Wes Anderson Films

[A.M. Thomas]

Rushmore's great, I can't remember if I liked Bottle Rocket, and the rest stink.  They've gotten worse each time. I loved the luggage in Darjeeling.  Generally speaking, I do appreciate his movies as sartorial and interior design showcases.

Agreed.  This is also the main reason why I like a lot of Godard films.

I do think there is kind of a schism between Bottle Rocket/Rushmore and what came after them, though.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Tenenbaums is my favorite.  I was in lower Manhattan on September 11th, and the fallout for me was that I started turning into Ben Stiller's character for a long while.  When he has the breakdown at the end and starts to cry in Gene Hackman's arms, I pretty much lost my shit.  But I loved all of it, top to bottom.

My complaint with Darjeeling Limited boils down to one scene that ruined screwed it up for me.  The brothers go through the traumatic event (won't spoil for those who haven't seen it) and suddenly the film gets quieter. Music stops, dialog goes to a bare minimum. Beautiful.  Thumbs up. But then, at the funeral, Anderson goes into one of his hyper-cool, slow-mo shots of the brothers walking in the desert while rock music plays. ARGH! Wasn't all of that posing and facade supposed to go away when the traumatic event happened?  The scene made me think that Anderson - and his characters - are helpless posers. Even life-changing trauma cannot cure them of their social artifice.

[Gilly]

I think they are all great. I've noticed a backlash in the past couple years- ever since Darjeeling came out I suppose.

[Me!]

I really like Rushmore, I really like Life Aquatic, the other ones are alright.

[Martin]

I love them all! WES ANDERSON IS GREAT

[SJK]

Me too!

[Bryan]

I'm also an unapologetic booster.

[dave from knoxville]

I'm not a fan of any except Rushmore, though he's clearly a talented stylist. Best to worst:

1. Rushmore
1a. Hotel Chevalier
2. Darjeeling
3. Bottle Rocket
4. Life Aquatic
5. Tenenbaums

with a big dropoff between 3 and 4 the ones dfk thinks are OK and the ones dfk really loves.

I like his sense of humour well enough, but the visual stuff that people seem to love about him I find unpleasant, especially Tenenbaums. The hyper-control, the cute framing tricks he uses over and over -- most obvious being the very distracting dollhouse quality of every background, typically with one or two pieces of decoration breaking up the perfect symmetry. And even his occasional attempts at being 'loose' (usually a handheld camera during the action set-pieces) seem laughable to me because they're so self-conscious when set against everything else.

You're welcome.

[masterofsparks]

I didn't care much about Rushmore one way or the other but I absolutely HATED Royal Tennenbaums and haven't bothered with any since.

[J. Garbage]

I thought Tennenbaums and Life Aquatic were both terrible.  I actually liked Darjeeling a bit more.  But yeah, I agree there's a shift from Bottle Rocket and Rushmore to Tennenbaums.  It's like all the sudden he's been given the green light to indulge every precious whim and striver impulse.  I'm also on the fence about what to make of some of the racial stuff in his movies.  Max Fischer is so clearly a powerless wounded asshole that his behavior is kind of endearing, but the self-pitying ponces in Tennenbaums and Darjeeling I can't really root for in the same way; maybe it's because they're all rich?

[eastgrandforks]

Rushmore is my favorite, and the first movie I bought after getting a DVD player. Royal Tenenbaums has sunk in my estimation since I saw it in the theater, while I am slowly warming up to Life Aquatic.

[moonshake]

I loved them all except Darjeeling Limited.

[buffcoat]

No one ever wants to talk about Whit Stillman.











Even, presumably, Whit Stillman.

[MattJohnson]

A friend of mine borrowed, then lost, my Rushmore Criterion. I learned an important lesson that day, which is never let someone borrow a $40 DVD. And evidently now it's out of print so I might never end up replacing it.

[yesno]

No one ever wants to talk about Whit Stillman.

I liked Metropolitan.  But not as much as he and Wes Anderson like WASPs.