Rushmore

1998 Wes Anderson movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: Hopelessly ambitious and underachieving Max Fischer befriends the father of some obnoxious classmates and falls for a young widow with a cute accent who begins teaching at the titular school. It leads to a love triangle and an attempt by Max to impress Ms. Cross that winds up earning him an expulsion from the school he loves.

Am I the only person who didn't know the following tidbits about Jason Schwartzman? 1) Talia Shire is his mother which, I believe, also makes him the son of Rocky. 2) He's Nicolas Cage's cousin.

I have my doubts that Jason Schwartzman, an actor who kind of annoys me in large doses, will ever top what he does here. His performance as Max, one of those characters you either love to hate or hate to love, is a great film debut. Bill Murray turns in a performance with some real edges and complexities, one where he perfectly balances a neurotic fervor and a calm resignation. It's really the first of these great Murray performances where he's found a niche after a career of hits and misses and wastes of his time. I know somebody will probably argue with me about that, so I'll go ahead and clarify: Yes, I liked him in Kingpin. But here, his way of not driving the action of the story but reacting to it is pretty brilliant. I think it's something you notice more the second or third time you see the movie, but the way you can see how he feels in this without the need of any superfluous dialogue is part of what moves me about these characters and their relationships.This is the movie where Wes Anderson, for better or worse, starts to become Wes Anderson. You've got the killer soundtrack (I wonder if I've ever used the word "killer" as an adjective on this blog before), the attention to detail, the quirky humor. One specific soundtrack note: hearing "Oh Yoko" makes me laugh anyway, but hearing it in a movie is about more than I can handle. Rushmore just works so perfectly and originally as a coming-of-age story, a tale of redemption for more than one character, and as a comedy. It's as refreshing as a bottle of Sprite or putting on your first pair of Zubaz.

My favorite scene, maybe in any movie ever, is the one where Rosemary shares a carrot with Herman Blume. Other little things that I love about this movie: Colin Platt is credited as "Boy Portraying Frank Serpico," Kumar Pallana is in this one ("Best play ever, man."), Bill Murray's shot-blocking abilities on display, etc.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

2004 action-comedy

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 18/20)

Plot: The titular pop oceanographer barely raises enough money to venture out and make a sequel to the documentary in which his friend and long-time collaborator was eaten by a shark that may or may not exist. Zissou deals with his fading popularity, his possible son who tags along for the adventure, a cute and pregnant magazine writer, and a variety of obstacles that threaten to derail production.

