Continuing my assessment of the career of writer/director Wes Anderson, I’ve arrived at 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. This was Anderson’s first adaptation and his first animated film.
Coming on the heels of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, both of which received lukewarm critical receptions, Fantastic Mr. Fox was greeted as a comeback and return to form for the auteur. It boasts a Rotten Tomatoes score in the mid-90s and grossed $47 million.
The second track on Morrissey’s solo debut, 1987’s Viva Hate, ‘Little Man, What Now?’ takes its title from a 1932 German novel (later adapted into movies in both Germany and the United States). The song’s lyrics have nothing to do with the plot of the novel, however.
Instead, this short tune memorializes the career of a child star who faded into obscurity after reaching adulthood.
Here’s a track from Disc One of Lucinda Williams’ 2014 Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, her 11th studio album. The album takes its title from a poem by Miller Williams, Lucinda’s father.
I haven’t spent a lot of time with this album but I enjoy the overall vibe. It’s a whole lot of blues rock, played by an all-star lineup of session musicians.
In 2007, Wes Anderson released the most divisive film in his catalog, The Darjeeling Limited. You’ll find this movie at the bottom of most fans’ rankings, yet it won a prize at the Venice Film Festival and earned twice its budget at the box office. It has the second lowest Rotten Tomatoes score among Anderson’s films but it hasn’t enjoyed the reassessment of The Life Aquatic, the only one below it.
As I wrote yesterday, almost all of Anderson’s movies deal with grief to some extent, but The Darjeeling Limited puts that theme front and center. The film follows a trio of brothers traveling on a train through India after a yearlong estrangement following the death of their father. They are weighed down with emotional (and physical) baggage and seeking a spiritual awakening.
Wes Anderson’s fourth film came three years after the success of The Royal Tenenbaums and did not continue his hot streak. 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou received a lukewarm response from critics, at best, and earned only $35 million against a $50 million budget.
In the 17 years since its release, however, The Life Aquatic has found new life among film fans and has emerged as something of a cult classic.
I was on board from the start. While this film is certainly no Rushmore or The Royal Tenebaums, it has a madcap zany energy and a fierce imagination. It indulges in the schoolboy fantasy of a roguish Jacques Cousteau figure gleefully shattering legal and societal norms, but its underlying theme about facing mortality is serious and poignant.
Meet Me In Montauk 