I think there are times when a director makes a successful, breakout movie and then tries to follow it up with a movie that seems to say, “If you liked that, wait until you see this!”
I remember watching Snatch and thinking that it was almost a parody of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. I really liked Lock, Stock. I thought it was stylish. The soundtrack was awesome. It was kind of all over the place with way too many characters but I think it worked. Then, when I saw Snatch and there were even more plots and even more clever speeches and even more tough characters. I think Guy Ritchie was a little too pleased with how clever he was in the last movie.
I’ve also had this theory for a while about the Andersons – Wes and P.T. – that their first three movies followed a similar pattern. The first one was low budget without their signature style. Wes Anderson made Bottle Rocket and P.T. Anderson made Hard Eight (or Sydney, depending on the cut). Their second films announced them as a filmmakers: Rushmore and Boogie Nights, respectively. Both were critically lauded and both showed each filmmaker coming into his style. Then their third movies were their sophomore effort. Sophomore usually means “second” but I’m using sophomore like the attitude of a sophomore in high school or college, someone who thinks that after having gone through one year and learning the ropes that they know everything. I think they both thought to themselves, “If you liked that first movie, wait until you see this!” That’s how I think of both The Royal Tenenbaums and Magnolia.
I remember seeing the Magnolia trailer and thinking that that was going to be an amazing movie. Then I saw it in the theater and I only saw it once. That was enough. It was an epic narrative from many points of view with a southern California seediness similar to Boogie Nights. As Paul F. Tompkins explained his experience having a small part in the movie in his special Laboring Under Delusions, the script was the size of the phone book and the plot is everyone in the phone book starts talking to each other. And it ends with frogs raining down from the sky. I don’t care that that’s a spoiler. It pissed me off investing hours of my life in this movie and then getting that ending. So, if you haven’t seen it, you should know going in that it ends with frogs raining down from the sky.
The Royal Tenenbaums is a great movie but, even as a fan, you have to admit that Wes Anderson turned the cute quirk dial up to eleven. A sibling romance, an Oliver Sacks stand-in, a pet hawk, a wooden finger, and Dalmatian mice. Dalmatian mice? And why did Alec Baldwin have to narrate it? I still watch that one but I think someone needed to take a red pen to a few of those scenes.
Some people love Casino but I think it’s just Goodfellas on steroids. To be fair, he wasn’t a new filmmaker and he made Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence in the interim but I still stand by it. There’s even more mob money and depravity and Rolling Stones in the soundtrack.
To be honest, this theory is a little half baked but the idea of trying to outdo oneself can lead to less than stellar results.
I put it to you, readers, is there anything to this? Do you noticed any other movies like this?
