Official Direct Thread: Wes Anderson - Epilogue (General Discussion)

Wahl-e

Welp, our journey through Wes Anderson's films has come to a close. We saw confident buffoons, orphans, dissonant tones, symmetrical frames, stop motion animals, and Jason Schwartzman. How would you rank Anderson's films? What are your favorite Anderson-isms? Discuss! 

Freddy

Glad that's over. Felt like I was being tugged between the urges to wear ironic clothing and beat people up who wear ironic clothing. It's like being a conflicted Jedi, except both sides of the force are dark.

DaveyMac

I came into this Direct series wishing that Carpenter had won, but I actually really enjoyed revisiting all of these films. Some I've come to appreciate more than before and with others it was great to see how well they've held up. Plus I've really enjoyed listening to all the casts. 

My ranking:

1. The Royal Tenenbaums (I connect emotionally with this one more than any of the others)

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel (M. Gustave is my favorite Wes Anderson character.)

The following three could easily shift around depending on the day.

3. The Life Aquatic 

4. Rushmore 

5. The Fantastic Mr. Fox

The rest are still solid movies. Not a bad one in the bunch really.

6. The Darjeeling Limited

7. Moonrise Kingdom (While not as high on my list, it has my favorite opening sequence of the bunch.)

8. Bottle Rocket

Other random favorites:

Favorite uniforms: The Life Aquatic 

Favorite soundtrack: The Life Aquatic

Favorite minor character: Tie between The Bond Company Stooge and Klaus (The Life Aquatic) 

Random thought: One thing I've noticed in watching all these films back to back is that, aside from having very white casts for the most part, race in Wes Anderson films is kind of odd. I mentioned it in the Royal Tenenbaums thread, but he seems to want to comment on race at times, but I'm not quite sure what he's getting at. I know there's been criticism of the way he uses or doesn't use race, but I don't even know if those criticisms are valid. I'm still trying to formulate my own thoughts on it. But it's definitely something that always seems to be at the periphery. Especially in the first half of his filmography. 

Sorry for the long ass post, but just one more thing: You guys talked about the tactile nature of the way he used titles in Grand Budapest and Darjeeling. I saw an interview with him and James Ivory of Merchant Ivory fame and he talks about how the way Ivory used the opening credits in Bombay Talkie was a big influence on Anderson's own work. Here's that credit sequence: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/446189/Bombay-Talkie-Movie-Clip-Opening.html

Look forward to the wrap-up cast!