I think it's fine to anticipate Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom

so do i!

willis h8rs gtfo

mainly, initially I found the idea of Bruce Willis in a Wes Anderson film incongruous, but then I remembered the affected quality of Hudson Hawk, one of its strengths, such as they are, and I thought to myself "this will probably work out really well."

Willis is almost always great when it crops up in stuff like "Fast Food Nation" or "Pulp Fiction" or "Nobody's Fool" or as himself in "Oceans 12" or even in unconventional (for him) leading roles like "12 Monkeys" or "Sixth Sense" or even "Fifth Element."

"12 Monkeys" or "Sixth Sense" or even "Fifth Element."

Apart from the Die Hards, these are my favorite things Bruce Willis has done (and I could conceivably add "Moonrise Kingdom" to the list).

Also, he was pretty good in "Unbreakable" too, but that movie had huge issues.

yeah on both points

man i need to watch nobody's fool again. i also need to not always hear that kenny loggins song in my head whenever i hear the phrase 'nobody's fool'.

Finally saw this. Hard to sum up my feelings in a couple of sentences, which I guess is a good thing. It has not replaced Rushmore as my favourite Wes Anderson film; obviously they have a lot in common, but Rushmore drew me in and really affected me emotionally, Moonrise Kingdom I looked at with interest. The boy is basically Dirk from Rushmore, and later on in life he was my boss for a couple of years in the late '80s. The performances are fine--I thought both Willis and Norton were surprisingly subdued. The symmetrical compositions fell somewhere between wearing and distracting before long. The whole time I wondered what universe I was in, but I realize many people feel the same about Rushmore. In spite of these and other misgivings, I was moved by the ending. I missed the way pop music was used in Rushmore and Tenenbaums. I'm not sure if I should quit while I'm ahead or wait a bit and see it a second time.

A couple of additional thoughts after skimming comments above. I was never a camper when I was young--once or twice--and I think I would connect more with the film if I had been. One image I liked a lot was the medium-long shot of the canoes fleeing with Sam and Suzy; the riverboat escape in The Night of the Hunter flashed across my mind. And I liked Sam's spastic dancing.

wait wtf bruce willis is a fantastic actor.

speaking of ... i just watched a film with a really early telly savalas appearance. he is already completely bald on top, but he has some hair around his ears. and he was smoking a cigar!

willis h8rs gtfo

Srsly.

I don't understand this at all.

he is by far the best thing about this movie

second only to the way Norton holds his cigarette six inches from his body.

GUYS WHAT ABOUT SCWARTZMAN? He was really funny!

he was!! he is my #1 wedding officiant of choice

:)

i don't think anyone was underused in this movie. it's an ensemble-cast thing done with star-power names, known entities or not.

i like how he made them spit out their gum

this movie actually made edward norton likeable!

there was the perfect amount of schwartzman in this one.

now see Schwartzman I will watch in pretty much anything. love that dude.

movie maybe could have used tilda swinton a bit more? although her character was basically a gag.

i saw this and i liked it but something about it has really buried itself in my mind and i'm growing to like it more and more. the interactions between sam and suzy initially struck me as a bit off, but then really it makes perfect sense that these two slightly (or more than slightly) precocious and awkward children would build something through letters that would take a while to realise in real life. and... i dunno, even though it seems quite simple i feel like my thoughts on it are still germinating.

and ya i don't really agree with the underused thing wrt anyone, even beyond it being a big-name ensemble cast i think they're more all a supporting cast to the two kids.

this movie actually made edward norton likeable!
otm. seems like he took the owen wilson role of the film and made it his own

this was pretty good!

-loved how willis couldn't even change his accent if he tried really very hard

-this movie confirms that wes anderson is just max fischer directing the war movie at the end of rushmore. the bits of unreality, like the motorcycle all of a sudden in the tree, or the three of them hanging off the burnt church tower in a silhouette. the giant walkie talkies.
-suzy = margot from tenenbaums, wes has a thing for moody women who wear makeup that make their eyes look sunken (also loved how asymmetrical her face was & how that clashes with his framing)
-merdeyeux otm about the initial awkwardness between sam and suzy, it's how I imagine most people interact in their first meeting irl after carrying on an internet dating relationship
-maybe it's just cause FMF was the last wes I watched, but wes seems to shoot all his scenes perpindicular to the scene, facing it straight on - all his dolly work is straight horizontal, no slanted angles, feels kind of video-gamey. love the use of frequent cuts to convey action rather than elaborate panning and zooming. this is again why this film made me think of max in rushmore - feels like we're watching a stage play. also, noye's fludde etc. - plays within plays - hamlet's players - yadda yadda
-there was a lot of humor in this but the people at my theater were not laughing and that dampened my own laughter : (

movie maybe could have used tilda swinton a bit more? although her character was basically a gag.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, July 3, 2012 10:02 AM (6 hours ago)

yeah, i would have loved to see more of swinton as she's one of my favorite living actors, but the character would have had to be a good deal more developed to justify it. social services is a cartoon as written, and it's not like "ice queen" is new look for TS (the limits of control, narnia flicks).

