Well, it’s come and gone. It was a lot of fun and also a lot of work, but Wes Anderson Month is over. When I first announced this project, I pretty much expected to fail at some point and not have time to write everything I hoped to write.
Shocking the hell out of me, I actually delivered on every one of my promised features, and even had the chance to post a few more.
We had…
– Friday Musical Interludes of “Here Comes My Baby” by Cat Stevens (Rushmore), “30 Century Man” by Scott Walker (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou), “Les Champs-Élysées” by Joe Dassin (The Darjeeling Limited), “Let Her Dance” by The Bobby Fuller Four (Fantastic Mr. Fox), and “Zorro is Back” by Oliver Onions (Bottle Rocket).
– A Fun Deconstruction of the Moonrise Kingdom trailer.
– An Admittedly Biased look back at Wes Anderson’s films to date.
– A Revised Version of my 10 Most Affecting Wes Anderson Moments article.
– A Direct Response to reader David Black, who wondered whether or not Anderson’s obtrusive hallmarks might prevent his films from achieving greatness.
– …To Which Dave Responded with a defense of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
– We Compared the handling of cross-cultural romance between Bottle Rocket and The Darjeeling Limited, and had no difficulty determining which was more successful.
– We Spotlighted Anderson’s rightly adored coming-of-age tale Rushmore, and explored its hands and handiwork.
– We Deconstructed a Scene from the criminally under-appreciated The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, which we think makes us Blue Star Cadets by default. He’ll send us a red cap and a Speedo.
– And Finally we defended Anderson’s voice, and his desire to stay true to it. Some see it as a refusal to evolve. Whether or not that’s true, we’re perfectly happy where we are.
…alright, alright. I admit, I did not fulfill all of my promises. The month was meant to culminate in my review of Moonrise Kingdom, but — of course — it’s not playing anywhere near me. At all.
So thanks for sticking with me through this, and for being on-hand to revel in my inevitable disappointment.
We’ll resume regular noiseless chattering immediately.
Sorry it was such a disappointment for you. At least we got to rewatch his previous movies and remember why we love him so much in the first place. And you only have to wait until June 8. It’s not an eternity, just a mere two weeks.