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Our weather was pretty gray recently so I decided to watch the Life Aquatic again. It is such a brightly colored film, and is actually really fun in a quasi-psychedelic way. Like many of these films, it comes with a warning for swearing and violence and all the usual stuff (it’s not that bad, but since we’re LDS…) Anderson’s films have a very distinctive look to them. They are very bright which is unusual in a time when a lot of films are very dark and dim. His characters are eccentric and quirky. I have never worked out how deep Anderson’s films are – whether they are all surface or not. Some of them do have some life messages in them, maybe even spirituality. I have found the ones I’ve seen to be fairly fun, but I like some more than others.
Anyway, here’s the list of Anderson’s films. It helps if you like Owen Wilson, he appears in many of them. Which ones have you seen?
1996 Bottle Rocket – Not seen
1998 Rushmore – Saw it, need to revisit
2001 The Royal Tenenbaums – Loved this one. Great characters.
2004 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou – Watched again within last month. Definite thumbs up from me. Great soundtrack too.
2005 The Squid and the Whale – Not seen
2007 The Darjeeling Limited – This was fairly good if you love films about India. I thought it could have worked better.
2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox – Not seen
2012 Moonrise Kingdom – Not seen
2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel – Good, may revisit.
She’s Funny That Way – Not seen
2018 Isle of Dogs – Not seen
2021 The French Dispatch – Not seen
I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox. I was working with my 12 year old son comparing it to the picture book that it is based on for a school assignment. I loosely remember that they had added lots of material for the movie which isn’t surprising given the rather short length of the book.
It’s Roald Dahl book originally I think… I read it many many years ago. I think they must have changed it around a bit. Films don’t always work when the setting is transferred to the US from another country. I can think of some exceptions. I’m going to get round to seeing some of these other films. They are often oddly optimistic even when they have a sad ending.
I have not seen any of them, so recommendation noted. I agree about how so many films (and even some TV shows) are so dark/dim of late both in lighting and in tone. I’m not a particular fan of the trend. I’ve seen Fantastic Fox and Isle of Dogs. I liked “Fox” a little better. But I did enjoy “Isle of Dogs” which I found to be funnier (but more bizarre…first time I ever saw open heart surgery in an animated film). DarkJedi wrote:
I have not seen any of them, so recommendation noted. I agree about how so many films (and even some TV shows) are so dark/dim of late both in lighting and in tone. I’m not a particular fan of the trend.
A big example of that is the 2012 Lincoln film. I had to squint to see what was going on. I think Batman films and Tim Burton have a lot to answer for (although Burton always has contrasting colors in his films).
It seems to be a common trend along with mumbling and bad sound mixing.
I’m watching a TV series from three years ago – same issue, it’s all half lit.
If you watch sixties TV esp. their Batman, Star Trek or Lost in Space it is often brightly colored to show off on new color TV sets. As HD etc crept in, maybe they thought they would use darkness to show how fine the detail was… Hmmm
Gerald wrote:
I’ve seen Fantastic Fox and Isle of Dogs. I liked “Fox” a little better. But I did enjoy “Isle of Dogs” which I found to be funnier (but more bizarre…first time I ever saw open heart surgery in an animated film).
Funnily enough these are two I haven’t seen. I haven’t watched any of his animated stuff.
I was a bit confused because the Isle of Dogs is an area of London – one of those weird names like Hell’s Kitchen etc – then it turns out it’s in Japan…. I think.
Quote:I was a bit confused because the Isle of Dogs is an area of London – one of those weird names like Hell’s Kitchen etc – then it turns out it’s in Japan…. I think.
Yes, the bulk of the action does take place in Japan and some of the principal characters are Japanese and they speak Japanese…without subtitles. But it actually doesn’t impede your understanding of what is going on (the dogs speak English which helps). As I said, it’s an enjoyable but eccentric film.
Gerald wrote:As I said, it’s an enjoyable but eccentric film.
That sums up most of Wes Anderson’s stuff I’ve seen! And bright colored too, as I point out above.
He has quirky soundtracks in what I’ve seen. I suppose he falls somewhere between Tim Burton and Tarantino on that score (no pun intended).
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