To celebrate reaching 5000 followers on Twitter, Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich made this semi-Andersonian video, aided by Mark Mothersbaugh.

Slow news day.

Amanda Mae Meyncke at Film.com has compiled her list of the twenty must-own Criterion Collection DVDs, including films by Francois Truffaut, Noah Baumbach, and Wes Anderson.

 Rushmore, directed by Wes Anderson (1998)
Rushmore is easily the best of Wes Anderson’s films, a carefully crafted vision from one of the best new American directors of the ’90s. A young man named Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) finds himself too busy enjoying school to attend to the mundane nature of actually graduating and getting anywhere with his life. Throw in a crush on a teacher and a friendship with a sad sack played by Bill Murray, a host of strange characters and fantastic music, and you’ve got a good look at quirk done right. Nobody other than Cameron Crowe and Quentin Tarantino understands the importance of a good soundtrack quite like Anderson, and Rushmore comes close to perfection in the musical department. Funny, heartwarming and intensely likable, Rushmore is the ideal film.

To read the rest of the list, head on over to Film.com and let us know what you think of their choices.

Wes fan Anant Prabhakar has created a great tribute video to Anderson called “Let Me Tell You About Wes: Part 1.” We’ll be sure to tell you about Part 2, or whatever it is, if it actually exists.

From the Esquire interview with Francis Ford Coppola:

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have.

Did you ever see Rushmore? I was just like that kid.

Read the rest of this entry…

With the school year winding down, A. O. Scott takes a look at one of cinema’s more offbeat students, Max Fischer, in the director Wes Anderson’s 1998 film “Rushmore.”

“What makes “Rushmore” so profound and so poignant is that it tells two stories in counterpoint,” Mr. Scott says. “It’s about an adolescent coming to terms with his limitations and an artist coming into possession of his powers.” Mr. Anderson has created a signature style with his films and has gained a cult following. Are you a fan of Mr. Anderson’s films? And if so, which one do you like the best?

Watch the video.

Yusuf (a.k.a. Cat Stevens) was a guest on The Colbert Report a few weeks back. Two of his songs are featured on the Rushmore soundtrack, and he is one of our favorites. He has a great new album called roadsinger.

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The really great “making of” documentary for Rushmore by Eric Chase Anderson, thanks to elkemonkey’s YouTube channel.

From Cinematical:

Long awaited in the wake of his 2005 debut Brick, Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom is a magic trick of a film; the second it’s over, you want to see it again so you can try to catch how you were tricked, but you also want to see it again so you can return to the joy and wonder of being wrapped up in the nimble, deck-shuffling hands of a born showman. Watching it at first, some of The Brothers Bloom’s creative and thematic elements seem like they’re on loan from Paul Thomas Anderson (opening narration by Ricky Jay, pop-whiz-bang camera work, the troubled-but-tender relationship between the two brothers) while others feel as if they’ve been cribbed from Wes Anderson (deadpan confessions, whimsical set design, a parallel-universe setting where people still travel to Europe by steamship). The truth is, as much as The Brothers Bloom may feel like it’s cribbing from other films at first, this is Rian Johnson’s movie, and even if my more dreary and discerning critical faculties told me the final act goes on, perhaps, a beat too long, my inner moviegoer was sitting bolt upright, smiling, bright-eyed and carried away.

NME has a great tribute to Bill Murray:

Wes Bill – ‘Rushmore’ (1998)
In Wes Anderson, Bill found a director whose phonecall he actually wanted to return. As well as this, the best ‘high school film not about high school’ he went on to accept invitations to ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘The Life Aquatic’ and even popped up (all too briefly) in ‘The Darjeeling Limited’. So that’ll be every film (bar his debut) that Wes has ever made. What a lucky bugger.  See also – Those films I just listed above and this year’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’.

Read more…

The good people at /Film have posted another Bill Murray inspired piece of art, this time a t-shirt by artist Paul O’Sullivan called “Being Bill Murray.” This isn’t the first time Murray’s diverse career has inspired an artist.

The shirt includes three of the four characters Murray has played for Wes Anderson (from left to right): Raleigh St. Clair (The Royal Tenenbaums), Herman Blume (Rushmore), and Steve Zissou (The Life Aquatic with…). No spot for The Businessman from The Darjeeling Limited? What’s the deal?

You can click the picture below to see a bigger version and order one for yourself. (That is, if you’re either a small or an x-large. All other sizes are unfortunately out of stock.)

Murray can currently be seen in his third film with director Jim Jarmusch The Limits of Control which is in limited release and will be expanding throughout the month.