Isle of Dogs (2018) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

Deadline says that the wide break nationally is April 13, but it will be expanding slowly in the weeks before that.

I saw it last Friday on the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and thought it was hilarious and wonderful. But it's also very much a Wes Anderson movie, and isn't really concerned with giving mainstream audiences something they expect. I'm not quite sure how it will do once it reaches wide release.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Checked it out last night (Thanks, MoviePass!). The guy next to me laughed at every single thing that tickled his funny bone. Oy vey...

I thought it was good, but not great. Worth a matinee, or if you're a Wes Anderson fan.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I saw this during the week and had mixed feelings. I thought it was amusing and entertaining, but also far too long for what it was. I wish that shorts were still popular and had a viable distribution method. This film would have worked brilliantly as a 30 minute short, but I feel that it had worn out its welcome somewhat by the 100 minute mark.

I enjoy the stop motion style that Wes Anderson uses, but in terms of his stop motion work, I think Fantastic Mr. Fox was the better feature overall.

 

[Sam Posten]

I liked it. Beautifully shot.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Checked it out last night (Thanks, MoviePass!). The guy next to me laughed at every single thing that tickled his funny bone. Oy vey...

I thought it was good, but not great. Worth a matinee, or if you're a Wes Anderson fan.

Don't you wish it was that funny to you?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Don't you wish it was that funny to you?

It got annoying, though.

 

[Edwin-S]

Yes. I find it really annoying that someone has a different sense of humour than I do. They should have the common courtesy not to laugh at something I personally do not find funny and ruin my zen, especially at a comedy film.

 

[Patrick Sun]

You weren't there, but please judge away. It was like sitting next to a cheerleader from the Wes Anderson fan club. Seriously, they would do these mini-clapping motions and whisper "Yay!" when they approved of what was going on on the screen, or during the opening credits. It was just too much.

 

[Edwin-S]

There are a lot of reasons for criticizing people who attend a movie: texting, kicking chairs and loudly talking. However, when we start being annoyed by someone getting more involved with a film than we are then some sort of tipping point has been reached. It probably wouldn't have bothered me if I had been there and if it had bothered me then I would have just moved to some other area of the theatre where it wouldn't have bothered me.

Secondly, you were judging the person that you found disturbing since you had no idea of that person's intellectual or emotional maturity. At least the person was attempting to be mindful that they were in an audience since, as you noted, they were whispering rather than just yelling out "Yay" at every moment.

People have different thresholds of tolerance for disturbance. Apparently, that threshold has dropped considerably since the advent of home video.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

My big battle at the movies is always with people who aren't paying attention to anything onscreen, or who act as if the movie screening is not their primary reason for being in the auditorium. This can manifest as a group engaging in conversation while the movie plays, or it can be individuals using personal devices in such a way that everyone in the auditorium becomes privy to what they're doing. It can be parents who bring small children to a movie obviously not intended for small children, and then let those small children roam wild as the film plays.

But I try really, really, really hard not to be bothered by people who are simply enjoying the movie in a way that's different than how I would enjoy it.

It's the same thing when I go to concerts. I was at a show last month where two people behind me talked through the first five songs of the performance, and the conversation was about laundry. The face value of a pair of tickets in that section would have been around $300, so these two people were spending $300 to talk about laundry. Besides being disruptive, it just made no sense. I turned around, and politely expressed that their voices were carrying further than perhaps they realized, and they gave me a nasty look but they stopped talking. On the flip side of that, I had people next to me who were so enthusiastic that they were singing along to every song and dancing/jumping up and down/gesturing wildly at every lyric. I didn't say anything to them.

For me, it comes down to, is the behavior being exhibited appropriate for the environment that it's being exhibited in? Clapping, cheering, expressing verbal enthusiasm for what's happening on stage or on screen, even if it's what I'd consider overkill, doesn't really bother me. That enthusiasm can be contagious. I was seeing a different comedy film a couple weeks ago and at the start of it, I just couldn't get into the movie. But when I heard the laughter of the other people in the auditorium, that changed my mood and I found myself enjoying the movie more.

When I saw Isle Of Dogs, when I got to the auditorium, there were only a handful of people there, and I made a conscious choice to pick a seat far away from other people, especially from the children/families. (Most children and most families do seem to behave, but you just never know if they're a family that watches the movie, or if they're a family that talks through the movie, until it starts. I'd just rather not take the chance at all if I can avoid it. I don't want my time ruined by interruptions, and I also don't want to be the curmudgeon that ruins their time either, especially when there's plenty of open seating.) And then, the second the house lights went down and the main feature began, three families with smaller children entered and sat down in the seats in front of me, behind me, and to the side of me. I didn't want to move because I had a good seat and had gotten comfortable, and I was surprised and pleased that all three of the families wanted to watch the movie and didn't cause a single disruption. (In my experience, being coming in late often don't show consideration for those around then, but I was happy that these three groups were all the exception to that rule.)

