DISQUS

Peter Jenks · 4 years ago

This is an utterly thoughtless review. It betrays more than anything else that Americans have come to expect only entertainment and cheap thrills from movies. Anderson's movie is actually probably his best movie, and that because it discusses the same themes he has always written about: facing your past, the death of a dream, fathers and sons, and estranged love. He understates the most moving parts of the movie, because he respects the intelligence of his audience. Most of the "slapstick moments" are included to signify the decay of something that was once great.

chris · 4 years ago

You make it sound like these elements were actually present in the film. The emperor has no clothes. I don't even see how you can take the film seriously. These characters are complete cartoons and charicatures. Yet you chalk it up to Anderson's respect and restraint. Facing your past? How is this depicted? By the fact, he begins to actually give a shit for his bastard son? Bravo to Steve Zissou for betraying one iota of human emotion. I don't expect cheap thrills, I expect art with humility and pretension that can stand on substance.

Will · 4 years ago

Nobody cares about your wants, Chris. The empty talk you call arguments leave you standing in absudly shallow water. "We grasp at everything but clasp at nothing but wind" (Montaigne). I personally can't fathom just how many points of purely abstract ignorance you've presented before us. Not that I am about to glorify the film, by any silly standards of good or bad, to attempt to correct you; I would simply enjoy a bit less triviality. What is this? You want art with humility? substance? What simulacra of a world do you live in pizza man? If the world of Steve zissou is not up to par with your standards of "humility" or "substance", then maybe you should keep your hand out of your pants from now on. Capice?
Whats your definition of art anyways?

chris · 4 years ago

My Canadian friend, I wrote this a long time ago. I don't even remember what I disliked about this movie, which is, to my mind, a testament to its flatness. I do remember clearly that it was a disappointing film from someone whose work I have appreciated in the past. In terms of appreciation, The Life Aquatic can only be properly appreciated for its soporific qualities. It is utterly juvenile in the most vapid and pretentious way, and even too 2-dimensional to hold one's attention. Pretty, yes. Good, most definitely not.