The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

Director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) has built a career almost entirely on word-of-mouth movies, but not many people wanted to talk about The Life Aquatic once it was released. Still, a flick featuring Owen Wilson and Bill Murray deadpanning dialogue in matching speedos is worth checking out, and the Criterion Collection DVD packages a boatload of extras. The "Making Of" struggles along with the cast to explain the movie's meandering plot, while "The Look Aquatic" sits down with the production designer to discuss how expensive it became to create Anderson's bizarre world full of seahorses and dinghies. Two music featurettes go beyond your normal soundtrack shoptalk: one sits down with composer and Devo co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh on how to make new keyboards sound old, and the other is 10 songs from the David Bowie catalogue…performed solo on an acoustic guitar…in Portuguese. The rest of the extras watch from behind the scenes as the crew works on stop-motion animation, prop design, and keeping a straight face around Bill Murray in constricting swimwear.

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