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Moriarty’s Movie Marathon! Matinees Of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and THE DARJEELING LIMITED!
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here.
Even on days where I don’t have a press screening scheduled, I try to sneak off to see a film in the theater. Two recent movies that I saw with paying audiences were both films I was intensely curious about. And both were films that had been met with fairly divisive reactions.
And I’ll give you the short versions of the reviews right here up front...
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: Interesting mess.
THE DARJEELING LIMITED: Sweet soulful little comedy.
.. so you only have to read the rest of this if you really care.
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
I’ll give Julie Taymor this much: she aims high.
I’m sure this was greenlit as “MOULIN ROUGE using all Beatles music from the director of THE LION KING.” And, y’know what? That’s exactly what it is. There’s not a single surprise in the film. It’s big and broad and trippy in a safe mainstream way, and it makes fairly potent use of music that has a built-in emotional meaning to several generations of people. It’s very plastic. It’s a shameless rip of HAIR. It’s obvious and on-the-nose in many places.
Yet weeks after seeing it, I still find myself thinking about some of what it does right. It’s not a “good” movie in the sense that it holds together or coherently accomplishes its goals, but it certainly has an aggressive desire to entertain and astonish. It’s busy, but it’s never Baz Luhrmann-style frantic. The leads are both squeaky clean, even when they’re scruffy, and their Noxema-perfect take on the ‘60s is sweet in a very silly way. In fact, that’s sort of true of the entire movie. It’s a theme park ride through an idealized version of an era that was romanticized even as it was happening. It’s pretty much the exact same creative impulse as Cirque Du Soleil’s LOVE, and it’s pretty much the exact same sort of surface razzle-dazzle.
If that sounds awful to you, the movie’s not going to change your mind. I went to see the movie on a Sunday afternoon at the Northridge Pacific Stadium 10, and it was about 2/3 full. It was the fabled four-quadrant audience, too. Old and young alike. And as the movie unfolded, they actually applauded in at least two places. I couldn’t tell you what it was that made them do so, except that Taymor’s gift is her ability to build a musical number. She knows how to start small and then build and build and build. She doesn’t really know how to sustain that feeling over the length of a full feature film, though, so it’s like it just does the same sort of thing over and over, and it’s vaguely exhausting. The movie seems to spin its wheels for a while in the middle, and there are some digressions that really don’t go anywhere, like everything involving Bono and Eddie Izzard. And the ending is shameless in the way it’s staged. Shaaaaaaameless. You almost have to admire someone who can go for it with that sort of abandon.
Speaking of shameless, I think it’s time I fess up to my godawful crush on Evan Rachel Wood. She’s a creamy cheerleader dream at the start of the film, and then she gradually becomes a political activist, the cutest li’l political activist you ever did see. She furrows her brow and cries her sky-blue eyes out, and there’s a lot of slow-motion involving her, and as a performance, it’s not much. That’s the way the film’s designed, though, so it’s not her fault.
The actors who make the strongest impression are Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther as Sadie and JoJo. They’re adults compared to the rest of the cast, and that difference in life experience gives some actual soul to the way they perform their songs, and their understated love story plays as a nice contrast to the overheated young love that drives the movie. I also found the work of the adorable T.V. Carpio to be oddly touching. Her search for sexual identity is played down to the point of confusing some viewers (check out Roger Ebert’s review), but she hits some lovely grace notes as she suffers her various unrequited lesbian crushes. What I haven’t really seen anyone comment about in discussing the film’s perspective on The Beatles is that screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais were there at ground zero when the Beatles exploded. They lived through it, professionally and culturally.
And there is something groovy about the way the world of the film is established as a place where the Beatles don’t exist, but where they seem to have been diffused into the very fabric of the... well... the universe. They are the fabric of space and time, and that’s why their lyrics end up in the mouths of the characters, and that’s why the names are the way they are, and that’s why the Beatles songs have the power they do in the lives of the people onscreen. Clement and La Frenais were working in English TV when the Beatles exploded, and they must have seen the way the band’s insane level of sudden influence in pop culture changed the landscape. This script is an expression of that, and as such, it may not work completely, but it’s certainly a sincere attempt at saying something about the band and not just leaching off of the enduring power of their music.
