Everyone's Autistic

Film: The Phoenician Scheme
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.

Wes Anderson is one of those directors whose films are immediately recognizable. I was trying to figure out exactly what it is in terms of his composition and characters that makes his film so distinctive and I’ve finally figured it out—it’s the title of this write-up. Everyone in Wes Anderson films is autistic. In his early films, it was only some of the characters, but now, everyone in his films has got a touch of the ‘tism, and they’ve all got the same variety. It wasn’t until I finished The Phoenician Scheme that I finally understood this.

The Phoenician Scheme is mid-level Wes Anderson, and I don’t like having to say that. I tend to like Wes Anderson films pretty well, although I can only take a bit of him at a time. Now that I’ve seen this, I probably won’t watch another of his films for six or seven months. When Anderson is good, he’s really good. When he’s off, even a bit, everything feels like it falls apart. The Phoenician Scheme just never feels like it gels in the way his films normally do. It might be simply because the characters here, almost to a person, are unlikeable.

Layers Upon Layers

Film: Asteroid City
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I watched Asteroid City last night, and it left me in something of a quandary. Typically when I watch something that I know will appear on this blog in one form or another, I review it immediately so that I am addressing the thoughts I have while it is all still fresh in my memory. I couldn’t really do that with Asteroid City because I wasn’t sure of what I thought about it or how I thought about it. Even now, more than 12 hours after watching, I’m still trying to make sense of it.

Wes Anderson has always been the twee-est of twee directors, and that’s not going to change with this one. All of his characters, as always, are defined by their quirks. Asteroid City gives us a constellation of people, many of whom are recognizable, legitimate stars who appear in this for a scene or two and say a line or two before vanishing. Jeff Goldblum, Margot Robbie, Hong Chau, Bob Balaban, Willem Dafoe, and others show up for a scene or two and then never really appear again. All of this is in service of a story that is about the creation of the story that we are watching—we’re looking at (essentially) a fictional documentary about the creation of a stage play and the actors who put on that play, and we are watching both the stage play as if it were the main story (which it is) and the actors behind the scenes. It’s multiple levels of meta.

The New Yorker

Films: The French Dispatch
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television

I like Wes Anderson. I realize that on a movie blog, admitting to being a Wes Anderson fan isn’t really coming out of any kind of intellectual closet. A lot of movie people—probably most movie people—have at least some respect for Anderson, whose movies always have a sort of handmade, bespoke quality to them. I have genuinely liked most of Anderson’s films that I have seen even if I have to be in a mood for them. Discovering The French Dispatch at my local library proved to be too irresistible a temptation, so I brought it home and popped it into the spinner.

And with that, I don’t really know where to begin. The French Dispatch isn’t so much a traditional movie as it is an anthology. We learn right away that the editor of a fictional magazine called The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun has died. This editor, Arthur Howitzer, Jr. (Bill Murray) has run the magazine for years, starting when his father, the owner of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun sent him to France for some life experience. Arthur started the magazine, which is very clearly an homage to The New Yorker. We also learn that upon his death, the magazine was to be cancelled, people refunded their subscription money, and the presses melted down and destroyed, pending one final issue. The movie, then is that final issue—four stories and an obituary.

Atari no Inu

Films: Isle of Dogs
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on Sue’s Mother’s Day present.

I was leery going in to Isle of Dogs for one main reason. I am a fan of Wes Anderson in the sense that I like most of his movies a great deal. Additionally, with Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel, I think he’s only getting better and better, exhibiting tighter and tighter control over his films. But I wasn’t a huge fan of Fantastic Mr. Fox, because I couldn’t figure out who (aside from himself) he made it for. And then there was some controversy about the film, so I wasn’t sure what I would think about this.

Honestly, I shouldn’t have worried. While I still think Fantastic Mr. Fox was a misstep, Isle of Dogs is the animated Wes Anderson film that Wes Anderson fans wanted. More importantly, while it maintains itself as being the quirkiest thing released in 18 months, it’s something that will genuinely work for kids.

The Pirates of (New) Penzance

Film: Moonrise Kingdom
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating here: it must be kind of great to be Wes Anderson. Moonrise Kingdom is a film with a cast list so deep that no less a luminary than Harvey Keitel doesn’t even appear on the cover of the DVD case. Anderson can evidently just call people up and ask them to appear in his films and they evidently show up to do it. Anderson is definitely an acquired taste, but it’s a taste I’ve managed to acquire without much trouble. I often need some time between Anderson films because of how astonishingly quirky they are. In this case, though, I enjoyed The Grand Budapest Hotel enough that I figured I was in the mood for more of him.

