Sunday, December 12, 2004

Happy To Be Alive

That's the feeling I get when I see a Wes Anderson movie. It never fails.

I went to NYC on Friday to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I was highly impressed. Wes just keeps topping himself. How he can dream up these scenarios and characters is beyond me. And to be able to get the great Bill Murray to play these incredible roles is probably leaving a lot of other directors a little bit jealous.

I'm not gonna get into the details of the story itself, esepecially since this movie doesn't open nationwide until Christmas. But I'll just say that if you liked the other Anderson movies, I don't see how you can't like this one. It's got plenty of Wes' trademarks-- two dudes in love with one woman, attempted uniformity among wildly different personalities, unorthodox sets, awesome soundtrack, and score by Mark Mothersbaugh. The soundtrack consists of mostly David Bowie tunes, with an odd but beautiful twist on many of them, done in a way that connects the audience with the movie, thanks to a guy named Seo Jorge. And Mothersbaugh, who's been making amazing music in one way or another for decades, switched things up a little for this movie, going the Casio sounding route.

A newer Anderson technique is having a whole world of weirdly animated creatures throughout the film. These colorful animals are the work of Henry Selick.

There are a lot of funny characters. Willem DaFoe is great, so is Murray, Owen Wilson, and Bud Cort. Anjelica Huston, Cate Blanchett, and Jeff Goldblum added fine defense for Ridgefield Bank...whoops, I just slipped into one of my mom's old Little League write-ups, where she'd throw in every player's name, citing solid defense (meaning they played the mandatory three innings but didn't get a hit). But that's not to say those three actors weren't good.

I give this movie four Leskanics. And considering I was watching it from the third row, to the far right of the screen, looking straight up, that's pretty good. I can't wait to see this movie from a better angle.

I also saw Brian Regan the night before at Caroline's. An awesome comedian. Check into his work.

As promised, I will now update you on my two nights in NYC on the Red Sox fan count. Well, I didn't see any, but it was raining both nights, so hats and shirts were all covered up, plus the walking around time was limited to dashing from car to club/theater and back. (That's right, I bring my car into the city.) But I'm tellin' you, go on a clear weekend day, walk around for a while, and you'll see 'em all over the place.

I also finally saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It (borderline) blew my mind. But Charlie Kaufman usually does that to me. I'm mad at myself for forgetting to mention him in my recent post about movies.

Then I woke up early on Saturday, trying for the Sox Pack that includes Opening Day. Didn't get through. But for my renewed 10th Man Plan, I'm getting the second game of the opening series. So that'll be cool. Hey, if anyone wants to trade me Opening Day tix for my Wednesday tix, let me know. You know, if you'd rather go to a far-less desired game than the one you already have tickets to.

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