91–100 of 130 posts
He keeps pushing his actors to become more wooden and paper-doll like. At some point he may use real wooden puppets like the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds, which looks very Wes Andersonesque: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLiH4xrCITI
After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.
The one later exception I can think of, off the top of my head was Ralph Fiennes in Hotel Budapest. His character, and the actor himself in how he plays him, are just too zesty to stay wooden.
I miss Rushmore’s plain approach. Just enough quirk, sharp acting, and visuals that back the plot instead of hogging it. Newer Anderson films look like photo shoots: pretty, but the story drags. Same story dev teams hit when designers chase pixel-perfect screens and users still wait on real features.
Bottle Rocket fits that bill for me.
With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…
I think this is a feature of his artistic refinement through the years; he's the last true visual storyteller in Hollywood. Actors don't really matter, scripts don't really matter - it's a treat for the eyes alone. Something really was lost in the transition from silent to "talkies" where the focus became entirely on plot and dialogue. If you go back and watch those films now, the very best of them had almost no dialogue or title cards. I'd liken what he is doing to something like Joyce in literature, where it's not even about the words, but their semantic structures alone. It seems that all visionary artists end up going in this direction, see Picasso in his later years of total abstraction, or Schoenberg's final works that completely abandoned tonality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I miss Owen Wilson. He was going through some major depression and understandably pulled back from the industry. But he brought something very personable and authentic to comedy, and his absence has been palpable. Many other comedians of the era were too slapstick and over the top for me. I still can't watch a Will Ferrell comedy with any interest.
Owen Wilson has been a fascinating character with a unique yet consistent approach. Ferrell... Massive comedic turn off for me. He seems like the guy that jumps into a room, interrupts and yells out a joke out of context, then keeps repeating it louder and louder until some polite fake laughter occurs. I feel bad about being this negative about a fellow human being, but his comedic approach sets off a Bully vibe / re…
I miss Rushmore’s plain approach. Just enough quirk, sharp acting, and visuals that back the plot instead of hogging it. Newer Anderson films look like photo shoots: pretty, but the story drags. Same story dev teams hit when designers chase pixel-perfect screens and users still wait on real features.
This is because the older films were co-written with Owen Wilson. Once they stopped collaborating, Anderson's later films are unbalanced - they have the whimsical aesthetic, but are too sweet without the bitter piercing wit and clarity of Wilson's writing to make them less cloying (IMHO).
With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…
That being said, I actually think his style of late has its place. At least he is trying something different in a time when most movies are so derivative and bum-numbingly boring that I rarely bother seeing a movie in a movie-theater. There is a rarity of interesting outliers in mainstream film today.
Outliers are good. They are not wayward miscreants that must be herded back into mediocrity lest we have to think.
It isn't like I'm a snob who only watches art films. I used to watch almost everything that hit the big screen, and I'd enjoy the whole range from hard-to-grasp, arty farty stuff most people think is boring/demanding/ugly/confusing to blatantly commercial nonsense ... that was nonetheless entertaining and fun. (I'd make my proto-hipster friends cringe with my love of B-movies). I had to empty my wallet of ticket stubs regularly so it wouldn't burst the seams.
With Tenenbaums, Rushmore and maybe the Darjeeling Limited we had enough of the classic Anderson visual style for the films to have lovely atmosphere, but with the actors still being warm, lively and human enough to create real sympathy. After those, his own movies have almost become caricatures of an Anderson film and the characters have become so much like clockwork that they might as well be set pieces themselves.…
Why does it feel like any film churned out by Hollywood is just mindless banter in between sex and explosions...haven't seen a movie in theaters since well before covid because it's really not worth it, waste of time.
Perhaps you can share some examples of the films you are referring as "mindless banter in between sex and explosions". I'm not sure that description really fits most of the films coming out recently. If you said, "Dumb comic book films", I would maybe agree with you, but there isn't typically any sex in those so I assume you are not referring to them. Covid halted the production of a lot of movies, and changed how ot…