The World of Wes Anderson
Over on Stickers and Donuts, Maria documents her pilgrimage to the Tenenbaum house in Harlem:
In my quest to see NYC-things before I leave NYC, I spent this Saturday cavorting around the city. I went to the Whitney, but that only paled in comparison to the pilgrimage I took with my friend George to see the house where Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums was filmed. The house (not on Archer Avenue, not in an inconspicuous city) is actually on 144th and Convent Ave in Harlem (more).
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.
Ian Dingman, the artist who designed the cover of the Criterion Collection Bottle Rocket, graciously agreed to make a banner for the site.
You can see the glorious result above! Thanks, Ian!
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.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Yusuf | ||||
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| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Yusuf – 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’.
From The Times of London, an interview with Fantastic Mr. Fox composer Jarvis Cocker:
Cocker divides his time between Paris and London (he has a place in trendy Shoreditch), with regular forays back to his home town of Sheffield. But he wants to remain in the French capital for his son, who is at school in the city. And he has established a life there – one of his friends is the American film-maker Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums), another expat.
Anderson has created a role for Cocker in his forthcoming, stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox. “Petey” is a mandolin-strumming puppet who looks and sounds like his real-life counterpart. Cocker and Anderson have written a song for the film — “a little hoedown number”, says Cocker, who also wrote music for and had a cameo role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. “I did a narration bit at the start of Mr Fox, too, but they showed that to test audiences in the US and they were very bamboozled. So I’ve ended up on the cutting-room floor. I tried to enunciate clearly!”
With the move of Fantastic Mr. Fox from 20th Century Fox to Fox Searchlight, its November 13, 2009 release date could be up in the air. More soon…
From Digital Spy via WesAndersonFan:
Best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas and James And The Giant Peach, Henry Selick is a modern day master of stop motion animation. His latest movie Coraline is based on Neil Gaiman’s spooky book for children and marks his first foray into 3-D. While chatting to us about the new movie, Selick also revealed what really happened with a certain Fox and hints at another collaboration with Gaiman.
What happened with your withdrawal from Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox?
“While originally I was going to be part of Fantastic Mr Fox, when Coraline got greenlit I had to tell Wes Anderson ‘well, sorry’. But I recommended an animation supervisor for him and several of the animators coming off Coraline have come on to Fantastic Mr Fox. So sideways I have had a little bit of a hand but not too much.”What are your future moviemaking plans?
“I haven’t chosen my next project. I loved working with Neil and we’re certainly in talks about maybe doing another one. There are other things that have come to me, an original story as well, but I can’t tell you because I don’t know what’s next to me.”
We have confirmed that Fantastic Mr. Fox will be released and distributed by the Fox Searchlight division of Fox. Searchlight has focused on “indie” and art house films.
Fox Searchlight distributed Wes’ last film The Darjeeling Limited. Other recent Searchlight films include Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Juno (2007), and Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
Very exciting for everyone over at Fox Searchlight!
Thoughts?
