The Royal Tenembaums

Anderson & Wilson excel at the arbitrarily misanthropic. Two favorite moments (I don't think this is giving anything away in the movie): the opening, when Royal's children ask him a series of questions about his impending divorce: "Is it our fault?" "Well...NO! No, it isn't your fault....I mean, of course your mother and I made certain sacrifices in order so that we could have children...But...NO!" Also, when Gwenyth Paltrow's character (Royal's adopted daughter, a point he never fails to mention when introducing her) puts on her first play as a child on her birthday, and Royal completely pans it right in front of her ("What did you think about the character development?" "What character development? It's just kids in animal costumes!!"), then in the very next breath sings to her "Happy Birthday" with everyone else as she's walking away angry and dejected at what he just said. Classic!

EURGH! Clearly I can never watch this film.

still, it's better than magnolia. which is the film it most reminded me of.

margo's brother cuts her finger off.

and gweneth paltrow, i don't know how she acted so serious without emotion, that was great.

and then at the end of the movie, how everythin comes together really made me cry,

its an all emotion film

watch this movie and watch it

as far as the reviews mentioning gorey, i get a little tired of reviews of any kind of art trying to give me its genealogy. dunno bout ye, but i get a little thrill when i make the connections myself, seconds, minutes or years after the fact.

yr right though about gorey, in particular, the dvd packaging has alot of those delicate little pencil and watercolor drawings, which were the concept art done by the directors brother.

Three different threads on this started within a few months, all with the same title and ~same number of posts...Watched it for the first time since it came out, when I saw it a couple of times. Held up much better than I thought it would, and I thought my interest in Anderson had pretty much been killed by the hotel movie (Rushmore excepted). Hackman's great, and probably having the time of his life. "Me and Julio" and "These Days" I was ready for, but I'd totally forgotten "Judy Is a Punk," and there were other really good music moments (including a couple of instrumentals that, going by the credits, might have been Dylan, I'm not sure). Stiller's reconciliation at the end was genuinely moving, ditto him in the ambulance. Recognized Murray's subject from Freaks and Geeks, which I hadn't seen at the time.

^^Stephen Lea Shepard. F & G and Tenenbaums are his only acting credits. He's now a noted gaming journalist/blogger.

The Dylan instrumental is "Wigwam" from Self-Portrait.

Although I see now "Main Title Theme (Billy)" is also in there. Pretty loaded soundtrack. Where the hell did "Rock The Casbah" figure in? (Haven't rescreened in around 8/9 years).

I think Eli listens to it while getting high?

That's right...Also "Police and Thieves."

Also two of my favourite non-pop pieces ever: Satie's "Gymnopédie No.1" and Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here."

The instrumental is "Main Title Theme (Billy)," yes--which is also in Jesus' Son, which came out the exact same year. Bizarre. Doubly bizarre that it's a Dylan instrumental from another film.

Always thought the whole decadent writer subplot was a total washout. There's nice bits throughout this but it was a big disappointment for me after Rushmore. I think I've preferred all Anderson's subsequent films to this (maybe not the chicken film).

Hackman is so great in this and I really miss him, so I will always watch this

If you tried to create the perfect Gene Hackman role, it'd be a lovable liar who likes to get out there and mix it up a little--a mix of Lex Luthor and Popeye Doyle--and that's him here. When he takes his grandsons out for that anarchic playday to "Me and Julio," brilliant. I did wince a bit at his (relatively mild) race-baiting of Danny Glover--"Hey, Coltrane"--but you've just got to take that as the character, and remember it's driven by jealousy. Glover and Angelica Huston are great too. The only performance I have a bit of trouble with is Gwyneth Paltrow as the morose literary femme fatale. She doesn't smile until 1:38 into the film--I checked.

Paltrow sucks so bad and Owen Wilson’s character is hilarious, c’mon.

“Wildcat...(pkow gun sound).”

I think I need to rewatch this movie. I watched it when I was 17 and DID NOT GET IT AT ALL. by that I mean, I had no idea what the plot was, if it was supposed to be funny, who any of the characters were, or why anyone thought this movie was good. all I remembered was the odd framing in half the shots.

I just watched Unforgiven again a couple of nights ago, love me some Hackman.

Grand Budapest Hotel is his best since Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'd screen it in my film class before COVID.

I'm guessing--could be wrong--that WmC thought my analogy comes up short on Budapest more than Wolf of Wall Street, David Edelstein's description of which--"thumpingly insipid"--remains perfect.

(I will now pretend not to know that David Edelstein gave Grand Budapest Hotel a really good review.)

Brad can i delegate my opinions to you for when im not around pls, like the english parliament pairing or whatever

WOWS is a great movie

GBH is a great movie, and not even particularly matched with Rushmore in any way I can see tbh

They're not remotely close in subject matter, no--but stylistically?

but they all are, though

Anderson's innaresting because his most recent film is either his best or his worst.

but they all are, though

Agreed. Which is why I don't think drawing a line between Hotel and Rushmore is inapt.

Anderson's innaresting because his most recent film is either his best or his worst.

in a Schrodingerian sense?

Grand Budapest Hotel is his best since Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'd screen it in my film class before COVID.

tbf there was only one film between the two!

See? That makes it special!

My simple rule for evaluating his post-Rushmore work: the more real life sneaks in through the cracks of the set direction and camera setups, the better.

Yep. I used to teach Playtime and Grand Budapest Hotel in the production design portion of the class. The former made them...hostile.

How big was your screen? Playtime makes no sense on a regular TV.

Which is the thing that most surprised me about Tenenbaums this time. I remembered it as a concoction--entertaining, with good music, but just a lot of stuff--and was surprised at how much feeling there was in Stiller's turnaround towards the end. There are many moments in Rushmore that move me--most of all, Max at the window when Margaret tries to visit him, "I Am Waiting" on the soundtrack.

