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"I am sure, in the miserable annals of the Earth, you will be duly enshrined."
So I was watching The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou again, because I want to like it more than I do.* And because I saw a mention of how the end credits were Anderson's tribute to Buckaroo Banzai, I was thinking about it going in instead of at the end. It's there throughout the film, really: the fan club and the membership rings, the raid on the hotel, the fetishization of gadgets and boys and their toys. And so of course I had to watch The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai again.
Twice. (I watched the end credits four times. I want that music to play every time I walk anywhere, ever.)
Really, there is no greater movie than this. There are better movies, but not greater ones. John Lithgow gives the performance of his (largely underwhelming) career. Clancy Brown gets his chance to shine as a good guy. Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya and Vincent Schiavelli are a pitch-perfect blend of alien menace and silliness. And I'm sorry, but Ellen Barkin has never been sexier.** It's not just the short hair (although that doesn't hurt). Carl Lumbly and his crazy fingers. Matt Clark's venal Secretary of Defense. Bad eighties guitar solos! Bad eighties hair! Awesome eighties fashions! (Project: Runway oughta do an episode based completely on designing suits for Perfect Tommy. Or, alternately, belts for Reno. The man wears two in every scene, didja ever notice?) Jeff Goldblum: the man is mesmerizing and hilarious. There's a scene where he's delivering some of the whacked-out dialog and you can see Lewis Smith nearly lose it.
Indeed, the primary reason this movie wins is the dialog. This calls for a poll:
[Poll #1156180]
If, by some sad quirk of fate, you have not yet seen this film, consider this your exhortation to witness the awesome. Now I give you footnotes.
*Note to Barb: I liked it better this time, partly for reasons above; but I'm still not connecting to it or to The Darjeeling Limited like I do the first three films. In part I think my issues are class issues, although that's more true of Limited than of Zissou. I think a larger issue may be the one of context. In part it's a geographical context, since in those most recent films there's no familiar American background to set the characters against. But it's also an emotional context, because Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums have secondary/peripheral characters whose emotional reflexes seem to be intact and not numbed or overlain with quirkiness like everyone around them. I'm thinking specifically of Seymour Cassel as Max's father and Ari and Uzi in Tenenbaums. Through them I find it easier to access some of the primary characters; Max's barber shop scenes with his father are really poignant, and the brief exchange between the kids and Gwyneth Paltrow's character in the cemetery is a lovely grace note. Most of the scenes with the kids really work, and they also make Stiller's character work better than it should. It's always him that gets me choked up at the end, when he says, "I've had a rough year, Dad." Anyway, Zissou is a great-looking film, and it has some great moments, but tonally it's erratic, and there isn't a particular character who serves that function for me. Klaus comes closest, probably, and Defoe's performance almost rises out of caricature, but not quite. Cate Blanchett's character might have done it, but there again her emotional reflexes seem magnified and erratic. Ned/Kingsley isn't real enough; he's too much symbol, not enough person. What it comes down to is that--and this may make me a lazy viewer in some ways, but it's true--Steve is too much of an asshole for me to connect with without a way in, and I haven't found it, yet.
**Which does sort of point to one problem with the flick; there's not a lot for the girls to do in it except get rescued and (in the case of Mrs. Johnson) handle the reception area. If they ever get that TV series greenlit, they'll have to do better with the female roles. And good lord why hasn't anyone made this yet?!? If they can get Heroes and Torchwood off the ground, there's no reason not to make it. But it must be set in the eighties, so as to preserve the fashion madness of it.
Twice. (I watched the end credits four times. I want that music to play every time I walk anywhere, ever.)
Really, there is no greater movie than this. There are better movies, but not greater ones. John Lithgow gives the performance of his (largely underwhelming) career. Clancy Brown gets his chance to shine as a good guy. Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya and Vincent Schiavelli are a pitch-perfect blend of alien menace and silliness. And I'm sorry, but Ellen Barkin has never been sexier.** It's not just the short hair (although that doesn't hurt). Carl Lumbly and his crazy fingers. Matt Clark's venal Secretary of Defense. Bad eighties guitar solos! Bad eighties hair! Awesome eighties fashions! (Project: Runway oughta do an episode based completely on designing suits for Perfect Tommy. Or, alternately, belts for Reno. The man wears two in every scene, didja ever notice?) Jeff Goldblum: the man is mesmerizing and hilarious. There's a scene where he's delivering some of the whacked-out dialog and you can see Lewis Smith nearly lose it.
Indeed, the primary reason this movie wins is the dialog. This calls for a poll:
[Poll #1156180]
If, by some sad quirk of fate, you have not yet seen this film, consider this your exhortation to witness the awesome. Now I give you footnotes.
*Note to Barb: I liked it better this time, partly for reasons above; but I'm still not connecting to it or to The Darjeeling Limited like I do the first three films. In part I think my issues are class issues, although that's more true of Limited than of Zissou. I think a larger issue may be the one of context. In part it's a geographical context, since in those most recent films there's no familiar American background to set the characters against. But it's also an emotional context, because Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums have secondary/peripheral characters whose emotional reflexes seem to be intact and not numbed or overlain with quirkiness like everyone around them. I'm thinking specifically of Seymour Cassel as Max's father and Ari and Uzi in Tenenbaums. Through them I find it easier to access some of the primary characters; Max's barber shop scenes with his father are really poignant, and the brief exchange between the kids and Gwyneth Paltrow's character in the cemetery is a lovely grace note. Most of the scenes with the kids really work, and they also make Stiller's character work better than it should. It's always him that gets me choked up at the end, when he says, "I've had a rough year, Dad." Anyway, Zissou is a great-looking film, and it has some great moments, but tonally it's erratic, and there isn't a particular character who serves that function for me. Klaus comes closest, probably, and Defoe's performance almost rises out of caricature, but not quite. Cate Blanchett's character might have done it, but there again her emotional reflexes seem magnified and erratic. Ned/Kingsley isn't real enough; he's too much symbol, not enough person. What it comes down to is that--and this may make me a lazy viewer in some ways, but it's true--Steve is too much of an asshole for me to connect with without a way in, and I haven't found it, yet.
**Which does sort of point to one problem with the flick; there's not a lot for the girls to do in it except get rescued and (in the case of Mrs. Johnson) handle the reception area. If they ever get that TV series greenlit, they'll have to do better with the female roles. And good lord why hasn't anyone made this yet?!? If they can get Heroes and Torchwood off the ground, there's no reason not to make it. But it must be set in the eighties, so as to preserve the fashion madness of it.