Rating: 
Summary: I freakin love this movie
Review: This movie was about the lives of many people--none of which were picturesque. The movie isn't for people who don't want to see a piece of people's lives other than a cut and dried fairy tale. I had no idea who Wes Anderson was before seeing it--it was actually just a final resort in a long list of movies already seen or that looked too awful to waste eight dollars on--but I don't feel at all that the money was wasted. I didn't give it five stars because it certainly did have its problems and I wouldn't put it on a list of my favorite movies ever--but it WAS worth seeing. I didn't even think it was that funny--just very engaging. The directors made a movie that they wanted to make and didn't care about curtailing to pop idiocy--and the best work is done when it's done for oneself rather than to please the masses. I think most of its problems stem from having too many ideas to cram into a reasonable amount of time for a movie. As is obvious by other reviews, it really, really isn't for everyone--but I liked it and that's all that matters to me!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, acting, directing, and everything else
Review: The Royal Tenenbaums was a superb movie. Gene Hackman was absolutley amazing and him not WINNNING the oscar for best actor is a crime. This was my favorite movie of 2001 and I cannot recommend it enough. The movie is not easily summarized so I won't attempt to do it. Another customer review stated "there is even incest between characters." Well that is true, sort of. The story is about a VERY weird family and the two who engage in the act quit before it goes to far. Also they are not blood relatives. So buy this DVD. I guarantee you that if you are a fan of dark humor, wes anderson, gene hackman, or damn good movies, you'll love the Royal Tenenbaums.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for the movie at least
Review: I don't remember the last time a movie moved me so completely. Oh wait, I do: Wes Anderson's last film Rushmore! The man is an absolute genius! For those of you who didn't "get" this movie, I suggest seeing it again with an open mind. It's supposed to be funny, it's supposed to have an obscure moral agenda, that's what makes Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson two of the best screen writers working today. The art direction is beautiful, the soundtrack perfection, and the acting, to say the least, was masterful. These actors have turned out some of their best performances here and it is a crime they are not further recognized. Gene Hackman was robbed of the Academy Award nod even though he won the Golden Globe. I hope that this is not the real dvd. It would be a crime to release this film with not even a widescreen print! The Rushmore Criterion dvd is good, but there could be a lot more extras! I hope they release a REAL dvd of this masterpiece soon. I already know I can't wait til July!
Rating:
Summary: He's beaten Welles - three complete masterpieces in a row.
Review: The decline and fall of a Great Family in a Big House has a long-established tradition in fiction and cinema, and forms the basis for Wes Anderson's 'The Royal Tenenbaums', follow-up to the most wonderful American film of the last ten years. Characteristically, Anderson is less interested in the fall than the fall-out - the film begins with a precis of the family's greatness (the unnerving, all-round genius of the children (business, science, sports, literature); the saintly mentorship of the mother; the charming mean-spiritedness/self-centredness of the father, but then skips the 22 years in which the children somehow lose it all, through parental separation, frustrated love, the death of a spouse, resentment at betrayal or general anomie. Some of these blanks are later filled in, but because they become the machinery of one-liners and bits, they lose force as a psychology, as a way of explaining why these characters behave the way they do. 'Royal' is a consolidation of Anderson's previous masterpieces rather than a progression. It has the same miraculous mix of comedy and melancholy, romance and elegy, irony and emotion; and the Wilson Bros. play extensions of their parts in 'Bottle Rocket' - Luke is the sensitive brother suffering a nervous breakdown; Owen is the wired outsider who wants to belong, and whose positivity curdles into insanity because it lacks a channel. The film, like 'Rushmore', rejects realism in search of greater emotional truths - the narrative is framed as from a library book, and introduced as a kind of fairy tale (the Tenenbaum mansion has turrets); character is often revealed by clothes or decor as much as dialogue or action. The film's artifice and reflexivity is flaunted, and the dramatis personae packed with artists and plot-contivers. These unreal characters in an unreal environment with exhaustively unreal 'Falls'-like back-stories, diffuse believability in a way realism could never attain. After 'Rushmore', Anderson could have fallen into the trap of his namesake, Paul Thomas, his lightness of stylistic touch become mannered, his detached emotionalism solemn and pompous. 'Royal' is very similar to the latter's 'Magnolia', in its broadened canvas, its parodic, metafictional narrative framework and stylistic pyrotechnics, its use of bright stars in unglamorous roles, and its story of a Bad Father seeking Redemption, a Family warped by the Past groping after Release and Resolution. But every mis-step into overwrought grandiosity taken by PT is generally avoided by Wes by his emphasis on (concentration-defying) detail; his not falling for the glamour of monsters, papering over scars with charsima; his insistence on the relationship between people and place; his ensuring the comic momentum is couterpointed, but not overwhelmed, by melodrama. He doesn't allow his amazing actors to ham or bogusly emote, and they reward him with perfectly pitched performances, walking the tightrope between restraint and caricature. Gene Hackman especially continues his Indian Summer of rich comic character parts - it now seems a shame he wasted much of his career in earnest-and-dull mode - his ignoble but endearing Don Quixote/Sancho Panza double act with Pagoda, an Indian assassin turned sniffy servant, is the film's running glory. Gwyneth Paltrow is unexpectedly flowering into a Great Actress, and her dismembered finger reminded me of Hitchcock's admiring comment to Bunuel 'That wooden leg in 'Tristana', Bunuel. That wooden leg'. Even the house, with allegorical possibilities in its hierarchies of race, gender, generation and species, is indulged less for its Significance that its possibilities for Comic Confinement, Clash and Collapse. Although the film has a clear narrative line, you never feel its mechanics - 'Royal' moves with such life and credibility, such winning characters and revelatory set-pieces, you never think about the move from plot-point to creaking plot-point, and are genuinely surprised and saddened when the film unexpectedly ends. If this peerless masterpiece has a flaw, it's the curiously misjudged soundtrack, so crucial to the success of the earlier films: it overeggs the twee sensitivity with its folky acoustics, never quite trusting the viewer.
