Those Crazy! Royal! Tenenbaums!

Last night my wife and I watched The Royal Tenenbaums for the first time after months of hearing how great it was. Because it was directed by Wes Andersen, who also directed the hilarious Bottle Rocket - also staring the Wilson brothers - we thought we'd give it a go.

Tenenbaums probably cost millions of dollars more to produce than Bottle Rocket, but was nowhere near as funny, or for that matter interesting. I know lots of people loved the wacky!, crazy! Tenenbaum family members, but that was precisely the problem with the movie. From the opening credits on, Andersen and company seemed desperate to make each character as extreme, bizarre, and eccentric as possible without purposefulness. When we weren't reliving some tramatic childhood experience, we were treated to acrid inter-character one liners and empty jabs.

As my brother told me a while back, about the only other person I know who didn't like it either, Tenenbaums was "eccentric for eccentric's sake."

I was more transfixed by the set design and clothes - plenty of pink and sharp blues - and of course the incessant use of Futura. But that's just me.