Hacker Cinema
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
2004 · Film · 119 min
Directed by Wes Anderson
Renowned oceanographer Steve Zissou has sworn vengeance upon the rare shark that devoured a member of his crew. In addition to his regular team, he is joined on his boat by Ned, a man who believes Zissou to be his father, and Jane, a journalist pregnant by a married man. They travel the sea, all too often running into pirates and, perhaps more traumatically, various figures from Zissou's past, including his estranged wife, Eleanor.
3 positive6 neutralfrom 9 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
I remember seeing the TRS-80's in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou but I didn't know that they were Model IV's.
According to this list, there was a TRS-80 Model III in the Star Wars TV series Andor:
Andor - Season 1, Episode 1, "Kassa" (2022)
Wes Anderson did a wonderful movie about a very melancholic Cousteau pastiche, played by Bill Murray – The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Of course there is a Calypso equivalent in the movie, the Belafonte. Here is a tour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1RnYfFZK2k
Ok. Your reply essentailly says the simplest solution answers the question, why make it more complicated? That's a valid point. Let me offer more details.
This question is my attempt at a generalization of a problem, wrapped in an idea of how I came to be a person who likes (or used to like) rewatching movies.
Today, I own exactly 12 movies which I enjoy rewatching. Twelve movies I would rewatch virtually anytime I'm bored. Don't get me wrong. I'm not watching only these twelve movies. I watch any one of them a few times per year.
The rest of the time I like borrowing DVDs from my local Library--new movies, serial programs, and movies/films I want to rewatch. And like you say, "I browse... [the] library and just feel like rewatching that movie." AND, there are some movies at my local library which I enjoy rewatching, but don't yet care to own.
The problem. Recently, my local library deacquisitioned one of my rewatch movies, Wes Anderson's _The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou_ (2004), Criterion no less. If you ask why this was removed from the collection, they give the canned answer, not enough people are checking it out. But I think there is some bias in the decision. We also have a copy of Gunga Din (1939) "Adventure story of three English soldier comrades battling the savage punjabs in India..." Ah. Ok.
What compells us to rewatch movies? What can a library do to increase circulation of old movies? How can a library deacquisition more intelligently and in alignment with the community of patron's preferences?
>there's no inherent right to view this content.
this is true. I do like to support content creators.
The thing about TV and movies for me is that I hardly every re-watched things so streaming felt ok (I still do this). Though the pandemic though I did bust out some of my very modest DVD collection and rewatched and dug a little deeper, which I enjoyed.
Some of the DVD "extras" where pretty fun and haven't migrated to streaming/youtube. (for example some of the music in "The Life Aquatic" was music from "The Royal tannenbaums reversed and adjusted. Written by a guy from Devo).
Can't say I recall anything dolphin-related in the film.
But The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou had a comedic military dolphin element.
"Son of a bitch,
I'm sick of these dolphins."
I'm not sure there's a reasonable way past the "Napoleon Dynamite Problem". They mentioned, in the article, other movies where it's difficult to predict if someone would like them or not.
The list was “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”
Personally, the common thread I see across those is that the viewer would be more likely to enjoy the movie if they had the right context.
Kill Bill, for example, is far easier to enjoy if you've seen (not necessarily liked...but have seen) cheesy old Kung Fu / Karate movies.
Napoleon Dynamite is easier to appreciate if you were socially awkward yourself in high school. There's also some humor in there that's more relevant if you were a kid in the 80's, as well as some humor that might make more sense if you lived somewhere rural, or even more specifically, rural Idaho/Utah/Wisconsin.
All that to say that Netflix may not have enough data at their disposal to know if you have the right context to enjoy movies that almost require it.
Imagine that you're a football (aka soccer) player. And of course all your teammates are football players too.
To communicate explicitly on the football pitch, you use a combination of names, pronouns, short phrases, hand gestures, head movements, etc. But actually most of the communication on the pitch is implicit--players observing each other, inferring the mental state of each other, and making changes based on those inferences. That's how players running at full speed are able to improvise complex plays involving long passes.
This is how I think of the communication between smart social animals like wolves or dolphins. They are like a football team. Every individual is an athlete, with essentially similar physical characteristics and skills. And they interact to accomplish essentially athletic goals, like hunting, or asserting dominance, or mating.
So, I'm not holding out hope that dolphins have a secret rich language, or even an interest in developing one. Heck, even among humans, professional athletes do not have a strong reputation as deep thinkers. But they think a lot about their particular sport.
The movie Avatar, while terrible overall, got this right, I think. Scientists failed utterly to make a connection with the big blue natives. It wasn't until a warrior (by accident) took on the task that the connection was made. The big blue natives were themselves warriors, so of course that is the type of communication they valued most.
Edit just for fun:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqrzuj_the-life-aquatic-with-steve-zissou-clip-i-am-sick-of-these-dolphins_shortfilms
I draw a slightly different conclusion than the author.
>I noticed they were all similar in some way to “Napoleon Dynamite” — culturally or politically polarizing and hard to classify, including “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”
To me, what all these movies share in common is that they are so original that they are less accessible to the first-time viewer (or, in the case of Farenheit 9/11, completely tied to one's political leanings).
For example, I walked out of Napolean Dynamite and was bored to tears with Lost in Translation. The second time I watched those movies, I laughed my butt off at Napolean Dynamite and I found Lost in Translation to be one of the deepest movies I'd ever seen. Just the thought of Lost in Translation now gives me a yearning heartache. If I used Netflix to rate these movies after my first viewings, I probably would have given them 1 or 2 stars. Now I give them both 5 stars.
(As an aside, I highly recommend all of the above mentioned movies. I'd love to see an expanded list, so if anyone has one, please share. Going by my theory, I bet The Big Lebowski is in there. :)
That's hilarious. The list of movies that are hard to classify reads like a list of my favorites...
[Like] “Napoleon Dynamite” — culturally or politically polarizing and hard to classify, including “I Heart Huckabees,” “Lost in Translation,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou,” “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Sideways.”