Wednesday Round-Up

Wes Anderson is shooting his new movie in Spain, with production set to begin in September.

In a recent interview with VarietyTilda Swinton revealed that she will star in the project, specific details of which are being kept closely under wraps…

The project is believed to have originally planned to shoot in Rome, but moved to Spain earlier this year. Sets resembling a desert landscape have been going up in Chinchón, a small town located southeast of Madrid, over the last two months, as reported by Spanish outlet El Pais. However, the film isn’t believed to necessarily be a western.”

IBC: “Behind the Scenes: The French Dispatch”

Some highlights (spoilers ahead for design nerds):

  • “[Production designer Adam] Stockhausen explains that all Anderson projects begin with an animatic. “The animatic is really a way of thinking through the entire movie from an animation point of view and building the entire film shot by shot in a way that defines the scope of what you see… In The French Dispatch, some of the live action is in miniature context, some is in context of the location and some are full-scale set builds.”
  • “’The film is broken up into different stories each of which has its own visual story, so the task of design is multiplied,’ Stockhausen says. There is even a pure animated sequence. ‘Conventionally you introduce a set and keep going back to it over and over again. Here, we introduce places and 20 minutes later we’re done with that story, never to return.'”
  • “Tonal references included The Red Balloon, a 1956 French fantasy short filmed in the Ménilmontant neighbourhood of Paris, and photos of Paris before its reconstruction in the mid-19th century. ‘The idea was to find a town which felt like Paris but not as it is today – more a sort of memory of Paris, the Paris of Jacques Tati,’ explains Stockhausen.”
  • The French Dispatch is shot on 35mm with Yeoman finding the texture of negative film more in keeping with the story’s artisanal aesthetic. Several sequences are shot in black and white with colour used for emphasis, for instance when actress Saoirse Ronan leans forward to reveal her blue eyes.”
  • “Anderson also uses different aspect ratios to tell parts of this story. It’s a technique he has used before, notably on ‘Budapest’ when Yeoman shot 1:37 for the scenes that take place with concierge Gustave to signify the time period of the 1930s and 1940s.”

Variety: Cynthia Hargrave, Producer of ‘Bottle Rocket,’ Dies at 64

20 years ago

On February 21st 1996, Bottle Rocket was released, the first feature film directed by Wes Anderson.

Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz wrote this beautiful article to commemorate this special date.

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson exiting Columbia Pictures offices after signing deal to make Bottle Rocket, which was released 20 years ago this week.
Source: Consequence of Sound facebook.

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Wes Anderson + literary

The importance of the books, of the narrators, of the narrative, in the movies made by Wes Anderson are exploded in this beautiful video made by the people from The A to Z Review. Enjoy!

The Academy Awards are coming

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The Academy Awards are tomorrow and, as you know, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel has 9 nominations. Even when it’s not the movie that everyone expect to win (Birdman and Boyhood are the titles that sound mostly as the winners), remember that it won at the Writers Guild Awards and 5 BAFTAs (Make Up & Hair, Original Music, Original Screenplay, Costume Design and Production Design) which it could mean that the movie is going to have a good night, even if it doesn’t win in the main cathegory.

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Why he deserves to win? I think the main reason is that he has always been faithful to his style. Even when his movies have been as much loved as hated by people, he never changed. The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 100% Wes Anderson movie and the people couldn’t help fall inlove with it and that’s why, even when it is one of the earliest released of the nominated movies, it is one of the most nominated and celebrated.

Surprise after the jump!

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Interview with the Reservoir Geeks

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The Lovely Soiree at the Bottle Rocket Motel is tomorrow, 26 July. To book a room, call the Days Inn Hillsboro directly at 254-582-3493. The event includes an outdoor screening of Bottle Rocket, cool stuff to take home, Fresh Tamales and more on sale from North of the Border, Wes Anderson-themed party rooms, lifelong friendship, and more.

We recently sat down with our pals the Reservoir Geeks to talk about their brainchild.

[Preface from Andy: “The backstory to the whole event is that when I had just started a job, back in May 2011, I didn’t have any money to spare for a birthday gift for Chris. I knew that I would be getting more steady paychecks later in the summer and told him that we would have a good ol’ fashioned drunken guys night in room 212 at the Bottle Rocket Motel. Well, as it would turn out, online all the rooms were booked. I found this odd since Hillsboro is not the most happening place. I called Days-Inn directly and they informed me that the franchise fee had not been paid and that the first things taken away was the internet reservations (genius, I know). I was able to get the motel’s direct number and talked to the owner, Bina, who informed me of their recent problems and fears of closing. I called Chris immediately and asked if he would mind if we tried making a little event out of it. Honestly we expected some of our friends to show up and possibly some other fans but our fate for success was sealed when I tweeted y’all there at Rushmore Academy and you got the ball rolling. The rest is pretty much history and it’s in huge part thanks to you guys!”]

RA: What was it about this place, a Days Inn off of I-35, that brings you so much joy? What inspired you to save it?

CHRIS: Even though the paint scheme is a little different and some things have been moved around as soon as you step onto the property at the Bottle Rocket Motel it’s like stepping into one of Wes Anderson’s films. Not just a film set, but the actual place in that moment you’ve seen on screen so many times. Walking the breezeway at night feels just like you would picture it did when the boys discuss Bob’s situation with his brother right before he makes off in his car. It’s the same as when you step out of your room barefoot in the morning and look out over the railing and can’t help but mutter to yourself “Bob’s gone. He stole his car.” With some films the sets get destroyed or broken down, but the Bottle Rocket Motel lives on. That world still exists.

ANDY: You know, when I was a teen I saw the motel coming and going to visit my grandparents in San Antonio and always thought that it looked eerily familiar. Luckily on one trip back we needed gas and my folks stopped at the gas station right there. I said I was going to walk over and take a look at the hotel and while walking through the lower center hallway I unveiled itself to me. The closer I got to the pool the more the sides of the hallway seemed to open like a cinder block curtain. There it was; the pool, the red doors, the open field. All canopied by the beautiful Texas sky. The Bottle Rocket Motel will always be like that in my mind. Sorta like when you think of your parents and their always young like when you were a kid.

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Wes’s World: Wes Anderson and His Influences

From July 12 to August 31, the Northwest Film Center in Portland will present “Wes’s World: Wes Anderson and His Influences”, an opportunity to know not only his work, but the films who has inspired him along his whole career.

Starting with 1998’s “Rushmore,” the Northwest Film Center program will feature screenings of Anderson’s eight features, including now classics like “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.”  Matt Zoller Seitz, the film critic and RogerEbert.com editor-in-chief who literally wrote the book on Anderson (“The Wes Anderson Collection”) will introduce “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

“Wes’s World” will also include showings of films by François Truffaut, Jacques Cousteau, Werner Herzog, Jean Renoir and Hal Ashby, among others.

Check out the program’s trailer below.  The full lineup can be found here, on the Northwest Film Center’s website.

Source: Indiewire

Saving the Bottle Rocket Motel: Year One

Walk down memory lane and revisit the first Lovely Soiree in 2011!

More on this year’s soiree here.

Alamo Drafthouse to screen “Bottle Rocket” at 2014 Lovely Soiree

Our pals the Reservoir Greeks have announced that the terrific folks at the Alamo Drafthouse will yet again screen Bottle Rocket at this year’s Lovely Soiree at the Bottle Rocket Motel.

This year’s soiree at the the Days Inn Hillsboro (307 SE I-35, Hillsboro, Texas) shall be celebrated on 26 July 2014. Do not book on days-inn.com. Call 254-582-3493.

From last year’s screening:

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