# The Life Aquatic **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 5, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154 "2004-12-05T02:42:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/1 "2004-12-05T02:42:55Z")
[http://lifeaquatic.movies.go.com/splash.html](http://lifeaquatic.movies.go.com/splash.html) This movie looks awesome! I think I’m gonna see it. Great music too, I recognized Ceremony by New Order. Does anyone know what the David Bowie song is? ---
**Author:** ![pokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ebca7d/32.png) [@pokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pokey)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/2 "2004-12-05T02:59:06Z")
Hey Bill Murray in a Speedo! :eek: :o 🙂😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/3 "2004-12-05T03:04:39Z")
I saw the preview for this before I Heart Huckabee’s last night. I am a huge Wes Anderson fan, and Bill Murray fan, so I’m definitely going to see it. However, I will admit that I missed half the preview because I was busy staring at Bill Murray’s package in that wetsuit. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/4 "2004-12-05T03:05:21Z")
> [@Talon Karrde](#): > > Does anyone know what the David Bowie song is? “Queen Bitch” from _Hunky Dory_. I’m just wondering how they’ll fit it in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Ass\_For\_A\_Hat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Ass\_For\_A\_Hat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ass_For_A_Hat)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/5 "2004-12-05T03:16:31Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > “Queen Bitch” from _Hunky Dory_. > > I’m just wondering how they’ll fit it in the movie. Don’t be surprised if they don’t. The last few years the studios have really taken to putting songs in the ads for films that aren’t in the movie. One recent example that caught my eye…the ads for Big Fish featured the Yes song _I’ve Seen All Good People_. The song wasn’t in the film though. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/6 "2004-12-05T03:19:27Z")
Wes Anderson movies have brilliant moments, but they don’t hold together particularly well in their entirety. But, since this one is actually built _around_ Bill Murray for a change, maybe it will be different. ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/7 "2004-12-05T03:30:24Z")
> [@Ass For A Hat](#): > > Don’t be surprised if they don’t. The last few years the studios have really taken to putting songs in the ads for films that aren’t in the movie. One recent example that caught my eye…the ads for Big Fish featured the Yes song _I’ve Seen All Good People_. The song wasn’t in the film though. Well, it does have a guy playing it on his acoustic guitar as well, so that might be in the movie. The soundtrack has a lot of Bowie songs on it. Actually I found out about the movie because just for the heck of it I decided to check out David Bowie’s website, and it mentioned the soundtrack. ---
**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/8 "2004-12-05T03:46:58Z")
I’m a bit wary of the film. I loved _Rushmore_, but I didn’t particularly like _The Royal Tenenbaums_, and _Bottle Rocket_ was just poor. Still, Bill Murray is pretty brilliant, so we’ll see how it goes. ---
**Author:** ![Lisa-go-Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/9 "2004-12-05T05:09:27Z")
> [@Talon Karrde](#): > > Great music too, I recognized Ceremony by New Order. And the song before “Ceremony” is Devo’s “Gut Feeling.” I guess Wes Anderson’s starting to break out of the British Invasion songs that usually dominate the soundtrack. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/10 "2004-12-05T05:32:26Z")
I really liked The Royal Tenenbaums AND Rushmore, though I didn’t see bottlerocket. His films all have a zany poingancy (sp?) that just gives me good feelings. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/11 "2004-12-05T23:33:23Z")
I thought _Royal Tenenbaums_ was the best American film of its year (bought the Criterion DVD the day it was released), and I can’t wait for _Life Aquatic._ ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/12 "2004-12-06T03:22:35Z")
I do have to say that there wasn’t much that was classic laugh out loud funny in the trailer. It didn’t really give me a good picture of what was going to make this movie work, and most of the bits, at least out of context, came out feeling a bit weak. We’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/13 "2004-12-11T01:05:16Z")
I find the concept amusing, though not in a knee-slapping sense. It seems to be more in the dead pan situational humor. Still, some of the lines _did_ make me laugh. “And then I’m going to kill it. Possibly with dynamite.” ---
**Author:** ![AwSnappity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/14 "2004-12-11T02:07:03Z")
I love Wes Anderson’s films. I love his composition, I love his color palette, I love the actors that are repeatedly featured. I love how they all seem to take place in a very similar but different world–a world more beautiful and timeless than ours. You can bet that no matter where I am on Christmas day, I’m going to see **The Life Aquatic**. ---
**Author:** ![AwSnappity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/15 "2004-12-11T02:19:49Z")
Did you guys see the two [“webisodes”](http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/the_life_aquatic/webisodes/renowned_large.html) linked to from the Apple website? I can’t wait for this movie! ---
