Delighted to be with you today: it’s Burl! Ha ha, I’m here
to review a Wes Anderson picture! He’s not a director to everyone’s taste, and
even I think he tries a little hard now and again, but in general I find his
pictures funny, nice to look at, cleverly constructed and possessed of a
wistfulness and melancholy that usually hits ol’ Burl in the sweet spot!
My good pal Evan, who has never steered me wrong, hepped me
to Bottle Rocket when it first came
out! (Just to give you an idea of Evan’s tactics, he once pulled up beside my
car, made the roll-down-the-window motion, tossed me a cassette of Lee
Hazlewood’s Cowboy in Sweden, which
he knew I’d never heard, and zoomed away!) Then I went to see Rushmore on a first date which proved
also to be a last date, and then saw the next two pictures, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic, with a big group of
like-minded pals, and we had a terrific time! The Darjeeling Limited was another pleasant cinematic experience,
and quite a romantic one! But then I missed the next couple of pictures, and
have only just now caught up with Moonrise
Kingdom! (The Fantastic Mr. Fox
I’m saving for when my little child is old enough to appreciate it, and then
we’ll watch it together!)
So how does Moonrise
Kingdom stack up in ol’ Burl’s opinion? Well, it’s decidedly a minor work,
I suppose, ha ha, but a lovely one in many ways! It takes place on a little
made-up Atlantic Coast island, which in the grand tradition of made-up islands
seems to have a lot more space on it than would be geographically possible
based on the frequent map shots! It hardly matters of course, when telling the
tale of two love-struck, prematurely damaged pre-teens who fall in love circa
1965 and hie off together to camp in the woods! Boyscout Sam is an orphan, is
disliked by the rest of his Edward Norton-led troop, and is an excellent
woodsman; kohl-eyed Suzy is the dour, binocular-obsessed daughter of Bill “Ghostbusters” Murray and Frances “Fargo” McDormand!
The two missing kids stir the island into a real hubbub,
with local cop Bruce “Die Hard”
Willis mounting his own special type of investigation! In the meantime his
secret love affair with McDormand winds to a bittersweet conclusion!
Occasionally a naturalist/historian/narrator played by the underused (in this
movie and, I believe, in general) Bob “Altered
States” Balaban pops up to provide information on an approaching storm!
Other stars who show their faces include Tilda Swinton, playing Social
Services, Jason Schwartzman as Cousin Ben, and Harvey “Mean Streets” Keitel as The Commander! It all comes to a climax as
the storm hits its zenith, and I can’t report that it ends unhappily! Ha ha!
For
some reason this picture was not shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio Anderson
favours – it’s especially strange because this is an out-of-doors picture and
the widescreen format would have suited it well! Nevertheless it looks lovely (except for the cheap and lousy visual effects),
and delivers the expected funny and touching moments! Its themes swim lazily
below the surface: loneliness, otherness, the evasion of the inevitable! The
island setting clearly symbolizes obviousness, but that’s okay! I liked the picture,
and its little takedowns of quasi-militaristic scouting tropes, best
represented when an angry Keitel tells Norton “I’m fieldstripping you of your
command!” Ha ha! I give Moonrise Kingdom
three fieldstrippings!
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