Sleep Spent

I’d been waiting months to see this movie. And then I called upwards of 25 people to go see it with me today (opening day for most of the country), all of whom either didn’t answer, declined, or were in a different state. But I finally settled on my dad, who had been wanting to see it anyway, and we headed out for the 9:20 showing at Shoreline.

I really liked the movie, but I need to see it again. (Duh, it’s a Wes Anderson movie.) Some particularly interesting things that jumped out at me:

1. Almost all the animals in the movie were computer animated. That would make sense for the imaginary animals (the jaguar shark and the school of neon something-or-others that always precede it), but it was a very interesting touch with the rest of them. There was a clearly animated boa constrictor resting on a car, several lizards/amphibians, a Crayon Pony Fish (OK, that one was imaginary). I found a blurb about that from the director of animation.
2. The music was nothing short of awesome. The Mark Mothersbaugh pieces were excellent (my favorite had to be when they were attacking the Hotel Citrön), and the rest was great too. There was a ton of Bowie, most of it sung by a man who had translated them into Portuguese. And they used “Staralfur” for the climactic scene with the leopard shark!
3. I loved, loved, loved Jeff Goldblum. His character (Hennessy) was such a jerk, and so stupid... it just came off really well. He had a crew of uniformed hotties, where Zissou had a scrappy group of interns. I think one of my favorite scenes in the whole film was when he was explaining how much it would cost to tow Zissou back to port and then gets up and hits the dog.
4. Owen Wilson has quite a tool. I have no idea why they didn’t re-take that scene with him in the sauna. You know, maybe after he got it down. But then again, Wilson’s reputation certainly isn’t any worse off for it. [“Hello, beautiful.”]

In short, go see this film. I can’t wait to get it on DVD so I can watch it again and again!