Bill Murray fans--here's your chance to see Bill without a shirt. Murray's the sun for the solar system of this movie. A lot of the humor with his character is the writing, but any future comedy mega-superstars need to look here for a course on comic timing and deadpan perfection. Check the scene where he answers the question about the purpose for killing the shark or the little pause and lean-back before he engages in fisticuffs with a heckler or his "OK, man" answer to Ned's introduction of himself. In Will Ferrell's hands, this character would be lost, drifting through an insipid ocean of slapstick and pointless screaming. In Murray's hands, the character is still lost, but he's lost in this existential funk, in his malaise, in his truths and consequences, and in the chore of being human. And yes, I realize how pretentious that might sound, but if you're going to write about why you like a Wes Anderson movie, you better be prepared to go full hipster or not go at all, right? I've watched this little character study more than any other Wes Anderson movie, I think, probably because I think it's his funniest. Still, I've not been able to put my finger on what it's about exactly. There's a lot of playing around with reality vs. this manufactured reality. You get the documentary footage, all scratchily authentic, and it's so obviously staged that you start to pick out scenes with Steve and his maybe-son Ned that also have to be staged. And then you wonder how much of the action sequences that go unapologetically over-the-top are actually real. And you wonder if all those sea creatures Henry Selick animated are real or imagined or both. I fooled myself into believing that the scenes that are showing Zissou's real emotions and the scenes where he's hamming it up for an audience--call it the real Steve and the documentary Steve--are actually filmed differently, framed in unnaturally stiff and more naturally free ways respectively. Of course, I could just be making that up. Either way, I do know that the big payoff, the scene with all the characters humorously crammed into that tiny yellow submarine, is definitely real, and Bill Murray's "I wonder if it remembers me" really touches me and just might be his finest acting moment. No, wait. Let me take that back immediately after I typed it. Murray's finest acting moment is after he explains how their helmets played music to Cate Blanchett's character and then demonstrated with a little dance. If Murray's the sun, all that orbits around him is about perfect in this. Anderson's usual attention to detail gives us Steve Zissou and crew action figures (which, I believe, I hadn't noticed before), plenty of beautiful sea life including a Crayon Ponyfish and this lovely scene that mixes the pink of fish with the blue of the water--two colors that probably should never ever be seen together like that, all those wonderful Bowie songs performed in Portugeuse by Seu Jorge, a three-legged dog, an acrobatic whale. And speaking of acrobatic, how about the way the camera maneuvers during the scene that gives a tour of the Zissou boat and then later during the scene where they steal from Goldblum's sea lab? Those are both so perfectly orchestrated that it makes my nipples hard just thinking about them. The periphery characters and the actors who portray them are so perfect, too. Willem Dafoe wouldn't necessarily be my first choice to play a needy German, but he's hilarious here. Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston, Michael Gambon, Jeff Goldblum--all perfectly cast. And I had to give this a bonus point for Bud Cort, and his little smile after they do that little hands-in-the-middle teamwork thing in an elevator has got to be one of my favorite movie smiles ever. But then I had to take the bonus point away because Kumar Pallana isn't in this movie. One more thing--I've always wondered if the beginning scenes at the screening of Part One of the latest Zissou documentary with the ornate theater and the terrific Mark Mothersbaugh music and the giant painting and the way the shots are framed was a nod to Peter Greenaway. It makes me laugh to think about all that formality leading to a guy in overalls coming to grab the microphone from the stage.


Note: I just checked the rulebook, and I am not allowed to take away a bonus point just because Kumar Pallana isn't in a movie.

Moonrise Kingdom

2012 Wes Anderson movie

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 17/20)

Plot: The troubled daughter of attorneys and an outcast scout run away from home and camp respectively in order to have a romantic adventure. Scout Master Ward, a handful of scouts, the Bishop parents, and the island's law enforcement search for the couple.

Wes Anderson's movies, maybe this one more than any of the others, are like Precious Moments figurines made for hipsters. If you don't like his movies--especially The Life Aquatic--you aren't going to like this one either. And if you do, you're likely to be a fan of this one. A lot of new faces to the Wes Anderson world--lovely Edward Norton, Bruce Willis with a little hair, Frances McDormand. It's an oddball world to inhabit, like its own little island. Coincidentally, this takes place on a little island, the kind of setting that part of me knows actually exists but that seems like it can only exist in a Wes Anderson movie. These characters are all his type of characters, nutty as can be, and I guess I can see how some people might have a problem with that. Of course, you've got a bunch of kids in there, too, and although there are a couple moments when the kids are kids--as in the type of child actor I normally really hate--they're given such funny things to do and say here that I didn't mind it. Oh, and Bob Balaban is in this, a bearded Bob Balaban, and his ridiculous opening narrative bit squeezed the first laugh out of me. This is a very funny movie. My favorite bit might have been a big action sequence involving a motorcycle, the flash of an arrow, a dog, a tree, and lefty scissors. Lefty scissors! You know what Alfred Hitchcock always said about lefty scissors, right? I'm paraphrasing, but it was something about how if a director shows the audience a pair of lefty scissors, you can safely predict that those lefty scissors will be used at some point in the movie. I was never clear on what happened during that scene, by the way, but it was shockingly funny stuff. Like with the underrated The Life Aquatic, this gets really nutsy at the end, but here, as it was there, the nutsiness really fits with the themes. This also looks a lot like a Wes Anderson movie, almost identically colored and textured as The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Of course, you just need to see a single frame of this movie to know who its director is, and again, that's not going to be a good thing for all viewers. And the opening shots, a journey through the Bishop's house that reminds me of the tour of the Zissou's submarine, is remarkable in how it sets the tone for the whole movie and gives such a good introduction of the Bishop family despite not including any dialogue. I also loved the music, some from Devo guy Mark Mothersbaugh and a lot of playful vocal classical stuff. I still can't get a final "cuckoo" out of my brain, and one number with angelic voices and boy scout trumpets was something I almost thought only I could hear, an ear hallucination or something. Oh, and there was a blast from my childhood with the work of Benjamin Britten. And a lot of Hank Williams. It's all just so beautiful, and I really didn't want the movie to end.

