From the Film Society of Lincoln Center:

Coming to you from Belfast and Nashville via the Internet, the opinionated gents of The Film Talk (Gareth Higgins and Jett Loe) dissect our Satyajit Ray series. You can listen to them talking about achieving effortless naturalism in cinema, the proper pronunciation of Satyajit Ray’s name, and the meaning of a Ray retrospective in the midst of a world of multiplexes. It’s a great contextualization of our Ray series, which is closing tomorrow (Wednesday).

New podcasts from The Film Talk come out frequently, and cover notable movies both high and low. You can subscribe to them on iTunes, or visit their official site.

[Open the Film Talk podcast here]

Coincidentally, you can follow the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Twitter!

From Les Herman:

Update: if you are interested in prints, please contact lesliepherman(at)gmail.com.

Wes Anderson

The Darjeeling Limited

From Phil:

“At the Movies” (starting in the front row, left to right: Terry Gilliam, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Hal Ashby, Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Werner Herzog, Michel Gondry, Martin Scorsese,  David Lynch, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, François Truffaut, Sidnet Lumet)

“To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun.” – Akira Kurosawa

During the second half of April, the Film Society of Lincoln Center (New York) will present the films of Satyajit Ray in First Light: Satyajit Ray from the Apu Trilogy to the Calcutta Trilogy (tickets). The series focuses on the first half of Ray’s career, including The Apu Trilogy, and will conclude with a conference at Columbia University.

Ray’s work inspired Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited. Tragically, The Apu Trilogy is out of print in the United States.

A fun little post from At the Edge:

Image: Famous “Typewriter Sequence” from Merchant Ivory’s film Bombay Talkie (1970) featuring “Queen of the Nautch Girls”  Helen and great Shashi Kapoor. The film is not the best from Merchant Ivory duo, but the sequence is definitely iconic.

Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007) made the song somewhat of an international hit (editor’s note: did it?).  Here is the song clip with Ismail Merchant, in a very Indian way, explaining the metaphor of “Fate Machine.”

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The really fantastic film site The Auteurs is  showing the films of Merchant Ivory, free of charge this month. The music and films of Merchant Ivory helped inspire The Darjeeling Limited.

Thanks to the dream team of American-born director James Ivory, Indian producer Ismail Merchant, and German-British screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Merchant-Ivory Productions set the standard for gorgeous period pieces and sophisticated literary adaptations. This month, The Criterion Collection presents six of them for free, ranging from Bollywood-tinged comedies to award-winning E. M. Forster adaptations.

Follow The Auteurs on Twitter! (we are!)

(Just a reminder: Owen Wilson will be presenting tonight’s Top Ten List on the Late Show with David Letterman.)

• From Sean, a Rushmore-inspired music video from Company of Thieves:

The debut music video from Company of Thieves, is inspired by Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. The video for the song “Oscar Wilde” was filmed at Sycamore Elementary School in Kokomo, Indiana, over the course of just one day in December 2008. It includes over 60 props which were mostly bought from flea markets and vintage stores. The video was shot on Kodak Vision3 500T 16mm film using an Eclair ACL camera with 12mm and 14mm lenses, with 23 lighting setups. The footage was digitally transferred to uncompressed 10 bit format and edited in Final Cut. If you like the song, it’s available for free download.

• The Escaped Zoo Animals have a song titled “Duplex” on their new album that references Jack Whitman’s affinity for Volatire No. 6. You can check out their music on MySpace or iTunes .
• “What is Wes Anderson’s Quirky” at That Dang Blog
• From Filter: “Bottle Up and Explode! The Origins of Wes Anderson and Bottle Rocket” |  “Jeff Goldblum, Wes Anderson Talk Film” (thanks to Thomas!)
• Emily May has written a fine article over on Senses of Cinema, “The Darjeeling Limited and the New American Traveller”
• Brandon wonders if these “daytime pajamas” were inspired by TDL.
• Film student and Yankee Racer Fahim shares with us his most recent project, which is obviously inspired by one Mr. Wes Anderson (enjoy!):

The Darjeeling Limited premieres on Cinemax Thursday, September 4 at 8.30 p.m.

Click for full schedule.

Sign TDL Criterion petition.

Derek Hill is the author of the new book Charlie Kaufman and Hollywood’s Merry Band of Pranksters, Fabulists and Dreamers, now available in the U.K. (Amazon | Waterstone’s | Blackwell ) and out soon in the U.S. ( Amazon ). He has agreed to write several pieces for the Academy. This is part 2; Derek has decided to offer the section of the book on TDL in its entirety. Enjoy!

‘Is that symbolic?  We.  Haven’t.  Located.  Us.  Yet!’
– Francis Whitman (Owen Wilson) has his mind blown when he realises that the train he and his brothers have been passengers on is lost.

Anderson has never been averse to addressing mortality head-on in his films, specifically the death of a spouse (Rushmore), parent (The Royal Tenenbaums) or child (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou).  Although all of his films are ostensibly comedies, there has always been an element of the impermanence of things, of people, that has delicately coaxed an emotional resonance forth from the wackiness.  Not particularly original or groundbreaking, but when one considers the frequently bathetic treatment of death in much of American mainstream cinema, Anderson’s unsentimental and realistic treatment of grief is a commendable aspect and intrusion upon his lucid, intensely fabricated theatricality.  As much as Anderson has become a master of the elaborate multi-layered mise-en-scene, he also astutely understands the moment to drop back, allowing his characters to feel the brunt of their sorrow without excessive ornamentation.  The Darjeeling Limited is as waggish as any of Anderson’s previous work.  But at its core is the black hole of loss, the invisible thread that binds us as profoundly (if not more so) than birth.

Read the rest of this entry…

From elloh’s Etsy store.

These are so fantastic. I hope you buy some.