 

[Patrick Sun]

Sigh... It's like someone onscreen says "The sky is blue" and the guy next to me is about to burst from the seams about the awesomeness of that line, over and over again. I get that people get enthused by what they like, sometimes, it gets too much. Over my lifetime, I've seen hundreds, if not thousands of movies in the theaters, I have a pretty high tolerance of all sorts of people, regardless of their perceived mental and/or emotional maturity. Not that is matters, but the guy was a middle-aged happy-go-lucky guy, it would seem. I make one note of what I did not enjoy, audience-wise, and I'm getting the riot act read to me. Really? Sheesh.

In the past, seeing films with subtitles in theaters, I noticed I would laugh faster than most of the audience just because I seem to read faster (the lines on the screen, clump-reading from speed-reading practice all those years ago... but I digress) than most in the audience, but I realized it could be annoying to be *that* guy, so I curtailed my laugh reflex for subtitled movies. But I could have just been *that* guy too, and everything would be fine for everyone, I suppose, annoying so...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Patrick, I didn't mean to say you were wrong to be annoyed. Honestly, I might have been at the end of the movie were I sitting in your seat.

I was just saying that I would choose not to say something in that situation myself. I have no problem saying something when people are being rude/obnoxious/disruptive as a result of not paying attention to the movie, but it's much harder to say something when people are watching the movie but just enjoying it in a different way than I would.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Patrick, I didn't mean to say you were wrong to be annoyed. Honestly, I might have been at the end of the movie were I sitting in your seat.

I was just saying that I would choose not to say something in that situation myself. I have no problem saying something when people are being rude/obnoxious/disruptive as a result of not paying attention to the movie, but it's much harder to say something when people are watching the movie but just enjoying it in a different way than I would.

Ehh - I'm on Patrick's side here, and I don't think it was inappropriate of him to vent. If he can't vent among his fellow movie nerds, where can be vent?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Colin, I agree. What I'm trying to say is not coming across in what I'm writing.

I agree that it's obnoxious to sit next to an over-enthusiastic patron, but that in that moment, there's not much that one can do, because you can't really complain that someone's enjoying the movie too much. So you're stuck putting up with it. Which is annoying. I think what's been lost in translation is that I'm agreeing that you can't really say anything in that spot and it's an annoying position to be in.

Vent away!

 

[Craig S]

Back to "Isle Of Dogs"....

Saw it today and loved it. Inventive, funny, lots of heart, and to echo Sam, it's gorgeous to look at.

To be fair, I have always been in tune with Anderson's work. If you're a Wes fan, you'll like it. If you've never been on board the Wes train, nothing here is gong to change your mind.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Colin, I agree. What I'm trying to say is not coming across in what I'm writing.

I agree that it's obnoxious to sit next to an over-enthusiastic patron, but that in that moment, there's not much that one can do, because you can't really complain that someone's enjoying the movie too much. So you're stuck putting up with it. Which is annoying. I think what's been lost in translation is that I'm agreeing that you can't really say anything in that spot and it's an annoying position to be in.

Vent away!

Didn't we have similar venting during a "3 Billboards" thread? Seem to recall issues with audience members there - such as the guy at my screening who laughed at everything whether it was supposed to be funny or not!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Back to "Isle Of Dogs"....

Saw it today and loved it. Inventive, funny, lots of heart, and to echo Sam, it's gorgeous to look at.

To be fair, I have always been in tune with Anderson's work. If you're a Wes fan, you'll like it. If you've never been on board the Wes train, nothing here is gong to change your mind.

What about those of us who have enjoyed Anderson's work but who've gotten tired of his MO?

"Moonrise Kingdom" was when Anderson lost me - I largely liked his stuff until then, but that one really left me cold, and "Budapest" failed to make me rethink my newfound disenchantment.

I really fear that Wes Anderson has so heavily invested into "being Wes Anderson" that he's become self-parody...

 

[Edwin-S]

I, for one, thought Budapest Hotel was quite good, so I figure I'll like this one when or if it makes.it to my local theatre.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I didn't like Budapest Hotel much -- it was exquisitely designed, but felt very low-stakes and there didn't seem to me to be much reason to invest in what was going on -- but I absolutely loved Isle of Dogs.

 

[Dave Upton]

Saw this two nights ago. I really enjoyed the story, and the stop motion animation was gorgeous. As a dog lover, I suppose I am also weak to the plot of the film, but really I have a hard time finding much to fault here. I can't wait to watch it in UHD with my wife.