THE DARJEELING LIMITED
Sometimes, the critical community is just waiting to pile onto someone, and the film they release has little or nothing to do with the way people react to it. In this case, Wes Anderson’s been brewing this big wave of discontent among certain audiences for a while now, and it finally crashed into him. Sadly, it happened on a film that is, for the most part, solidly built, well-acted, and heartfelt, and it’s a shame that everyone rushed to dismiss the movie for having certain signatures of the filmmaker in place. When we start attacking our filmmakers for developing a particular voice, something seems wrong.
After all, that’s one of the hardest things for any artist to do... establish a voice that is theirs. So much art has been created, and so many choices are put in front of the consumer every year, that it seems to me that someone who creates an instantly recognizable aesthetic that is their own, and who sticks to that aesthetic while telling these sweet, devastating little family portraits, is someone whose work we should regard seriously.
Wes Anderson is obviously a filmmaker of skill and precision. And I don’t buy the argument that his style suffocates the life out of his films, or that his style is precious. I don’t buy the argument that there’s something wrong with his style. I think his work with cinematographer Robert Yeoman and production designer Mark Friedberg is as sharp as always.
And, more importantly, I really like the script that Anderson co-wrote with Roman Coppola (CQ) and Jason Schwartzman. I think it’s sweet and eccentric and well-observed, and Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Schwartzman make a really appealing trio of overgrown broken boys, running from daddy’s memory, trying to find mommy. It’s very basic family stuff, very straightforward. It certainly doesn’t redefine the territory that Anderson writes about. But his gift as a filmmaker is creating these particular worlds that reflect the characters that are at the center of them. I think one of the reasons people didn’t like THE LIFE AQUATIC (which I’m quite fond of) is because they didn’t “like” Murray’s character. The whole world is centered around this guy who I’m guessing they didn’t like. In a way, I get it. Anderson’s not afraid to have an unlikable lead. He’s not afraid to let his characters be weak.
And in THE DARJEELING LIMITED, they certainly are. Francis (Wilson), Peter (Brody) and Jack (Schwartzman) are all different, but equally dysfunctional. Francis is a study in how to be a success as a a professional person and a complete disaster as a private person. He’s controlling, pushy, opinionated, passive-aggressive. He’s obviously got money, resources, and he can focus in certain ways. But when he shows up with his head bandaged elaborately, something’s deeply wrong. There’s no question about it. Peter’s the same way... he looks fine on the outside, like a productive member of society. But he’s a walking museum, carrying around all these fetishized items that belonged to his father. Their father. And he’s running from the impending birth of his child. Actually hiding from it. Abandoning his wife in the final days and hours of pregnancy so he can ride a train into India without knowing where he’s going. Jack’s a degenerate womanizer, habitually moving from empty encounter to empty encounter because the relationship he really wants to be in is the same relationship he fled the country to avoid. The structure of the film is deceptively simple. The three brothers get together for not-entirely-clear purposes and ride a train across India. And in the process, they don’t do as much healing and growing as one might expect. I like that Anderson’s characters get better by degrees and not with sudden blinding epiphanies. I find the sort of microscopic character growth he loves so much to be more honest, more genuinely moving in the end.
I also tend to forget from film to film that Wes Anderson is frequently fall-down funny. And maybe it’s a very specific taste, but it works for me. I love the obsession with Indian over-the-counter medications in the film. I love the brilliant opening scene with Bill Murray. I love the relationship that Jack develops with Rita, played so perfectly by Amara Karan. I love Jack’s constant assertations that his clearly biographical “fiction” is completely made up and has nothing to do with real life. And I dearly love what happens when we finally meet their mother and realize just where each of the personality traits we’ve seen so clearly defined in the boys came from. Here’s why I don’t buy it when people say that Anderson’s film are growing increasingly antiseptic and cut off from people... his observational skills about the little things that make us who we are... they’re as sharp now as they ever have been. He writes character with the precision of a novelist, and that’s how his films strike me every time out. They are both dense with detail and completely happy with being oblique and suggestive. Anderson’s not afraid to suggest something and leave it for you to fill in the details. He’s perfectly happy to allow you, the viewer, room to have your own reactions to things.
