for me the first time I saw it. However, I stumbled upon it on cable one Sunday morning a few months ago and decided to give it a whirl.

Upon that viewing, I really enjoyed it.

:shrug:

[Shakespeare]

12. You know, it's the only Wes Anderson's film I've seen multiple times.

And I watched it again precisely to try and discover why it had so gotten under my skin. I still don't have an answer, but still find it strangely compelling, and strangely moving.

I came across Ebert's review when I added it to my Netflix queue for a subsequent viewing, and thought, "yup, he sums it up pretty well." I'm just glad to know I'm not the only one kind of confounded by it.

Think I'll go throw on the soundtrack right now, in fact.....

[last_texas_dem]

10. I agree with your post

I give his films credit for being interesting and generally entertaining, but they're nothing that I would rave about. The overstated "quirkiness" is definitely one of the more annoying aspects. His characters are often interesting, and the soundtrack music is generally good, but I just can't get as enthusiastic about the films as many people do. I couldn't really get into Rushmore, largely 'cause I found the main character too annoying to care about. I liked The Royal Tenenbaums more, and have actually seen it twice. (I was a little disappointed that it wasn't very close to Salinger's "Franny and Zooey", though, as someone had told me it was based on it, which made me want to see it more.) I didn't even bother with The Life Aquatic; I had gone to the movies with my friends to see it and ended up splitting off by myself to see a not-very-good horror movie called Darkness. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss all that much, though.

[mitchum]

13. That's two of us, Forrest. Anderson is lower middlebrow

[cemaphonic]

15. In my case, his movies grew on me.

I was bored and vaguely irritated by my first viewing of Rushmore, but I watched it again recently, and found a lot to like. I think it helps to go into it without the massive overhyping that it got, and also to understand from the beginning that Max is intended to be an unlikable, immature jerk, instead of the misunderstood-but-lovable prodigy that is the norm for this sort of character in this sort of movie. And the absurdly elaborate stage productions of classic movies was very funny to me, even the first time.

I largely agree with you about The Life Aquatic; it seemed very self-indulgent and mean-spirited. The stop-motion stuff was neat though.

Have you seen Bottle Rocket? That was his first movie, shot with a very low budget and a bunch of then-unknowns (It was the breakout movie for Luke and Owen Wilson). Thanks to the budget, it avoids most of the jarring set-design of his other movies, although it is still decidedly quirky.

Do you like the Coen Bros and/or Tarantino? I think they all share a degree of mannerism that has been out of fashion in movies for decades, and a love of classic films and a tendancy to quote old movies constantly. The Coens are more skilled at actually pulling this off into a cohesive and entertaining whole, of course.

And I Heart Huckabees was crap. That one really was quirky-for-quirkiness-sake, and a waste of a perfectly good cast.

[WCGreen]

16. You can't force quirkyness....

You either got it or you don't....

I liked Rushmore...

The others, not so much....