Like a lot of Wes Anderson movies, I’m not exactly sure where I should or even can start with discussing this film. At its heart, it’s the story of two kids, Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) and Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) who have fallen in love with each other. As could only happen in Anderson’s world, Sam and Suzy have something more substantial than just puppy love. They are united by their outcast status. Sam is a recent orphan and basically friendless. Suzy acts out frequently getting violent. The two meet the summer they are 11 and become pen pals, deciding to run away together the next summer when Sam returns to New Penzance Island for his annual summer as a Khaki Scout, the Wes Anderson version of the Boy Scouts.

Service with a Smile

Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I realize that not everyone likes Wes Anderson. I don’t think he’s an acquired taste. I think he’s either a director that you like or that you don’t. I tend to like him, although I find that a little Wes Anderson goes a long way. It had been awhile since I watched a Wes Anderson film, so when I saw that The Grand Budapest Hotel was available from NetFlix, I put it at the top of the queue. Even if I hadn’t heard almost entirely good things about it, it was a film I was looking forward to seeing.

In many ways, it’s the least Wes Anderson film I’ve seen him do. Oh, the people involved still have that unique Wes Anderson-style OCD and a series of oddities and quirks, but there’s considerably less of that here than in most of his films. I’ll go so far as to say that of the Anderson films I’ve seen (not all but most), this is the one most likely to be enjoyed by people who don’t typically like Wes Anderson.

Fox in the Henhouse

Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

When it comes to the films of Wes Anderson, I always wonder how much is the real Wes Anderson and how much is simply affectation. His style is so distinctive that it’s impossible not to recognize his work immediately. So when it comes to his animated feature debut, Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was curious as to whether or not that style would carry over into stop motion. It does. Let’s get that out of the way right away.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is based on a book by Roald Dahl, which means it will be both whimsical and quite dark in places. The meet the eponymous Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) and his wife Felicity (Meryl Streep) as they are one their way home. They decide to raid a chicken far and are captured, at which point Felicity reveals she is pregnant. Flash forward a few years and Mr. Fox is now reformed (kind of), and writes a newspaper column. His son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) feels like a typical Wes Anderson misfit and is complet with quirks and OCD habits like all of Anderson’s characters. Soon, Ash’s cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson, the director’s brother) arrives and appears to upstage Ash in every aspect of life, including stealing the girl Ash is interested in.

Genius is Relative

Film: The Royal Tenenbaums
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Wes Anderson makes strange movies. I’m not saying something that hasn’t been said many times before. Anderson’s movies concern extreme characters, people who exist on the fringe of rationality, sanity, and believability. The Royal Tenenbaums is different from this only in the sense that it concerns the lives of more than half a dozen such characters rather than two or three.

We are introduced to the Tenenbaums through a narrator (Alec Baldwin), who tells us of the early life of the family. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) have three children, each of whom is a prodigy in a particular way. Richie (Luke Wilson) is an accomplished tennis player, going pro at 17. Adopted sister Margot (Gweneth Paltrow) is a playwright, receiving a grant in the 9th grade. Youngest child Chaz (Ben Stiller) starts a corporation as a minor and begins making money in real estate. None of this prevents the eventual separation of the parents, and Etheline takes it upon herself to raise the three children. We’re also introduced to Eli Cash (Owen Wilson), a young boy who lives across the street, but grows up in the Tenenbaum home.

Offbeat

Films: Tootsie, Rushmore
Format: DVDs from Rockford Public Library on laptop (Tootsie) and big ol’ television (Rushmore).

I like Dustin Hoffman. I realize I’ve never met the man, so I don’t know what he’s like in real life, but I tend to like him in a lot of roles. He plays straight dramatic roles well (Papillon, Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man), he does comic roles well (Stranger than Fiction, The Graduate). I tend to like his characters quite a bit. Of course, I’ve never seen Ishtar.

Tootsie is the story of an out-of-work actor named Michael Dorsey (Hoffman) who is told by his agent (director Sydney Pollack) that no one in New York and no one in Hollywood will work with him. Michael is a good actor, perhaps even a great one, but he’s also impossible to work with. If a stage director tells him to do something he doesn’t agree with, he walks off the stage.

Michael lives with a tortured playwright named Jeff Slater (Bill Murray). He teaches acting classes, and sometimes flirts with one of his students, Sandy Lester (Teri Garr). He also works as a waiter, the traditional job of the struggling actor. While he can’t get work himself, he does encourage others, and he helps Sandy try to land a job, which she doesn’t get. Desperate for work, Michael transforms himself from Michael Dorsey into Dorothy Michaels, a aging Southern belle and, in something of a shock to the soap opera director he will be working for (Dabney Coleman), he lands the part. Here he encounters the often nearly-nude April (Geena Davis), the aging, perpetually horny, and vaguely stupid soap star John Van Horn (George Gaynes), and fellow actress Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange).

Dorothy is an immediate sensation, both on the soap and suddenly in the world in general. But for Michael, the trouble is only starting. While his professional career is suddenly soaring in a way he couldn’t have expected, he also can’t tell anyone about it. Julie becomes quite close with Dorothy, inviting “her” to the family farm, where Dorothy meets Les (American treasure Charles Durning), Julie’s father. Les is immediately attracted to Dorothy, which makes Michael’s life complicated.