Rating:
Summary: It's this simple:
Review: You either love Wes Anderson's films or you don't understand why people love them.The majority of the American movie-going public is predictably going to be the latter, which is why there are so many of those negative reviews by disgruntled viewers who just didn't get it. It's all up to personal opinion & experience, of course, so if it wasn't your bag then it wasn't your bag. It sure was mine though. Out of all of Wes Anderson's films, I would have to say that this was my favorite, hands down. Thank God he didn't just go for a 'Rushmore II'.
Rating:
Summary: A Film for the True Film Lover!!
Review: I will start by saying that this film is not for everyone. A good selection of people will tell you that they hated this movie. These are the people that don't truly love cinema, as some of us do. For those who do, like me, this film is going to be one of your favorites. I'm sure if you are a fan of Wes Anderson, you no doubt saw his first two films, Bottlerocket and Rushmore. Each film he, and co-writer/actor Owen Wilson have made, has gotten better each time. Watch the three Anderson movies in a row, starting from the oldest to get perspective on his movie making skills before you watch The Royal Tenenbaums, if you haven't seen it already. His skills are critically acclaimed, yet the mainstream public just doesn't get it. Possibly because they just don't get cinema, or because he doesn't get the exposure that a larger director would get. With that said, this film is truly a wonderful piece of work. The performances from each of the stars of the film are unbelievable. With such a huge ensemble cast, one would think that some of the charecters would have holes in them, but each charecter gets fully developed and wonderfully acted on the screen. Anyone who has seen Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray etc, knows that they are gifted comedic actors, but the comedy from Gene Hackman (Royal Tenenbaum) was quite a shock! I challenge anyone, film lover or not, to watch the scene where Hackman goes out on the town with Stiller's two young boys and not laugh. It is quite a scene and is histerical. Hackman gave the performance that he most likely never knew he had. The direction of Anderson is what made his performace truly shine through. Both should have been Oscar nominated, but even the Oscar committee isn't true film lovers. I'm afraid with the continuing success of Wes Anderson, he will no longer be the fabulous best-kept secret that he has been to all of his fans. I only hope that the mainstream public can appreciate his talents as much as we have.
Rating: 
Summary: Quirky
Review: Wes Anderson has become the God to so many hipsters that his cult appeal is getting out of control. His movies have always been strange, as Bottle Rocket and Rushmore can attest to. But they have been both funny and dramatic. They didn't seem like Anderson was trying too hard. This movie reeks of writing not translating to the screen. I can imagine the script really did look excellent on paper, and if I had read it I probably would have chuckled. But the movie comes off haphazardly, and the jokes just aren't funny. It's not that his movies have been laugh-out loud funny, but they are amusing. Royal Tenenbaums is just weird. People are giving him too much credit, different or weird doesn't mean it's good. The acting is all great, the characters are typically eccentric, the situations extreme. Wes Anderson can obviously direct a film, his style has become his own, I can always tell it's a Wes Anderson film. But this movie drags and drags and drags, its boring without a point. It is refreshing to see something different, but not when it bores me to tears.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't like it
Review: Didn't like it. Well, but it's just my opinion. I think they tried to hard to shoot some kind of masterpiece, but the final result was not good. Stiller is no in a funny role. The advertising makes you feel this is a funny comedy, but it's moe of a family drama. (a good one, by the way). I just felt misled by the movie advertising art.
Rating:
Summary: PSeudo-intelligent movie
Review: Trying to make something different, they just made something boring. The plot idea is fine, the acting is good, but the movie just don't take off.
Rating:
Summary: man, you're blowing it.
Review: why, why, why???
with all the rumors that criterion is coming out with the TRT and BR dvds, and then this? poor form. i'm sick of the dvd comps putting out these barebones versions of movies, selling them for 20+, and then coming out with special editions months (or years) later. well, anyay, you won't find me buying this version unless it's uber cheap somewhere. i've gotta hold out for the good stuff.
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