I’m glad Anderson has stuck to his guns and that he knows exactly what he wants to do as a filmmaker. If he ever chooses to shake up his aesthetic, I hope he only does it for his own reasons, on his own terms. Until then, I’m perfectly happy to visit his world every few years, and as long as he and his collaborators continue to create such moving, human stories, I’m onboard wherever this train is headed.
I’ll have another double-feature review later tonight, along with my look at one of the best films playing in limited release right now, a grand new statement from one of the oldest masters we have working at the moment.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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When AICN covers movies that were released two months ago there's really no point in reading, is there?
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Especially Darjeeling.
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Thanks Mori.
I could not agree more.
your "getting better by degrees not epiphanies" is dead on, and realistic.
Wes Anderson is still at the top of his game.
great movie. -
Nov 04, 2007 5:05:18 PM CST
LIFE AQUATIC tries too hard to have tragic emotional punch
by george newman
As a huge huge Huge HUGE fan of Anderson's, my frustration with The Life Aquatic is the overly tragic stuff. The film is mostly silly and very surreal, but then that is all undercut with ***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER*** the death at the end. It is very unsatisfying. It is even upsetting, not because the film moves you, but because Anderson made the wrong choice in killing the character.
What if at the end of THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS, Chas's boys are run over and killed by the car, too? That would be a wrong decision, and I think that That is the unfortunate choice Anderson made with Life Aquatic. It is too much; it doesn't work. -
i love the opening of Darjeeling,
Bill Muray missing the train (sort of a passing of the tourch) BUT my favorite of Wes is Life Aquatic. -
and he's a 'lukewarm' Beatles fan. That's good enough for me.
Wes Anderson isn't as great as he used to be but DARJEELING, I'm sure, will be at least OK, even if only because of the 'stolen' soundtrack' which I know so much about. Looking forward to that on DVD. -
where all the animosity towards Anderson's films come from either.
How could movies so genuine and sincere cause such negativity? -
hopefully people go check it out.
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Nov 04, 2007 5:36:32 PM CST
I"VE SEEEEN ACROOOOOSSSS THE UNIVERRRRRSEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by lashlarue
AND IT IS AWESOME IN IMAX 3D! YOU CAN FEEL THE BEATLES SONGS COMING OUT AT YOU!!!!!!!!!
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My hero.
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Nov 04, 2007 5:57:35 PM CST
Seen Rachel Evan Wood in Manson's "heart shaped glasses" vid?
by pound sand
The one with the sexualized knife-play, bedroom scene with geysers of blood raining from the ceiling, and a graphic sex scene with Brian Warner Manson? It's on the manson website (I think his music is horribly dull btw) and you will be shortly disabused of your crush, Mori.
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Hey Mori. I didn't like Life Aquatic and it wasn't because I found Zissou unlikable. I didn't like it because I felt that, unlike his prior work, Life Aquatic was more concerned with technique and humor than characters. I felt that Zissou was poorly-developed individually and the character relationships were underdeveloped generally. I felt like the story was just underwhelming overall. Add to that the fact that it kind of went all over the place... I mean, he tends to keep the action in multiple locations anyway, but here it felt very random. Events unfolded with little discernible motivation. I still want to see Darjeeling as it looks promising and Schwartzman co-wrote. I think part of the reason Life Aquatic suffers is because Anderson and Noah Baumbach are slight writers. I think having an actor's influence on how the characters are written helps Anderson a lot. Owen Wilson is probably a large part of why I like Anderson's prior work.
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I found the film inept in almost every way, save for Dana Fuchs excellent performance. And, of course, Taymor must always find a way to get those damn "kite-puppet-things" SOMEWHERE into every project. She was unhappy with the final cut, I understand - wonder what her edit would have felt like.
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Across The Universe. There were moments of sheer brilliance and moments were I wanted to wealk out of the theater for what they were doing to The Beatles. "Hey, how did she get in here?". A character replies, "She came in through the bathroom window." Uhhhhhggg. And that's not the only bit in there. Those writers should be put out of their misery.
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That's right, her first name is Evan. Hot. I met her back in '04 when she was promoting "The Upside of Anger," and while she could have changed a great deal since then (the whole Marilyn Manson thing is definitely odd for a 19-year-old), she was a sweet girl then.