Tootsie is deceptively layered for a film that appears to be little more than a gender-bending comedy. Dorothy’s troubles with Les, Ron the director, and John Van Horn are funny and make for some great moments. One of the funniest scenes is when Michael is waiting for Sandy to get out of the shower. He sneaks into her bedroom, sees her clothing, and begins to wonder how certain outfits might look on Dorothy. When she comes out of the shower and finds him nearly nude, her mind goes one way, and he allows it to go that way. It’s got to be the only time in film history that a man agrees to sex simply because he doesn’t want the woman to know he’s a cross-dresser, although again, I’ve never seen every film produced by Ed Wood.

The depth here comes with Michael’s struggle as Dorothy. He’s a good enough actor (Michael, not Hoffman, although Hoffman is obviously a damn fine actor to be able to pull this off) that he immediately sympathizes with Dorothy’s plight. Treated as an object by her director and as something to be pawed by John, Dorothy manages to stand up for herself as Dorothy, not as Michael coming through Dorothy. In that moment at least, Michael is her, and it’s a great scene.

Additionally, for a comedy—and there are plenty of comic moments—there are also some real tender ones, and ones that strike at serious issues. We discover mid-way through the film that Julie is an unwed mother, and that she is having an affair with Ron despite the fact that he treats her shabbily. Again, for a comedy, there is an undercurrent here about the way women are treated, specifically in an acting environment, but in general as well.

Tootsie hasn’t aged as well as it could have, which is a shame. Despite this, it’s still a great film and worth watching. If I could change one thing about it, I’d add more of Bill Murray. He’s great in every scene he’s in. Murray was just at the start of a brilliant film career when this film was made. He could have easily demanded top billing in 1982, considering he’d just made Caddyshack and Stripes. That he took a small role in a great film like this speaks well of his choices.

Murray takes almost center stage in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, which is very much The Royal Tennenbaums before The Royal Tennenbaums. Anderson’s films are not weird enough to be called weird and too quirky to be called quirky. They are their own thing, unique in film. I can generally tell a Wes Anderson film by the feel. His characters are fully realized, perhaps even too realized to be truly believed. Each is an extreme caricature, an extreme personality who lives in a very particularly realized world. Murray plays disaffected, disgruntled, and dissatisfied Herman Blume, a steel magnate who sends his spoiled and completely nasty twin sons to Rushmore Academy. Also attending Rushmore is Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), who is so filled with quirks it seems as if there is no room for a real personality.

Max loves Rushmore. In a very Wes Anderson montage, we are alerted to all of his extra-curricular activities, and the list is endless, extreme, and varied. Max is, for instance, in charge of his own theater company, is learning to fly airplanes, he fences, he edits the yearbook, and belongs to virtually every club that exists. If a club doesn’t exist, he starts it. Because of this, he also tends to fail his classes and is placed on “sudden death probation” by school headmaster Dr. Nelson Guggenheim (the truly wonderful Brian Cox). If he fails another class, he’s out.

Max discovers two important people at the start of the film. The first is Herman, who offers a strange homily at the school mass, a speech that seems to affect Max deeply. He also encounters Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), a first grade teacher with whom he becomes immediately infatuated. Discovering that she has several fish tanks in her classroom, Max takes it upon himself to get an aquarium built for the school in her honor, and goes to Herman Blume to help him. What Max doesn’t realize is that Herman’s marriage is a sham at best, and he too develops an immediate and powerful attraction to the young teacher. And so, we have an early May-late May-December romantic triangle.

While the triangle takes up much of the story here, Schwartzman and Murray are the heart of this film. Herman deeply admires Max’s enthusiasm and his inability to doubt himself in anything. Max is as deeply idealistic and as easily hurt as any intelligent, overachieving 15-year-old can be, and needs the support of a man like Blume. His own father (played by Seymour Cassel) tries, but Max is embarrassed that his father is a mere barber and not something world changing and important. In short, for all of his quirks, Max couldn’t be more typical. Sadly for the both of them, their rivalry for the affections of Rosemary takes some serious turns as they do everything they can to destroy each other. It's petty, it's silly, and it's funny.

Rushmore is strangely endearing. I love Wes Anderson’s movies because I love his characters. I can also see that there are many people who will find this film infuriating and aggravating. Schwartzman was only 18 when this film was made, and he gives a performance worthy of someone with that many years of experience. And while he is the Energizer Bunny of this film, it is Murray who becomes and remains its emotional heart as a man who has everything, but nothing he wants.

Why to watch Tootsie: Hoffman is doubly likeable when he plays two roles.
Why not to watch: Hoffman in lipstick.

Why to watch Rushmore: Pathos, delivered in Wes Anderson’s signature style
Why not to watch: Quirk overload.