18 Minute Video Interview with Wes from Cannes

As part of his informal, uncut DP/30 interview series, Dave Poland sat down with Wes at Cannes to discuss the opening of the festival, his new film, and what they call corduroy in France.

See Wes’ last interview with Poland, on Fantastic Mr. Fox, here.

Moonrise Kingdom Animated Short to Debut Online Next Week

Coming Soon has the exclusive:

ComingSoon.net had the chance to speak with the auteur filmmaker [Anderson], who revealed that he has prepared a special animated short film designed to serve as a companion piece to Moonrise and that it will premiere online next week.

“[The character of Suzy has] a suitcase full of these young adult fantasy type novels,” Anderson told us. “Sort of sci-fi/fantasy books. We had to invent them and give a little glimpse of each one. Different artists, most of whom very close to the filmmakers, were doing these. In fact, we have now animated them, each little passage, each in the style of the cover of the book. We’ve made a little short film that’s hosted by Bob Balaban, the narrator in our movie. That will come out next week on the internet. It’ll be a little companion piece to the movie.”

Very exciting, we wonder if it’ll be easier to grab hold of than Hotel Chevalier was for the non-iTunes inclined. We’ll keep you posted.

Wonderful Hi-Res “Moonrise Kingdom” Ilustration From the New Yorker

The great illustrator Adrian Tomine provides this fantastic Moonrise Kingdom illustration that was used to accompany Anthony Lane’s review in this week’s New Yorker. (Click below for full size)

I think you just found your new iPhone wallpaper.

(via CriterionCast)

Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman in new Wes Produced Film by Peter Bogdanovich

Some months ago we told you of a new film from Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, They All Laughed), produced by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, entitled Squirrel To The Nuts. Now it seems the film is finally taking shape, with Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Olivia Wilde and Brie Larson joining the cast. See if you can suss any other information out of Variety’s impenetrable web of bizspeak.

“21 Jump Street” star Brie Larson, Owen Wilson and Olivia Wilde are attached to star in Peter Bogdanovich’s quirky indie comedy “Squirrels to the Nuts,” which will be produced by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach.

Jason Schwartzman has also been courted for the project, though he is not officially involved with the package at this time.

Bogdanovich wrote the script, which follows a hooker-turned-Broadway-thesp (Larson) and the recurring intersection of those two facets of her life.

Wilson will play a Broadway director who pays for the young protag’s services despite being married to the star of the play. He later gives Larson’s character money to quit escorting and follow her dreams.

Wilde will play a therapist whose own mother is in rehab for alcoholism.

UTA is packaging the project, for which producers are in the process of finding both financing and distribution in advance of a fall start.

We like all the players involved, and look forward to seeing it.

New York Magazine Interviews Wes, Tells Him About ‘Battleship’

New York Magazine‘s entertainment blog Vulture had a chance to speak with Wes and Cannes, and it’s definitely worth a read. They touch on the new European set film Wes is working on, and there’s a particularly amusing bit regarding the movie Battleship. Read the full interview here, and after the jump.

It’s hard to believe that Wes Anderson is a newcomer to the Cannes Film Festival, since his deadpan verve and Tati-influenced comic tableaus seem tailor-made for fine French sensibilities. Still, better late than never, as Anderson has finally made it to the fest with his latest film Moonrise Kingdom, a starry comedy about two 12-year-olds who fall in love and run away together (with a motley crew of concerned parents and peeved scouting troops in hot pursuit). Vulture sat down with the ivory-suited Anderson on the Croisette today to discuss the making of the movie, the legacy of The Royal Tenenbaums, and the blockbuster movie he’s only just heard of.

It’s unusual to get a movie from you outside of the fall-winter movie season. Are you becoming a summer movie auteur?
[Laughs.] Yes! That’s why it’s my first time at Cannes, actually. I’ve never had the chance to even try to get a movie here before because it’s always been ready at the wrong time. Have you been here many times?

No, this is my first time.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? You really feel they have a way of doing things here. They have a lot of rituals in place here, at least when you present a movie.

