Last Movie You Saw, Name & Review Movie • Page 255

I genuinely think The Life Aquatic is his best movie in a career full of them. I feel like them actually finding the shark is about as effectively as anyone's depicted epiphany in film, for my money.

 

The life aquatic and the French dispatch are easily my least favorites

 

Might do The Life Aquatic this weekend if I'm in the mood, but I have unironically heard good things about the Looney Tunes movie that hit Max today and am interested in catching that

 

F1 was a really good time. Thankfully, Spiderhead was an aberration and Kosinski is back to being one of the best at delivering classic formula in a really satisfying and entertaining way. It’s very ‘90s, which is 88% complimentary and 12% cheesy that I didn’t mind much. The racing scenes in IMAX were fantastic.

The biggest flaw I couldn’t handwave away was the supposed sportscaster “commentary” was so constantly focused just on what the main characters were doing at all times. I get that it was a necessary device to make sure the audience (myself included) understood the subtext of the racing stuff, but my kingdom for a LITTLE verisimilitude. Small complaint though.

 

Drop - 7/10

 

Personal Shopper - 9/10

such an incredible film and easily my favorite Kristen Stewart performance yet. it's free on Tubi right now for anyone who may want to check it out. I couldn't recommend it enough

 

So aside from the casual homophobia and being about 20 minutes too long, I think The Life Aquatic still has potential to be great. Is there a predominant reason it seems to be Anderson's worst-reviewed by a decent margin?

 

too homophobic and long

 

damn, didn't think of this

 

The Life Aquatic feels like a fan fiction of a Wes Anderson movie. The characters are just too emotionally unavailable until the exact moment he wants emotional release, and it feels more worried about stuff like highlighting how quirky the boat is or the kitsch of the costumes. Almost everyone in Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums has depth and you can fill in the blanks for motivation of even the smaller characters, but almost everyone here feels like a prop.

Near the end, when they see the shark at the end Blanchett's character says "in twelve years he will be eleven and a half", talking about her pregnancy, and Steve says "that was my favorite age", starts crying, and this is supposed to be an emotional high point. It feels weird for the sake of weird. It is the worst line in any Anderson movie, and it rivals Juno and her hamburger phone.

 

Wasn't the point of that line, that Ned was eleven and a half when he wrote the fan letter to Zissou? And he's having an emotional reaction after not only losing his best friend to the white whale he's finally face to face with, but also reflecting on the loss of someone he came to believe was his son in the process? It didn't feel out of place at all to me.

 

Universal Language was great. Some of the more Canadian jokes were probably lost on me, but what a hilarious and weird and warm movie!

 

Still enjoyed Tenenbaums as well, although things move pretty quickly in the third act. Wondering if I am not an Anderson hater, but an Anderson fan hater, not unlike Twin Peaks/Lynch. Or maybe latter-day Anderson still won't be for me. Time will tell.

 

I hate of a lot of fans

 

Wes Anderson is a bridge to alternative cinema so there can definitely be some fans who have seen his movies and have unlocked everything there is to know. The Anderson copycats in the 2000's were the worst. They only understood his movies on the most surface level.

 

I watched Deep Cover over the weekend. Very funny movie.

 

So good.

 

Had a triple-header on Sunday of Floating Clouds at the Harvard Film Archive and Action Jackson and Conan the Barbarian at the Brattle Theater. That was a pretty excellent Sunday.

 

Bottle Rocket is fun, but it's hard not to think about how many immature men probably saw Max's insufferable/volatile qualities as endearing and charming

 

Saw Flash Gordon in a theater and man if that isn't the camp classic. I'm not going to say it's "good". Your mileage may vary depending on your taste for silly, campy old-style comic book stuff. But it's exactly what they were shooting for and I was smiling through the whole thing.

 

I'm only 15 minutes in, but despite the stop animation being so nice, I think Isle of Dogs is gonna be a miss for me.

 

Fox is better

 

Never saw isle of dogs but didn’t like Mr Fox

 

I love Mr. Fox. Didn’t think much about Dogs after the theater.

 

Dogs is good but likely his least exceptional besides maybe Bottle Rocket