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the movie was fantastic
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Most episodes of Lost feel like Lost, but that doesn't make them progressively worse.
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Would be beyond amazing if they cast her; check out her spread in Nylon Magazine last month for proof!
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I particularly hated the fake fish. So many times it felt like Anderson filmed scenes where characters were supposed to be looking at something magical, while something magical just didn't make it to the screen. The characters were a bit thin, and the death at the end just felt tacked on for no reason. Darjeeling stands out as way better than Life Aquatic, at least to me. I can understand people wanting to see something completely different from a director, just to see what else they're capable of, but that doesn't mean that similar works shouldn't be judged on their own individual merit.
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Wrong (http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/004953.html) and wrong (http://www.ghostinthemachine.net/004976.html). At least IMHO.
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Nov 04, 2007 7:42:31 PM CST
Darjeeling Limited is one of the best films of the year
by industrykiller!
Its really just an amazing little film and Mori absolutely nails it with this review. You can personally not like his style but its completely irresponsible for any lover of film to disregard him as a filmmaker, I think he is easily one of the best we have.
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...it's that the same voice is repeating the same thing. Don't get me wrong; I like Darjeeling Limited. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again, but it's o.k. It's just that this fractured family theme has been done by Anderson in his two previous films, and in my opinion it was done better in both cases - infinitely better in the case of Tenenbaums in terms of characterization and creating a convincing family dynamic. I'd like to see Anderson do something different next time. The same voice is fine, but a different tale would be great.
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One of the best times I've had in a theater, and also one of the few times I laughed out loud. It's probably Anderson's most immediately funny film. The film was so effortlessly enjoyable I almost thought it was too easy, but instead I realize it's just Anderson perfecting his craft. Easily one of my favorite directors. I also think the theme of family has so many permutations that you could spend a lifetime examining it and never get to the bottom.
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and yes I "got it," anderson cultists.
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Since we're on the topic. Mori how long do you personally think the strike will last? I live in LA but I'm not in the guild so I don't know a whole lot about how bad it is other than I'm hearing pretty bad. What are your thoughts on the whole thing?
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Nov 04, 2007 10:14:38 PM CST
The trouble with "incremental improvement" in asshole charactres
by nodiggity
... that by the end of the movie they are still assholes. Which makes the whole movie an apology for assholeism, in the sense that "Hey, they incrementally improved, give them a gold star". People who like movies like this have yet to truly improve, in the sense that they realize "Hey, I'm an asshole, and that's just not cool, and if I want to be deserving of love I gotta frigging stop it".
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Lennon estate/McCarthy still own 50% of the rights since they're the songwriters of record (excluding Harrison/Starr/etc songs, obviously). Michael Jackson purchased the publishing rights for the songs, however, he merged it with Sony in an equal share, so MJ gets roughly 25% of the proceeds from Beatles songs.
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http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp (remove spaces)
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Nov 04, 2007 11:04:18 PM CST
haha, wes anderson is a much better director than the cohen brot
by winterchili
they would probably agree
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I have to say, I had a similar reaction to Moriarty when I saw Across The Universe (oddly enough in the same theater). There were parts that I thought were great and then other points I thought it was off track. And I also walked away with it still rattling around in my brain. Pretty quickly I realized I would end up seeing it again. And when I did I realized that it is a film that works better on second viewing. I think the first time out I was concerned about where it would go, the fact that it did present a cleaned up version of the 60s... At points it would seem one plot was revving up and then it would shift to another plot... What I said at the start sums it up: I kept getting thrown wondering where they were going with it. Second time out, you know where they are and aren't going and for some reason that fact made it a much more enjoyable experience. I could just go for the ride I knew I was in for and appreciate it for what it was. I even realized some of the things I thought were flaws really weren't as big as I thought. First time out I was annoyed that the character of Prudence's plot was really about her being gay only they seem to me to play it safe. It seemed to me they tried to play safe with the plot so as not to offend middle America. Watching again I realized that plot wasn't just about Prudence being gay but about her trying to come to terms with that and eal with it. So it's handle the way it is because SHE isn't even ready to say it out loud.
