To say that I haven't seen any movies lately would not be strictly true. In fact, it would be a downright lie. A downright lie. The reality of the situation is far different.

I have watched three Wes Anderson films. Twice. Twice each, I mean. Once without commentary and then once again with commentary. The films that I have watched are as follows: 'Rushmore', 'The Royal Tenenbaums' and lastly 'The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou'.

I've seen all of these films before, but after recently watching 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', I was keen to re-watch them in greater depth. I suppose what I got out of this was that Wes Anderson is very much the complete writer-director. He writes with a very clear visual sense of what the film will be like and executes it perfectly as a director. It is as though he sees the film as a whole, even at the writing stage. He also has a very strong sense of visual style. I think it would be fair to say that he is an auteur director, certainly.

Other than that, I suppose I consolidated in my mind my responses t0 all of his films.

To me, 'The Darjeeling Limited' is still my favourite. It's a simple film on the surface, but has a lot of depth and it's paced very well. The jokes aren't overt and yet it is still very funny in parts. It helps that it was co-written by Jason Schwartzman, I think. It has a Schwartzman sensibility that complements Anderson's style. This is what made 'Rushmore' such a great film. Schwartzman's lead performance in 'Rushmore' is great and just really suits the film, it has this real quirky feel. 'Rushmore' is probably my second favourite. The storyline is interesting and the relationships are very dynamic, constantly changing throughout the film.

'The Life Aquatic' is the weakest film, I reckon. There's something about it that doesn't quite work, perhaps it's that there are far too many peripheral characters that aren't really fleshed out. Maybe that dilutes the importance of the other characters. Or perhaps it's just too cute. Too much style over substance though and it makes it a little bit boring, even though it's visually so dynamic. I'm not sure, I mean, listening to the commentary track from Anderson and co-writer Noah Baumbach, it seems as though the focus of the film was chiefly on the relationships between the characters. Although, this aspect seems to get a little bit overshadowed by the overall look of the film, I feel. Bill Murray isn't used all that effectively either, he's great when he's playing off other actors but too often in this film he's a solitary figure, acting on his own.

'The Royal Tenenbaums' is somewhere in the middle for me. I'm a little indifferent towards this film. I think it's good, but a bit overrated. It looks great, has interesting characters, but again perhaps suffers from having too many characters. For instance, Bill Murray's character in this film is presented as a main character, but he isn't really. I wonder if this character and the Dudley character could have been cut, who knows. Anyway, there are some great sequences in this movie and I reckon Luke Wilson is excellent here. It just lacks a real emotional punch somehow. The closest is the scene with Angelica Huston and Gene Hackman in the street, near the start of the film.

As for the other films, 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' and 'Bottle Rocket', well I've only seen each of them once. 'Bottle Rocket' was pretty good, but it's Anderson's first film, it's low budget and so it's hard to rate it compared to the other films. I remember it being quite funny though and I'd like to watch it again. And 'Fantastic Mr. Fox', well I'd probably put it somewhere in the middle too, probably after 'The Darjeeling Limited' and 'Rushmore', maybe around about 'The Royal Tenenbaums'.

I know it's a bit of a pointless exercise in ranking films like that, but whatever.

So those are the only movies I've watched lately.