“…you know going in exactly what to expect, you sit for two hours and have a good time, then you leave the theater and go about the rest of your day. And that’s that.”
Yup. Oftentimes that’s good enough for me. The expectation or familiarity factor- the same way I approach watching Ozu, Antonioni or Malick. It may sound sacreligious to many, but some of those films are driven by visuals (even static setups like Ozu’s) that narrative and character development could simply take a back seat..
I like the ‘look’ of Wes Anderson’s movies, especially his composition and use of color. It may sound daft but I’ve watched most of his work just for that reason alone. Just saw the trailer for Moonrise and thought it has a dreamlike quality, like the whole thing was shot on a summer afternoon.
People love to throw Wes Anderson under the “hip and cute” bus, and while that critique isn’t wholly unwarranted, for my money if you can’t tell the difference between a Wes Anderson film… and Zach Braff’s “Garbage State”, or (500) days of trash, I don’t know what to tell you.
Cinesthesia summed it up very nicely on page 1. Having recently watched the criterion blu-ray I will also attest that Rushmore is in fact, the real deal.
Wes Anderson did “Five Favorites” on Rotten Tomatoes. No Harold & Maude? No French New Wave?:
Wow…Rosemary’s Baby…..what if Wes did a horror flick….THAT could be INTERESTING.
Drew.
I would say that the story is much tighter because its thematically tighter. While it does have its fair share of subplots they all feel as if they’re means to the same end.
In my eyes this film is very Wes Anderson-y, but here he has used his powers wholly for good. The normal complaints I usually ignore but empathize with are completely absent here. It’s just a really great film made in the usual Anderson style.