Wes "Crazy" Anderson

Wes Anderson is awesome! Anderson gives his characters crazy personalities. These personalities are mild enough that the characters in his movies could remind people of their friends. (I wonder if they remind my friends of me). The characters in his movies are not too crazy to live and function in the real world. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is an amazing example of the insanity of Anderson’s stories and characters. The Life Aquatic is a movie about marine biologists who are trying to get revenge on a shark. (I know it is nuts). The team in that movie works very strangely. Everyone gets a Glock, but the interns share one among each other. There is also a guy from the banking company who is just referred to as “the stooge”. The Bill Murray character is so casual about everything. If you click here you can see review that summarizes the characters and the craziness of the movie. The Life Aquatic has a cartoon like visual style. When they show the shark, it is all done by cartoon animation. The computers and other high tech gear they have comes from the 1980’s.
If I show this to the next generation of people, they might think this movie was from the 1980’s or early 90’s because I saw no sign of any technology from the 2000’s. None of the animation looks any more sophisticated than the animation in the Simpsons. This style helps make the crazy ship crew feel more acceptable in the world created by the film.
After seeing The Life Aquatic, I have come to the conclusion that, Akira Kurosawa is to Toshio Mifune as Wes Anderson is to Owen Wilson. Owen Wilson is in most of Wes Anderson’s movies. In Bottle rocket, Owen Wilson played the main crazy character that wanted to do something illegal. Rushmore was also a bizarre movie. Max Fisher was the main character and he wrote the most disturbing plays and people loved them. Owen Wilson was not in Rushmore, but he should have been. It is hard to describe Anderson’s style, but Klobs said it best. There are lines like, “That’s Applejack! Come on!” (Bottle rocket) that are really funny when you know the context. Anderson’s movies are even better on a second viewing just to take in how crazy it is. Crazy is the best word to describe Anderson’s style.