The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

I just saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with my friends Ellen and Brian. It's another great film by Wes Anderson. You will probably enjoy it if you liked Rushmore. It's not your typical humor, but it is very funny. Some of the set designs and visual devices are incredible. The cinematography is beautiful. The use of stop motion animation and miniature photography lends to its interesting look. The film within the film, the documentary filmed by Zissou and his crew (at least the snippets that we see) are also cool and lend to this look while parodying some documentaries of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who is mentioned in the credits as having nothing to do with the film. The music in the film is also great, featuring a number of David Bowie songs translated to Portuguese and performed by Seu Jorge who plays a crew member of the Belafonte (Zissou's ship, named presumably for Harry Belafonte, singer of the song Calypso, which was the name of Cousteau's ship). I highly recommend this film. Even if you are still not into it after the first 20 minutes, stick around because I think you will like it as the story develops. It combines the absurd and the retro with great talent and art to make one great film.

I think I will go for halloween next year with a red wool hat and a light blue uniform of some kind. I'd go for the cool wet suit but that might be a little... I don't know, and I'm definitely not going with the Speedo. If anyone asks who I am supposed to be I'll just have to screen the movie for them. I'll have to borrow a fake gun and holster to strap around my leg and maybe get some adidas, but that might be going too far. Anyway, it would beat my getup from this year, which was just a Halloween themed t-shirt.


disaster relief info (I should probably just post this on the side somewhere):
Click here to make a contribution to the Red Cross Disaster Relief fund via Amazon.com or Click here to make a contribution directly to the Red Cross International Response Fund to help those affected by the earthquakes and tsunamis.