How so?
There’s a whole choreography to the opening night, a whole manner of moving, stopping, and turning, and I never knew exactly what was going on. I walked into the theater, I was being led by a cameraman, and as I entered I realized I was being projected onto the screen, gigantically, and then I realized that 2,000 people had been watching me in the auditorium the whole time while I was videoing things with my phone. Anyway!

Continue reading “New York Magazine Interviews Wes, Tells Him About ‘Battleship’”

Bill Murray and Olivia Williams Star in “Hyde Park on Hudson”

The new film Hyde Park on Hudson seems to be a bit of mini-Rushmore reunion. The film centers on the visit King George and Queen Elizabeth made to Franklin Roosevelt’s upstate New York home before the second world war. Playing FDR is Bill Murray, and his wife, Eleanor? Olivia Williams, naturally. The film will be released this winter, take a look at the trailer below.

‘Moonrise’ Among Stars – The New York Times Talks ‘Kingdom’

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times filed her first report for this years Cannes Film Festival, and leads off with the opening night film:

CANNES, France — Sometime after the entree had been served at the opening-night dinner on Wednesday at the 56th Cannes Film Festival, after Harvey Weinstein had pumped half the hands in the room, and Wes Anderson, Bill Murray and Bruce Willis had entered to applause following the premiere of their film, “Moonrise Kingdom,” the pink lights were dimmed, and the waiters began weaving among the tables, carrying large, heavy blocks of illuminated ice. With their tiny interior lights glowing and embedded plastic cups holding haute cuisine soft-serve, it looked as if a fleet of toy U.F.O.’s were landing — or a deconstructed igloo. At Cannes, even dessert is a show.

“These are what we call art films,” Mr. Murray had said about Cannes several hours earlier at the news conference for “Moonrise Kingdom,” as the roomful of journalists knowingly cooed and laughed. Mr. Anderson, at Cannes for the first time, was seated dead center at an elevated table — the cast member Jason Schwartzman squeezed in at one end, with his colleagues Mr. Willis and Edward Norton knocking elbows toward the other — but the love soon gravitated to Mr. Murray. “I really don’t get any other work but through Wes,” he said, as if to explain his long working relationship with Mr. Anderson. The room laughed again.

And then Mr. Murray did what savvy celebrities sometimes do when they’re playing the game of up close and personal. He flattered the flatterers: “How did you people like the movie?”

We liked it just fine, some much more than others. A love story about two 12-year-old runaways, set in 1965, the film is one of Mr. Anderson’s supreme achievements: It’s wondrously beautiful, often droll and at times hauntingly melancholic. While the critics, reporters and programmers who packed into its first press screening on Wednesday morning didn’t respond with thunderous applause, neither were there any of the dreaded Cannes boos. The French seemed somewhat cool toward “Moonrise Kingdom.” Perhaps its scripted subtleties had been lost in translation, although the Cahiers du Cinéma critic gave it three of three stars in one poll. The Americans, many of whom will weigh in when it opens in the United States next Friday, seemed generally pleased.

To read Dargis’ full write-up of the first two days of Cannes, you may click here.

 

See ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ Star Kara Hayward’s Cannes Diary

Vogue enlisted the young star of Moonrise Kingdom to document her first Cannes experience. To see her full photo diary, and read the full article, head on over to their site.

“Dinner was delicious! I got to sit next to Jared Gilman [her Moonrise Kingdom costar]. . . and across from Harvey Weinstein, who was lovely to meet. . . And Alec Baldwin came to say hello. I love, love him on 30 Rock!”

 

Wes Working on New Script Set in Europe

Something we missed first time around when we posted that Harper’s Bazaar shoot, the article accompanying the photos contains this bit of information:

Anderson is halfway through another script but will not reveal anything apart from “it’s a film I want to make in Europe, a Euro movie.”

Intriguing. We recall similar rumblings about a “movie in India” a few years before The Darjeeling Limited. Stay tuned.

 

Take a Tour of Moonrise Kingdom with Bob Balaban

Fulfilling his role in Moonrise Kingdom as “Narrator,” the great Bob Balaban takes us inside the island of New Penzance, the (fictional) world of Wes’ latest opus.

 

Parts 2-4 after the jump. Continue reading “Take a Tour of Moonrise Kingdom with Bob Balaban”