Category: Filmmakers

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“Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style” at the Museum of the Moving Image

Matt Zoller Seitz has created a five-part video essay, Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style, over at the Museum of the Moving Image website. Part I, “Introduction,” is now available for viewing (sorry that no embedded video is available).

With just five features in 13 years, Wes Anderson has established himself as the most influential American filmmaker of the post-Baby Boom generation. Supremely confident in his knowledge of film history and technique, he’s a classic example of the sort of filmmaker that the Cahiers du cinéma critics labeled an auteur—an artist who imprints his personality and preoccupations on each work so strongly that, whatever the contributions of his collaborators, he deserves to be considered the primary author of the film. This series examines some of Anderson’s many cinematic influences and his attempt to meld them into a striking, uniquely personal sensibility…

This series will take the process a step further, juxtaposing Anderson’s cultural influences against his films onscreen, the better to show how he integrates a staggeringly diverse array of source material into a recognizable, and widely imitated, whole. It will examine some, but certainly not all, of Anderson’s evident inspirations. Along the way, it may incidentally illuminate why Anderson-esque movies—from Garden State to Son of Rambow—can seem, no matter what their virtues or pleasures, a weak substitute for the real thing. (link for more)

You may remember Matt’s A Little Love: The Art of Bill Melendez (posted after the break). Discuss this video essay over at the Yankee Racers forum. Thanks to Racer Loraxaeon for the lead!

Continue reading ““Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style” at the Museum of the Moving Image”

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Another UCB parody

via SlashFilm:

Wes has inspired the Upright Citizens Brigade once again, this time in their parody “Famous Sketches Retold.” I can’t really say that I think this one is much funnier than the last one. Opinions?

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Wes in Gwen’s Goop and directing “First Grade Journal” (a parody)

Jessica over at the Yankee Racers forum posted this tidbit a while ago, but I never shared it on the site. On her very cool site GOOP, Gwyneth Paltrow (The Royal Tenenbaums) recently asked “five brilliant directors (four of whom I have worked with and one who I worship) to share their top five DVD rental picks.”

Wesley Wales Anderson answered as follows:

Wes’ Picks:
(Wes Anderson directed Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, etc. He is one of the most specific directors I have ever worked with. When I played Margot in The Royal Tenenbaums, he knew exactly how he wanted my hair, clothes and eye makeup. He is so inspiring to work with because you feel like you are the one crazy, important color he needs to create the whole picture. Also, he is a great dresser.)

Terror’s Advocate
Barbet Schroeder’s great documentary, Terror’s Advocate, also relates to another one I would highly recommend, which is Marcel Ophüls’ documentary Hôtel Terminus (except I think you can only get it on VHS). There is kind of a miniature version of Terror’s Advocate in the middle of it.

Neon Genesis Evangelion
This is a Japanese cartoon that is very difficult to describe and might not sound that great if I tried anyway. It is 24 episodes, and we watched them all in less than a week because you start to want to believe it’s real. This could spawn something like Scientology.

From the Life of Marionettes
I’d never heard of this until last month. It’s an Ingmar Bergman movie he made in Germany where I think he was a tax exile.

Life Lessons
The Martin Scorsese part of New York Stories. It’s about a painter.

More or less anything that says The Criterion Collection across the top it. The most recent one I had never seen before and loved was Costa-Gavras’ Missing.

The folks over at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade have made a parody of Wes’ filmmaking (The Royal Tenenbaums, specifically). I can’t decide if I think it is funny or not.

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Site updates

this-is-an-adventure

First, great news: our Facebook group has reached 1,000 members! Show your school spirit and join!

You can now follow us on Twitter @rushmoreacademy.com.

We are organizing a Wes Anderson Film Festival. A few years back, a group of Yankee Racers met online and watched the films of Wes Anderson together. We are doing it again and need your feedback!

More news:

  • The gallery is back up and working. Send your images and scans to edwardappleby @ yankeeracers.org!
  • The film scripts, press kits, and credits are now available in the library.
  • In addition to the normal radio station powered by last.fm, we have added a second channel of music from our Academy Books Music Room (sponsored by Amazon).