I have to say I even liked most of the so-so stuff in the film even. The only part I really wish they left out was in Strawberry Fields Forever. I like that they gave the song a different interpretation than I expected, going dark with it, with strawberry imagery where the strawberries stood in for broken hearts, broken soliders, blood. All good for me. EXCEPT when they had the imagery of strawberries as bombs falling from planes with crappy animated trails of flames behind them. Yikes! It was especially bead because I was digging and buying into that piece and then that bad bomb image just showed up and threw me so far out of the film I can't even say. Made me mad actually. Even on second viewing that one still pissed me off. -
They were boring and uninteresting much like all the plot digressions and didnt act anything like real human beings. The whole movie is an exhausting sojourn into being cute for no other reason than being cute. What a terrible dull awful film.
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I too liked Darjeeling quite a bit. The stuff with the Indian OTC medicinals was priceless. You're right on-target.
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And while Anderson's films all tend to explore the dynamics within families or relationships, the dynamic isn't the same in every movie. I felt like as the brothers in Darjeerling went through a journey of healing amongst each other in the movie, the audience came out a little richer for it as well. It was well done. My only problem was the cross promotion of I-pod with the Hotel Chevalier short, because I still haven't been able to watch it since I don't have an Apple I-pod subscription, and I saw the movie before they attached the short to the film. I loved Life Aquatic the first time I watched it, but I find it a bit tedious on repeat viewing. But I thought it was a great examination of a man who neglects his life and family because of his obsession with a shark, and even after rediscovering his son and getting a second chance, he loses him to this obsession as well. I love how Bill Murray starts crying when they find the shark as says, "I wonder if he remembers me." Its a great movie.
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I would prefer to watch a video log burning in a virtual fireplace for 4 hours on a loop than see either of these films..way to review movies that the core audience of this site could give to shits about Wide Load.
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A new flick by all three....well, not only are we spoiled this season but it seems they all deliver as well. Darjeeling is beautiful, no country is brutal, and I cant wait for there will be blood. Forget saw 43 and southland shit....real directors, real films that will last...finally!
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The death in Life Aquatic still hurts deeply. You hope he is fine as he floats and mumbles, then Wes drips blood directly on the camera...In Tenenbaums, the suicide attempt just kills. Royal's exit, equally so...Rushmore's betrayal, while hilarious, is brutal and destructive to everyone..I eagerly look forward to Darjeeling.
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darjeeling better be great.
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called the ends of the earth.I thought it said the end of the earth, and when they said 'a very special report' I started freaking out for a second.
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what are you, some kind of celebrity? haha just kidding. Life Aquatic and Darjeeling were both fantastic
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I understand Mori's arguement that Anderson is punished for being distinct, but I'm sure Mori can think of several times when a trend or an artist repeats themself too much and you just lose interest in seeing the same thing again. The more distinct, the quicker you get sick of them because you can spot their signatures so quickly. And I guess each artist has different shelf life for each viewer.
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Great review, Mori...spot on! Wes Anderson really does beautifully flesh out his characters; moreso than almost any other director. And his quirky sense of humor might not be for everyone, but damnit I love it and love Darjeeling!
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No such dreams should go unfulfilled.
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I can completely understand the cool reception Darjeeling received. I was more turned off by Aquatic than Darjeeling though, because that film was such a rehash of the themes in Royal T's that I couldn't stomach much of it. It also made me so sick of the sweet cherry-on-top endings that Anderson always has to have. He is a bit like M. Knight now though, I keep saying that if his next movie doesn't show that he has some more range, I'm going to give up. But then I always see the next movie. Hmmm, interesting.
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I mean that's the point. There is no shame in it at all. You've got to go with it all the way until you're singing along in the theater like I did. (twice) :D That movie waves it's freak flag loud and proud and I think if you're happy to do the same, it's perfect for you. And I loved the Life Aquatic too, but Darjeeling isn't out by me yet. I'm just giving up on some big titles because I don't expect them to make it to me, or me to them. :(
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Years down the line I hope I can find your reviews of my favorite movies. Haven't seen darjeeling yet but your review was fantastic. You must be already cataloging these, but please carefully put them online. I love reading your words.
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