They're not remotely close in subject matter, no--but stylistically?

― clemenza, Monday, 15 February 2021 22:19 (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

but they all are, though

― meticulously crafted, socially responsible, morally upsta (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 15 February 2021 22:20 (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This, basically!

Also i think most of his movies successfully hit their "feeling" moments, even when hes doing it by numbers

Okay, darraghmac, but in the post before, the one I was responding to, you wrote "GBH is a great movie, and not even particularly matched with Rushmore in any way I can see tbh."

Yes

Im not being inconsistent here in pointing out that rushmore isnt particularly matched with gbh which, unless im reading, is your assertion

And tbh id probably say meself that rushmore has less in common as a match with gbh than gbh has with tenenbaums or moonrise kingdom

All a game of opinions obviously, but why would you compare the two in particular, out of interest

The comparison, for me, begins and ends with style (most obviously, Anderson's signature framing). The most obvious match for Rushmore is probably Moonrise Kingdom, but, getting back to my post about self-parody, I don't think it's unfair--right or wrong, that's a matter of personal opinion--to make that charge of Budapest because of Anderson's entrenched style.

Something I've said in bits and parts across numerous threads--too often, I know; I should stop--is that, among filmmakers who've made films I love, films that are among my favourite ever--Budapest Hotel, Wolf of Wall Street, and Phantom Thread are like the unholy trinity for me. They're three films I recoiled from so much that, because life is short and I've only got another 10 or 15 years left, I haven't been able to bring myself to giving them the necessary time for a second look. Of the three, Phantom Thread is at least the one I wouldn't hang self-parody on. The other two, yes.

Self-parody results from an exhaustion of a manner or an obsession with a manner, but self-parody, I've come to realize, isn't an indication of artistic decline. In the same way Taylor Swift's Lover signaled the end of an approach, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou does with Anderson imo. The tics and stamps remain -- they've got to; now, though, he's expanded his sightlines. There's a panoramic storybook ethos that looks creepy and stultifying but allows for a gentle, amiable epic approach to character: Stefan Zweig as Rudyard Kipling.

Don't even get me started on Taylor Swift--I'll get booted right the hell out of here.

Plug in Speaking in Tongues, Experimental Jet Set..., whatever your lodestars are, man.

For me, self-parody is inherently bad. Having a certain signature style is fine; I don't know if every worthwhile artist does, but most do. But there's a line in there somewhere, and when somebody crosses it--when I'm sitting there thinking, "Is this Scorsese, or this a parody of Scorsese?"--I don't ever see that as a good thing.

how do you define parody for the purposes of this thread?

SCTV?

we built the pyramids

I'm not trying to corner you; this idea about self-parody as a development worth regarding with suspicion is one to which I've kept returning in recent years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMVrMHQk95s

Sorry, straying from Wes Anderson here, but I can't watch that and not end up in tears--"Who booked Bergman?!"

Interesting posts clem

Id have said, again we both allowing for opinion here, each of those directors are at least open to charges of self parody far earlier in their work than the points youve chosen- each having v particular styles/techniques/motifs that were evident and repeated long before the pieces selected

The line will be different for each person obv but id fail to see the precipice in any of the three youve chosen (i love all three!)

Out of interest, has a great director managed to never lurch into self parody iyo?

Using soto's definition i would struggle to say where scorsese falls bit, say, hitchcock walks the line

But im likely missing many marks here

With Scorsese, I think the first time I experienced that feeling were parts of Cape Fear. But--to show how personal these responses can be--I think Kael felt that way about Raging Bull, even though she might not have phrased it that way exactly.

Good question, I'd have to think about it. Frederick Wiseman's probably not a good answer...it's hard. Altman did it with many films.

It's almost an unavoidable trap of being a great director, which leads directly to the whole auteurist thing--for Sarris, such a concept probably didn't exist.

As darraghmac says, it's a subjective line drawn in the sand for each viewer about each director. I guess the way a director could avoid being tarred by this brush is by being either stylistically transparent or wildly eclectic, so there's nothing you could say you've seen in an earlier film.

say, hitchcock walks the line

Hitchock worked in so many modes and styles over his fifty years of film that he never sat long enough anywhere to be profoundly parodiable.

(Frenzy, 1972 is mb a self-parody but only of two films from '60 and '62)


obv he built a public caricature to perform on camera as himself

idk sic theres only so many peroxide blondes you can spend ninety minutes slavering over putting them into harms way before the question gets asked tbh

Spielberg has possibly done a better job of avoiding this than anyone.

Only by making his schmaltz boring

the blonde thing I think of more in terms of him becoming a monstrous abusive creep offscreen - Marnie is a great film, not a hollow retread of Vertigo

I guess the way a director could avoid being tarred by this brush is by being either stylistically transparent or wildly eclectic,

Soderbergh kind of does both of those things, which some would say is its own for of retread/self-parody. Maybe there’s no way out.

who

"Is this Scorsese, or this a parody of Scorsese?"

what?

guy i met at a party once

sounds like he was a dummy and we can disregard him

tough but fair

When the Elliott Smith song played, which I didn't know, I made a note to check it after the film. Not something I'd necessarily like on its own, but in context, it made an impression. I don't know who oversees his catalogue, but I assume his family has some measure of control? If so, I'm surprised Anderson got the go-ahead to use the song in a graphic attempted-suicide scene.

i think smith was still alive at that point

You're right...Was talking about it last night and we thought he was still alive. That makes the scene even eerier.

Late to the party here but Wolf of Wall Street sucked.

I haven't rewatched Tenenbaums since probably 2002 and not really chomping at the bit to watch it again either, or really any of his non-animated movies outside of Rushmore.