And, don’t forget that the Wes Webicon contest is still on!  I will post some new entries later today.

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Tenenbaum FAIL, or SUCCESS

A new site, titled “Tenenbaum FAIL,” recently popped up on the blogging site Tumbler.  Slash Film reports:

Imagine if FAIL Blog was a hipster blood bath sponsored by the Criterion Collection. The nascent but incredibly popular tumblr, Tenenbaum FAIL, posts abhorred photos of people dressed up like the famously stylized, overly fetishized characters from Wes Anderson’s filmography.

Many of the photos were ripped off borrowed from our Halloween costume contests.  Unlike the folks at FAIL, we think the costumes are fantastic! A few of our favorites after the break…

Continue reading “Tenenbaum FAIL, or SUCCESS”

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Interview with Mark Mothersbaugh and the commercial muse

USA Today has a new interview with Mark Mothersbaugh:

I was already scoring movies at that point, and I got a call from somebody at Sony who said, “We’ve got this interesting film with a difficult director, and you’re the only person he wants to talk to about scoring his movie.” And I thought, “Oh, no.” I went to see his movie, and when I was watching Bottle Rocket, I think they set a record for more people walking out than any other film this focus group had ever worked on. But I thought, “This guy has a really interesting take on our culture right now.” So I really wanted to meet him, and we just really hit it off. We ended up doing four films.

And, Ted Hamilton muses over the commercialization of the muse:

But where do these ideal artists exist? Even outside of visual art, it’s hard to find truly anti-establishment creators. I remember the sinking feeling in my chest when Wes Anderson debuted an ad for the American Express’ “My Life. My Card” campaign, and the sense of bewilderment and betrayal when Bob Dylan signed up for an Apple ad two years later. Everyone, it seems, is on the gravy train. And those who aren’t — well, they’re invisible.

Thoughts?

Keep the Webicon.me art coming, and check out the entries so far!

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Bottle Rocket Short Film Soundtrack

The renowned jazz label Fantasy Records released a digital soundtrack for Wes Anderson’s short film Bottle Rocket (1994) back on December 9. Read on for the press release. Click below to buy it on Amazon and support the site!

bottlerocketshort

1. The Chant / Artie Shaw
2. Old Devil Moon / Sonny Rollins
3. The Route / Chet Baker
4. Skating / Vince Guaraldi Trio
5. Stevie / John Coltrane
6. Nothing But The Soul / Horace Silver
7. Happiness Is / Vince Guaraldi Trio
8. Jane-O / Zoot Sims Quartet

Continue reading “Bottle Rocket Short Film Soundtrack”

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On the trail of Mr. Fox

wesfoxThis intelligence report is a community effort. Comment, tweet (@rushmoreacademy), or e-mail additions and corrections. I will add them to the post. Discuss the Fox over at the Yankee Racers forum!

Released by Fox Animation Studios (originally Revolution Studios)

Release date: November 6, 2009

Directed by Wes Anderson
Novel by Roald Dahl
Screenplay by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach

Animation by Mark Gustafson (originally Henry Selick)

Music by
Alexandre Desplat, composer (The Queen, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Jarvis Cocker

Cinematograpy by Tristan Oliver (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run)

CAST
George Clooney as Mr. Fox
Cate Blanchett as Mrs. Fox
Bill Murray as the Badger
Jason Schwartzman
Anjelica Huston
Meryl Streep

Continue reading “On the trail of Mr. Fox”

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Mailbag

(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.

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Wes interviews Peter Bogdanovich

Cheers! And, Happy New Year!

From the Yankee Racers:

There’s an awesome set of videos up on youtube of Wes interviewing Peter Bogdanovich about his film They All Laughed. It’s really interesting and cool to see Wes getting to talk to one of his heroes – check it out!

(sorry for not embedding the videos, but the function has been disabled for these videos)

Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCdn_Rd5ZGE
Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_CgmZhX8Y8
Part 3 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYRAoLPxjqs