I should have linked to this piece two weeks ago when it first popped up on Slate, but it’s extremely thorough and brilliant here and there and deserves everyone’s attention. Written by Field Maloney, the article (called “The O Factor: Was Owen Wilson the key to the Wes Anderson phenomenon?”) wonders if the biggest problem with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was Anderson’s having co-written it with Noah Baumbach and not Wilson. The theory is gaining some ground as people recall the reaction to Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale at last January’s Sundance Film Festival. It’s a fairly good piece, but it’s very Wessy…maybe a little too Wessy here and there…and that it needs is what Aquatic probably needed, which was Wilson’s “sharp-edged intelligence gleaming underneath the chilled-out Texas veneer.”