The Boston Globe: The Life Athletic

by Josh Rubin

"I haven't been able to get a response from anyone in Marketing or Product Development," emails Josh Rubin, whose "Cool Hunting" website has become a nexus for the petition drive. "But Customer Service assures me they are aware of (and quite grateful for) the attention."

That "Life Aquatic" -- easily the limpest of Anderson's films to date, puffed out with props and gimmickry -- should be the object of such fetishistic scrutiny makes perfect sense. Fail to write a good story, set your characters adrift, and the audience's collective libido will zero in on... the shoes! Rubin thinks that the Zissou sneaker campaign manifests "the overall passion of sneaker-head culture" but allows that "the accessory-obsessed nature of the film" might have had something to do with it. As to the success of such a campaign, sneaker heads have prevailed before: Classic Sports Shoes recently announced that in response to public interest they were producing 1,500 pairs of the vintage yellow-and-black Tai Chi Onitsuka Tigers worn by Uma Thurman in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill."
by James Parker

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