Tonight we watched The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. This was my second time and I enjoyed it even more. Now I want to hear the commentary and see if it answers some new questions that the film left rattling 'round my noggin. Like, was the walking sequence under the end credits inspired by the end credits of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension? Yes, it was, according to the IMDb trivia page. I really like the films of Wes Anderson. Some people would describe them as quirky, or some other similar adjective, to encapsulate a warning for those moviegoers who don't like more individualized film style. Anderson's on the tame side of style, he's not mainstream, but he's very accessible and at times impressive. This is only his fourth feature, there was a short film version of Bottle Rocket in 1994. The Bottle Rocket feature came out in 1996. BR was followed by Rushmore in 1998 and The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001.
The first four of his films were co-written with Owen Wilson, who also has appeared in all five of Anderson's films. This new one has Noah Baumbach as co-writer. Bill Murray returns for the third film with Anderson, in a part written for him and he's great as Steve Zissou, oceanographer, documentarian, and speedo wearer. Owen Wilson plays Ned, Steve's possible son, a pilot who wanted to be an oceanographer when he was a little kid. After the death of Steve's best friend Estaban, in the jaws of the Jaguar shark, Steve mounts an expedition to get his revenge. He's joined by a great cast as the crew of his ship the Belafonte and all the other people they sail around, their paths colliding in often violent ways. Steve and the crew set off and are continiously weighlayed by a series of unfortunate events culminating in a beautiful ending. I like the slow pace of the film, and Wes Anderson's love of his characters.
There wasn't anyone much to like in our second feature The Galaxy Invader. A 1985 direct to video feature from the SciFic Classic 50 Movie boxset, the blurb of which promised drunken rednecks chasing an alien. In a tragic story, poorly told, an alien lands on earth, is repeatedly chased, captured and shot by a bunch of drunken hicks. The alien kills some hicks and the hicks kill some other hicks and a college professor. Pretty soon most of the cast is dead and I went home. My description is certainly better than the movie, which is poorly made, especially the dummy falling off the cliff scene. The shot is filmed from two different angles, and instead of editing them together to build something better, he just runs each shot back to back. It worked much better for Jackie Chan in Police Story when he had something exciting to show the viewer. The obviously empty, sown together, plummeting clothing sure made me laugh, twice. Nothing in the movie looks as good as the box. I have not seen any of Don Dohler's other films but I am guessing I won't need to. Back in the 1960's Don was an underground cartoonist for a short while. He created the ProJunior character and comix. Later he created Cinemagic magazine. It lasted 11 issues before being bought up by Starlog.
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