Wes Anderson’s latest indie dramedy “Moonrise Kingdom” had all his trademark bits: a well-to-do family in shambles, Bill Murray, Bill Murray in shambles, people in uniforms, a crate-digging soundtrack. I enjoyed it as much or more than the typical Anderson film, which is to say I enjoyed it a great deal. Still, I was a tad surprised when the people around me clapped at movie’s end.
My senior high school English teacher Chris “Grem” Gremillion taught me to moisturize, love Cyndi Lauper, and be wickedly inappropriate (i.e., I wish I could recall his Aaliyah jokes). He also taught me to NEVER clap at the end of a movie.
Act like you’ve been there before, he would say. With regard to Anderson, any person who watched “Rushmore” or “The Royal Tenenbaums” or any of Anderson’s other features, could not have been that moved, right? I mean, what could they have been thinking?
Was it because they were poor? Rednecks? Hillbillies? Country bumpkins? All questions Grem would have raised had he been inside the theater. He would have taught them proper cinema etiquette. Or he would have rolled his eyes and snuck into a second movie – just as I planned had my parking not expired.
