Bill Murray is plenty weird in Wes Anderson’s plenty weird THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU (Wes Anderson, 2004)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, May 26, and Sunday, May 27, free with museum admission of $10, 3:00
Series runs through May 27
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
lifeaquatic.movies.go.com
Wes Anderson’s fourth film, following Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, is, once again, zany, unique, offbeat, and creative, although in this case the sum of the parts do not add up to a worthwhile whole. Bill Murray stars as Steve Zissou, a minor-league Jacques Cousteau type who has been making cult underwater documentaries for years, but his last adventure could turn out to be his final one in more ways than one. His crew includes longtime right-hand man Klaus Daimler (Willem Dafoe), who is jealous of the new guy in Steve’s life, a pipe-smoking Kentucky pilot who might be his son (Owen Wilson); a pregnant reporter profiling Steve for an oceanography magazine (Cate Blanchett); a Brazilian safety expert who has a fondness for playing acoustic versions of David Bowie songs in Portuguese (Seu Jorge); the bond company stooge protecting his company’s investment (Bud Cort); and Zissouss mad producer (Michael Gambon), among others. There’s also wealthy rival Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum), who used to be married to Zissou’s wife Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). After Zissou’s best friend, Esteban (Seymour Cassel), gets eaten supposedly by the rare “jaguar shark,” Zissou goes on a personal mission of underwater vengeance that is just too dry for its own good. Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) did the stop-motion animation of the sea creatures. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is screening May 26-27 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image retrospective “Wes Anderson’s Worlds,” being held in conjunction with the opening of Anderson’s latest, Moonrise Kingdom, which hits theaters May 25.