Life Aquatic

The blog's been dark for the past couple of weeks, in part due to travel and in part because I've been covering for El Lefty Malo in my spare moments. But I'm back -- I've been enjoying a little lull between the holidays, and I made it to the cinema today.

I'm not an expert on the films of Wes Anderson -- I haven't even seen Rushmore, for chrissakes -- but I was interested enough in Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou to spend this afternoon at the Vogue Theater in Laurel Heights. What I saw was often hilarious and consistently interesting, if a little short of genuinely moving.

There are a lot of memorable laughs in the film, including a ship named the Belafonte for Zissou's faux Cousteau, an amusing Portuguese interpreter of David Bowie's songs, and an island town known as "Port-au-Patois." Bill Murray is very, very smartly cast in the lead role -- who would've guessed that the star of Meatballs would emerge as the perfect pathetic old man? -- and the long shots of people walking from room to room through the half-open, stage-like ship set are really, really cool.

Still, it was hard not to think of Ben Stiller's fire drill when an action sequence in Life Aquatic was accompanied by a drum solo. It's hard to say when a "signature" style turns into a cliche, and Anderson could be nearing that line. Also, this does makes two films in a row about failing to connect with your father because he's a pathetic old man, or something like that anyway. The action sequence in the abandoned hotel was just too ridiculous to be genuinely intense, while some other rapid-fire events occur a little too quickly to evoke the pathos they seem to be trying to evoke. I suspect I'd get more out of Life Aquatic by seeing it a second time, but on first viewing the highs and lows just weren't quite engaging enough for me to really feel for Zissou or his mates. Plus I was never that into Bowie anyway.