Side note: The theater we saw this at has a summer midnight movies thing. I tried to convince Jennifer to stick around and watch The Room, but she had no interest.

The Royal Tenenbaums

2001 tragi-comedy

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: fell asleep)

Plot: The estranged Tenenbaum patriarch decides, possibly for financial reasons, that he wants relationships with his wife and kids. They all have various problems.

How can a movie be this funny and sad at the same time? A lot of the credit has to go to the writing(Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson, maybe not in that order) but a lot of it belongs to the ensemble cast, fantastic from top to bottom. That includes the two mini-Stillers in the red jumpsuits on the poster there. And you, narrator Alec Baldwin! This is like a cartoon with real human beings, only they're not real human beings at all and this has a lot more color. My favorite thing about this movie are the little details, the way Anderson shades the corners of his shots by adding random dalmation mice or having all those little paintings on the walls of the Tenenbaum home. Seriously, you could watch this movie four thousand times and not be able to absorb everything to see. It's the comic timing that makes you laugh here at all these lines that you're not normally supposed to laugh at, like Bill Murray's "I want to die." And anything that Kumar Pallana says. That guy's probably our greatest living actor, and I'm not even exaggerating when I say that. And yes, this is the kind of thing where if you argue with me, I'll hit you in the head with a rake. This isn't a movie for everybody, but I do think it's an acquired taste. Watch it those four thousand times, and I bet the same things that I love will be the same things that you love--the hilariously troubled characters, the pacing, the happy chaos, the soundtrack, the unflinching wardrobe. Nah, a large chunk of the audience will probably gag on the style. Gene Hackman, sans towel, gives a performance in this that I think is special, building this uncomfortable rapport with every other character and nailing every single line he's given. Especially "Let's shag ass." Sloppy, sloopy, full of whimsy, teetering on the edge, and never predictable, this is just one of those that I enjoy watching the fourth or fifth time just as much as the first.

Mexican artist--Miguel Calderon. See? I'm not that lazy.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009 stop-animated funk

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 16/20; Abbey: 19/20; Sophie: 20/20)

Plot: The title fox reluctantly settles down, retiring from chicken thieving and getting a job as a newspaper man to appease his pregnant wife, Mrs. Fox. Seven years later, his itch needs scratching, and he moves the family into a tree with a view of the farms of Boggis, Bunce, and Bean and begins plotting a final triple-header job. He and friend Badger get some bandit hats and pull off the jobs. This ticks off the three farmers who seek revenge.

"That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!"

Lots of biases at play here: 1) It's a Wes Anderson movie. 2) It's based on a Roald Dahl book. 3) It's stop-motion animation. 4) I saw it on the big screen. But at least with the first three, it's a menage trois made in heaven. I always think Anderson's movies are refreshing, and I usually find stop-motion stuff refreshing, too. Combine the two, with Dahl's talking animal characters, and you've got something that's downright whimsical. Petey, one of the farmer's personal banjo players and almost a completely useless character, is my favorite character (voiced by Jarvis Cocker), but there isn't a character in this thing that isn't great. I thought the three farmers were really funny, but the majority of the screen time is talking animals. And I love when a cartoon has talking animals that are so human. Great voice acting, too, with a lot of Anderson regulars. The animation is spectacular although intentionally a little low-fi. There are lots of "How are they even pulling that off?" effects, and lots of times when there's an amazing amount of movement happening on the screen at once. This has a handful of laugh-out-loud moments, and although it almost goes a bit too far in the end, this is the type of movie that I'd love to watch again and again. Downright whimsical!

2009 seems like an incredible year for animated movies. And I've not even seen Ponyo, Mary and Max, or A Town Called Panic yet.