**Author:** ![Jillyvn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecb155/32.png) [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/16 "2004-12-11T06:23:11Z")
> [@AwSnappity](#): > > Did you guys see the two [“webisodes”](http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/the_life_aquatic/webisodes/renowned_large.html) linked to from the Apple website? I can’t wait for this movie! I’m also on the edge of my seat waiting for this one. Did anyone read the [salon.com](http://salon.com) article with Wes Anderson? ([http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/12/07/wes/index.html](http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/12/07/wes/index.html)) This is a good summary of my Wes Anderson experience: > [@](#): > > That’s fortunate for you! Every shot is always so perfectly framed, like a painting. How important are aesthetics to you and what role does that play in advancing the story? > > I guess I like to try to fill the frame with a lot of things – I like to fill it with jokes, and I like to fill it with ideas, and just kind of get as many things in there [as possible]. Because what happens to me is I end up accumulating a lot of ideas over the years of working on it, because I take a lot of time to prepare these things – I work slowly, slowly. I’m just really trying to get as much in there to make it as interesting as possible, I guess. I know what I’ll be doing Christmas Day. Happy Christmakkah all. - Rebekkah Oh no, I’ve stooped to a new low. I’ve quoted the OC in a post. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/17 "2004-12-11T17:43:11Z")
I’m really looking forward to this movie, but since **Rebekkah** brought up [Salon.com](http://Salon.com), I want to take a moment to grind my axe with their head movie critic Stephanie Zacharek. She is much more concerned with her own reputation as a critic than with judging a movie based on its own merits. And once she forms an opinion on someone (which usually seems to involve taking a provocative position based on what other critics think), she never gives them a chance again. On Friday, she had two reviews in Salon; one for _The Life Aquatic_ and the other for _Ocean’s Twelve_. She didn’t like the former and loved the latter. She thinks that Wes Anderson got too much attention and praise from her fellow critics and takes it upon herself to cut him down to size. Here’s a bit of damning praise for _The Life Aquatic_: > [@](#): > > Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” is like a very elaborate diorama in a shoebox – which is fine, unless you go to it expecting to see a movie. > > (snip) > > Anderson’s movies may be self-congratulatory and precociously bratty, but he’s not a cold director: “The Life Aquatic” does seem to have been motivated by a generousness of spirit, and obviously, Anderson is acutely aware of, and very interested in tapping, what’s special about Murray as an actor. And yet the picture just feels too overworked, too “designed,” to resonate emotionally. She thinks the movie is filled with too many little clever tricks, and she has problems with the pacing. Clever is bad, except when Stephen Soderberg does it, then it’s good. . Witness this from her _Ocean’s Twelve_ review: > [@](#): > > Much of the story is told sideways, and some of it backwards – as with many of Soderbergh’s pictures, the rhythms of “Ocean’s Twelve” aren’t fully predictable, which is part of what makes the picture so beguiling. (The script is by George Nofli; the movie was edited by Stephen Mirrione, who also edited “Ocean’s Eleven.”) Soderbergh has a penchant for stylish details like jump cuts and snazzy geometric wipes, but he doesn’t use so many of them that they distract us from the storytelling – they’re just little fillips, like the finish of a buttonhole or the slant of a lapel on a bespoke suit. > > The whole of “Ocean’s Twelve” is an inclusionary in joke – it winks at us and at itself, sometimes pretty broadly, yet there’s nothing tediously self-referential about it. Anyway, I haven’t seen either movie, and she could be right. But having watched her personal grudges play out against a number of directors, including but not limited to Anderson, I doubt it. I read the bitch like some people listen to Rush Limbaugh–I hate her, but I tune in to piss myself off. And to piss her off, I’ll be at _Life Aquatic_ on opening weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/18 "2004-12-11T19:40:26Z")
The guy who co-wrote the screenplay for _The Life Aquatic_, Noah Baumbach, wrote and directed a brilliantly funny movie of his own around ten years ago called _Kicking and Screaming_. Eric Stoltz, Chris Eigeman, Parker Posey, and a wonderful turn by Elliott Gould…great stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/19 "2004-12-11T20:53:48Z")
I have an odd reason for wanting to see this movie; Murray’s mansion is IRL the villa La Rondinaia, currently the home of Gore Vidal. (It’s for sale as Vidal is infirm and can’t manage the steps [it’s built on a cliffside and has about 20 levels], so for just $14 million it can be you’rs.) ---
**Author:** ![Jillyvn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecb155/32.png) [@Jillyvn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jillyvn)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154/20 "2004-12-13T02:55:56Z")
> [@vibrotronica](#): > > Anyway, I haven’t seen either movie, and she could be right. But having watched her personal grudges play out against a number of directors, including but not limited to Anderson, I doubt it. I read the bitch like some people listen to Rush Limbaugh–I hate her, but I tune in to piss myself off. And to piss her off, I’ll be at _Life Aquatic_ on opening weekend. Lol! I have to agree with your review of Stephanie. She often pisses me off. I hadn’t read her review of Ocean’s 12 until you posted it here. Having seen the movie, I can definately say that there is no chance The Life Aquatic will suck even half as much, further proof Stephanie has her head up her ass too often 😛 But, I loved hearing from Wes anyway. - Rebekkah [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-life-aquatic/278154.md?page=2)