She played the White Witch again.

yup

owen wilson was in this! wasn't he? i thought he was swinton's pilot.

Nope, this is the first Anderson with no Owen at all.

w/o bothering to check i think the other wilson bro was the pilot

i saw both darjeeling limited and moonrise at my local indie theater, both times drawing big crowds heavy on seniors, and both times the audience laughed appreciatively at, like, all the jokes. is this a thing? or is it just my own circumstantial experiences.

no, the old ones like to laugh

ime seniors love going to movies, can't understand why an adult would go see a movie about a spiderman, etc, leaving this as one of few options left. plus: racist? anyhow first time i saw rushmore we drove to atlanta when it was still limited release, crowd were all bottle rocket fans, huge huge laughs. when it opened wide in athens a few weeks later (big ad blitz also - i think it was an mtv film also?) crowd were not on that wavelength, crickets except for when max gets walloped wrestling (my friend and i were still dying laughing throughout, rushmore's a classic). w/ this crowd (old people, young people who dress like old people) were super generous, laughing at any and everything.

having checked that is not the other wilson bro as the pilot.

yeah there were tons of seniors at my showing. they didn't laugh at the right jokes.

i remember when i saw deconstructing harry there was a group of old ladies that were the only other ppl in the theater. 15 minutes in they bailed. i can remember catching a matinee of 40 year old virgin w/ a friend and there was a group of old ppl there and we thought 'i think they have the wrong idea about this film'. pakistani guy starts going on about butthole pleasures and theater clears out like someone yelled 'fire'.

My crowd on Sat morning was mostly seniors and they applauded when the end credits rolled.

I can see why this film would be a big hit with the seniors. look at these young people being so young! the old people proably went and danced a slow jig afterwards.

new demographic for wes anderson?

dudes, old people invented hazy nostalgia

also, it's set in 1965. that's their time!

if you were 18 then, you'd be 65 now

there's probably a site that screen captures all of andreson's tableaux's and interior decorator arrangements and exhaustively lists what each element in it is. right? some weirdo repugnant-to-whiney saddoe has already done it off a boot of moonrise kingdom, yeah?

norton was relaly good in this btw, pulled of the overgrown man-child vibe perfectly

Saw this today, enjoyed it pretty much start-to-finish, laughed a few times, admired Willis and Norton, thought all the kids were good and the two leads especially. Otoh, I didn't really ever feel like anything much was at stake, for the characters or for Anderson -- it felt like safe territory all the way around, storm and lightning strikes notwithstanding. But that's OK. I like the careful design of his fantasy worlds, the devotion and meticulousness are rewarding in themselves. (In a way he reminds me of Mark Hogancamp, each movie its own Marwencol.) Past a point it's not worth getting frustrated with him for not breaking out of his own head, because that's where he lives.

Also, yeah, Jason Schwartzman as a Boy Scout Milo Minderbinder was pretty sweet.

Saw this today, enjoyed it pretty much start-to-finish, laughed a few times, admired Willis and Norton, thought all the kids were good and the two leads especially. Otoh, I didn't really ever feel like anything much was at stake, for the characters or for Anderson -- it felt like safe territory all the way around, storm and lightning strikes notwithstanding. But that's OK. I like the careful design of his fantasy worlds, the devotion and meticulousness are rewarding in themselves. (In a way he reminds me of Mark Hogancamp, each movie its own Marwencol.) Past a point it's not worth getting frustrated with him for not breaking out of his own head, because that's where he lives.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, July 4, 2012 5:11 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

marwencol's an interesting comparison! i was taking to my friend about this and we decided rigidity/stuffiness is what turns us off about WA - i dont think its revealingly stuffy a la ozu, its just like comfort-zone stuffy and he doesn't want to go outside of that. i think it would be less vexing if his first couple of films didnt feel a little more grounded or whatever

there's probably a site that screen captures all of andreson's tableaux's and interior decorator arrangements and exhaustively lists what each element in it is. right? some weirdo repugnant-to-whiney saddoe has already done it off a boot of moonrise kingdom, yeah?

― now all my posts got ship in it (dayo), Wednesday, July 4, 2012 1:14 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would bookmark such a site.