The Fabulous Worlds of Karel Zeman and Wes Anderson
M and I saw The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou last night. We both enjoyed the dark, absurdist humor, weirdly stilted performances, stagey camerawork, and of course, the Portuguese versions of David Bowie's Greatest Hits on the film's soundtrack. But something about the odd, CGI-animated scene near the end where Zissou confronts the giant shark in his mini-sub struck me as very familiar. I think it's quite likely that Anderson has seen The Fabulous World of Jules Verne by legendary Czech stop-motion animator, Karel Zeman, and perhaps this scene was his way of paying tribute.
If you're unfamiliar with Zeman's work, it's wonderful, whimsical stuff, check out this fun gallery of clips (Quicktime).
In other news, I had a great dinner with Uncle Jim at a Korean BBQ joint on Tuesday night. Mass quantities of kimchi and soju were consumed. We noted that unlike most liquor, which seems to taste better as you drink more and more of it, soju actually tastes worse.