Wes Anderson: Graded

1. Rushmore: A+
2. Bottle Rocket: A-
3. Royal Tenenbaums: B
4. Life Aquatic: D

Rushmore is one of my all-time favorites and IMO (I'm using blogger shorthand- I've arrived!) a perfect movie. Great story, great characters, great moments... Pure genius. Bottle Rocket was his first movie and I also thought it was very good. It doesn't have the aesthetic of his last three, but the oddly inspiring characters are there in full force.

Which brings me to my problems with his last 2 movies. I read an interview with him before "Royal Tenenbaums" and he said one of his main movie-making goals was to show people with unrelenting passion. It didn't matter quite what direction or how weirdly they went about it, but he wanted his characters driven. He did this masterfully in his first 2 movies and then it began to change. In "Tenenbaums", every character other than Gene Hackman was defined as past their primes. And, again, in "Life Aquatic", Bill Murray is trying to capture his old glory again. Why not show us when they were inspired people? It's as if when Wes Anderson finally made it, he lost some of his passion and it is playing out in his movies.

Another thing that bothers me about his last 2 movies is he has gotten more obsessed with how it looks than writing a good story. "Tenenbaums" has a decent (but not great) story, while "Life Aquatic's" is a rambling boring mess. But a guy is singing David Bowie in Brazilian! And every taxi-cab in New York is retro! And look at the red velour! And... Who cares? The aesthetic should add to the story (as he does so brilliantly in "Rushmore"), not be randomly added to show how quirky and kitschy he can be.

Downtownericbrown once said, "It's as if Wes Anderson has gotten lost in metaphor.' I'm not exactly sure what he meant by it, but it sounded profound. Come down from your indie-chic cloud Wes, we need you!!!