Anyone know if "Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" will be a Criterion DVD?
 

Just saw this yesterday and absolutely loved it, like all Wes Anderson's movies. Does anyone have any info on the eventual DVD, and whether or not it might be a Criterion like "Rushmore" and "Royal Tenenbaums" were?

While I'm at it, any word on the long-rumored "Bottle Rocket" Criterion?

Thanx

i hope so, it was my favorite movie of 2004.

I'd say chances are good - but that would mean a much larger theater-to-dvd-window than the typical 6 months.

I wouldn't be surprised, if there is a regular DVD in say April/May, and then afterwards it become a Critetion.

There wasn't a longer window for Royal Tenenbaums. It was in the theaters in late Dec./early Jan. based on market, and was on dvd in June of the same year.

I don't enjoy bearing the bad news every time this comes up in one forum or another, considering BR is one of my 5 favorite movies of all time and I've easily seen it 20+ times, but I've contacted Jon Mulvaney at Criterion Co. once every 6 months or so, and he says there are no plans to bring this movie into the collection in the near future. For some reason I don't think TLA will get the Criterion treatment, I don't know why, I hope I'm wrong and it does because I really enjoyed it and Wes is a great director with a really keen sense for style and atmosphere.

I can only hope so.

Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums have great Criterion transfers, most notably when anamorphic is taken advantage of on a wide screen.

This is another 2.40x1 film that is visually spectacular, so hopefully there is a DVD to match.

Wasn't the criterion release of Royal Tenenbaums the only release of the film? I don't even recall there being a non Criterion version. That could be the case again.

This will most likely be a Criterion DVD release. Look for it in July-August.

Yep. This was the case, but IIRC, Disney did announce briefly that they would release a barebones edition first, but this didn't happen.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a Criterion. The Royal Tenenbaums seemed to be a part of the collection before the movie was even finished! On disc two of that set, there's an intro by Ben Stiller and the boys, that was shot during production, welcoming us to the Criterion Collection

Why? DVDs are often in production while the films in question are still being made. There's no rule that Criterion can't do that. For example, I doubt that much of the extras on The Royal Tenenbaums were created after the fact (especially given that much of it is on-set material). The commentary may even have been recorded before the film came out.

DJ

Given that Life Aquatic is a Touchstone film, and both Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums were released by Touchstone, and that Disney and Criterion have a good working relationship, I agree that it's almost a certainty. Can't wait!

And add me to the list of the hopefuls wishing for a CC Bottle Rocket.

While I didn't really care for the film (Ebert's review was spot-on), I'd love to see a Criterion set (which I would gladly purchase....if for no other reason than to listen to commentary and maybe figure out why it didn't work for me).

IIRC, the royal tenenbaums a criterion disc but distriibuted by BV.

kms

ps. i would also love a CC edition of TLA (BV distro or not). also another vote for bottle rocket CC.

I would almost rather it get the criterion treatment with a BV distibution deal...lower price, price drops, in more stores....i think it will hit criterion early summer

While you're not wrong, and I do think it probably won't happen soon for whatever reason, I do feel I must point out that Mulvaney *always* says that until official announcements are made. If you go through "upcoming Criterion" threads, you are pretty much guaranteed to see at least one post in each thread where somebody says, "I just E-mailed Mulvaney last week and he said no plans at this time! I can't believe it!"

That said, I believe Anderson still wants the quality release of 'Bottle Rocket', so I imagine that the delay is either Criterion itself or, more likely, specifically getting ahold of the rights.

As for 'Life Aquatic', Anderson seems to have a good working relationship with Criterion ... then again, he seemed to have a good writing relationship with Owen Wilson, but that got dissolved.

where do you all hear stuff like this? not that I'm contradicting you....but I never run across this type of information other than in threads like this.

I must just be out of the film industry loop.

That's because it isn't true. People tend to have this problem in the forums.

Wilson didn't write AQUATIC becuase he was off making movies and money. Writing takes time, and Wilson didn't have that to spare.

Well I'm not saying it's *never* coming to Criterion, I'm just saying that I've contacted him 3 times over the past year and a half and each time the answer was no. It seems that CC has their hands full doing about 95% classic films, and 5% "recent" releases (only 7 of the past 100 releases are from 1990-present, in total 24 out of 285). I would love nothing more than a Criterion treatment of BR, I'd even take a studio released SE simply because the barebones, well, is exactly that.

Not that I'm disagreeing with anyone here, but Tenenbaums was done before DVD was super popular. DVD has changed a lot in three years. This could affect BV's desire to have Criterion put the DVD together for them... hopefully, not, or there was an agreement made during the pre-production process.

So what part of saying that their writing partnership seems dissolved isn't true? They aren't writing together anymore. Nothing else was implied there. Anderson wrote his first three movies with Owen Wilson, now he's written two in a row with Noah Baumbach.

I believe it just seemed as if you stated your opinion in a way to suggest that Wilson and Anderson had some sort of falling out, as opposed to the fact that Wilson has just become a very hot commodity in the past 3 years since Tenenbaums (Behind Enemy Lines, I Spy, Shanghai Knights, The Big Bounce, Starsky & Hutch, Around the World in 80 Days, a very small part in Meet the Fockers, and The Life Aquatic). Quite a bit amount of work for one person. He has stated in an interview before that he still considers himself a writer, so I would not be surprised to see him doing some more work in that area as soon as the steam cools off a bit.

I just wanted to note that Ebert’s review was wishy-washy and ultimately said nothing. I mean “I can't recommend it, but I would not for one second discourage you from seeing it”? The film still possesses Wes Anderson’s characteristic quirkiness if with a darker tone than usual.


“[T]wo in a row with Noah Baumbach”? Royal Tenenbaums was also co-written with Owen Wilson, as were Rushmore and Bottle Rocket. Life Aquatic is the first written with Noah Baumbach. I too heard the only reason Owen Wilson did not co-write this script was he was too busy making movies. To say Wilson and Anderson “aren't writing together anymore” is like saying I am going to bed tonight and not ever waking up again. Their writing relationship hasn’t ended. It just wasn’t a part of this film.

I think Buena Vista recognizes that Criterion has more experience assembling materials for quirky and niche films and has the built in demographic to which they can market. That's part of the reason why they gave them Rushmore and Tenenbaums and it's probably why they'll let Criterion do Aquatic. I don't think there's any debate that TLA is Anderson's strangest film to date, which makes it difficult for BV to market to the mainstream. Thus, I think they recognize that their best bet is to turn over production of the DVD to a company that will best assemble a package that will appeal to the film's unorthodox audience.

And 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' (which is Anderson's next movie, or do I have to prove that to you too?) is the second.

No, it's like saying I just woke up and I'm not sleeping anymore. You can read whatever you want into what I said, and it may even be true; I've certainly heard rumors from both people who know Wilson (anybody read Jeffrey Wells' columns?) and people who know and/or work for Anderson, but I don't care much either way. But, factually, they are not writing together (I will acknowledge that "anymore" in my second post was possibly a slight overstatement).

You guys are *really* quibbling on this one.