The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Saw this in NYC last week. I had been real hesitant to see it as The Royal Tennenbaums was a big disappointment for me. And I'd also caught just a glimpse of their underwater world and didn't know what to make of it. But that was what our committee picked and by the end of the credits (yup, we watched 'em because I wanted to hear another Portuguese Bowie song, but also to see if I recognized any names), I was so happy that the following 2 words were what popped into my head: "fucking brilliant."

I worked on Rushmore, and while it wasn't the best of experiences personally, it was a great movie. Bottle Rocket was also a good little film and as I went to UT like Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, it was cool to help out some locals who made it big. So it sucked for me not to like Tennenbaums. I should probably give it a second chance, because the big problem for me was how it was marketed. I was expecting much more of a comedy than the tragedy I saw. And while I've got nothing against filmmakers with a unique style, which WA certainly has, it totally took me out of the moment in that film.

But I digress....

Life Aquatic grabbed me from the beginning and didn't let go. All of the actors were great, to the point that at times I wanted to see more of them than Bill Murray. Oh yeah, he's in it, in case you didn't know. And he owns it, mothertruckers. One of our crew noted that the role wasn't that much different from his parts in Rushmore and Lost in Translation, and it sort of is. It's closer to the former than the latter, but it's still its own character. Thematically, this movie was similar to Rushmore in that the main character is obsessed with something and... there's a back half to this but it would ruin the end of the film and I'm not going to be that guy. Go see it. Owen Wilson tones it down and plays a great character. Cate Blanchett's accent borders on being annoying and that's a good thing. And the intern's subplot reminded me of a Bill Murray story from Rushmore that I'll save for another time.