We saw two movies over the weekend: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and TCON: TLTWATW. The two were sort of inverse experiences. TLAWSZ was disjointed and disappointing -- will anything be as good as Rushmore and Bottle Rocket? And no Kumar Pallana? But the soundtrack was great, and Seu Jorge's album of Bowie covers immediately went to my wish list.
Narnia, on the other hand, was undermined by its soundtrack, which was overly "dramatic" and, frankly, sentimental. I kept wishing they'd turn it down and let the fine acting and effects speak for themselves.
More on Narnia (and SNL) in this BLIM with Chris:
. . . .
molanphy: Of course, you could have stayed in town and had a Christmas like this
ishbadiddle: pretty hilarious
ishbadiddle: that was darlene love!
molanphy: Yup!
molanphy: And after they ran the TV Funhouse bit on SNL, Love was in the studio live singing with the band. Sounded good
ishbadiddle: wait, is SNL funny now?
molanphy: That one night, yes, amazingly
* ishbadiddle looks for 4 horsemen, scarlet woman on beast, other signs of the eschaton
molanphy: I think Robert Smigel (TV Funhouse guy) must be bummed, because the "Christmastime for the Jews" bit is the best thing he's done in years, and it got completely overshadowed by "Lazy Sunday" (The Chronic) that same night
ishbadiddle: speaking of which we did see TLTWATW
molanphy: So did I, with my mother-in-law last week (Emily was busy)
molanphy: Pretty much confirmed my memory of the book: setup is great, final battle is great, middle is disjointed and hella mushy
ishbadiddle: i loved when the dive-bombing gryphons looked just like the dive-bombing luftwaffe in the beginning
molanphy: Good catch!
molanphy: I missed that
ishbadiddle: i thought it would have been better but the soundtrack really made it overly ... sentimental?
molanphy: Ehhhhh...yes. I was squirming all thru the middle. Esp. the St. Nicholas bit
ishbadiddle: ho ho ho
ishbadiddle: ~ swinton was great tho
molanphy: Word
molanphy: I also thought the Christian allegory wasn't as horribly on-the-nose as reputed...except in the Aslan-sacrifice sequence, but even there, if you don't know the full Jesus crucifixion story, you can safely ignore the parallels
ishbadiddle: and the "footprints" bit at the end
molanphy: Ah, that
So: Life Aquatic, 2.5 stars, Narnia, 3.5 stars.
| Narnia | Wes Anderson | BLIM |
As long as we're repurposing content, here's a thread I had going on my blog last January about The Life Aquatic, which also disappointed me a bit and whose soundtrack impressed me much as it did you.
Comment #1 :: link :: December 28, 2005 11:53 AM
