The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

Yesterday I went to see The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Wes Anderson really has a very unique style. The thing is that the style that was groundbreaking in Rushmore and done even better in The Royal Tenenbaums is not unexpected here and it sortof feels like he's just copying himself. I guess it's ok if you copy yourself, but he should try and grow a little. The movie was enjoyable, so I don't think I'm complaining. This movie in particular, though, was pretty erratic. The story line was really random and doesn't seem to have a point.

Here's the thing about Wes Anderson movies, you don't really end up caring about his characters. As entertaining as the scenarios are, he emphasizes the things in his characters that are either pseudo-traits that no one actually has to such a great extent or traits that are just completely inhuman. Also he tends to just drop you down in the middle of a situation and without the context there's nothing to care about. I think The Life Aquatic does this to a greater extent than his other movies do. Incidentally, Wes's first film, Bottle Rocket, was pretty random, but wasn't done in the 'signature style' of Wes Anderson.

Bill Murray is awesome. He makes lots of good movies. Only recently has he been considered a real actor, but he's made some great films for a long time, I would say starting with Scrooged and Groundhog Day, where he played real people and not over the top comedic guys. Those roles, like in Stripes or Caddyshack or What About Bob? are also good, but for whatever reason aren't considered to be fine acting. He's equally good in this one, but the combination of Murray's deadpan and Anderson's intended arbitrarity (is that a word?) take something away from the overall effect.

I've not been very definitive. At the end of the day if you like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, then you will probably like this one too, but I don't think it's as good as those.