The World of Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman made at appearance at Borders Store #01 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The last segment of Borders Live at 01 features Wes and Jason wandering around the music and DVD sections, picking up titles of interest. We really liked it, and decided to make an Amazon Widget out of it (which, coincidentally, supports the site if you buy from it):
The CD sampler included in the latest edition of Paste Magazine…
… features the song “Take Me Home” from Lauderdale, the band of Yankee Racers co-founder Corey.
Finally, if you posted a Halloween contest entry (last day of entry is November 5th) and it doesn’t appear here, e-mail edwardappleby @ yankeeracers.org (no spaces).
MySpaceTV’s “Artist on Artist” with Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson
Wes’ interview with Charlie Rose from Friday (link):
Wes Anderson will be on Charlie Rose (PBS) this Friday, October 26th (link).
USA Today is reporting that Wes Anderson has interviewed Owen Wilson and that the video will be released tomorrow (Friday) at midnight on MySpace. Thanks to SugarMagnolia for the information. (link) (thread)
The interview will be posted online at midnight Friday as part of MySpace.com’s Artist on Artist series, according to Fox Searchlight, the studio that released the pair’s most recent film, The Darjeeling Limited. Anderson and Wilson have worked together on all of Anderson’s movies — Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It’s unclear how far the interview, recorded today, will delve into Wilson’s recent personal struggles –- if at all.
Wes and Jason were interviewed at Borders store #01 in Ann Arbor, Michigan (video) Watch, if nothing else, the last video of Wes and Jason wandering the aisles of Borders. “How long is it?”
Wes’ previous appearances on Charlie Rose:
Good morning, Wes world. Some links and news…
Wes Anderson will be awarded the Stockholm Film Festival’s Visionary Award next month.
He has made lasting impressions through his unique ways of using scenography and subtle humour in film successes such as “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore.” (link)
Bravo, Swedes!
Be sure to check out The Onion’s A/V Club “Random Rules” feature with Jason Schwartzman and Randall Poster. Yankee Racer Loraxaeon explains the concept:
It’s a feature where they have people just hit random on their iPods and tell them what song comes up and explain why they like it, etc. (thread)
Be sure to enter our First Annual Wes Anderson Inspired Halloween Costume Contest… you could win a Darjeeling Limited prize package!
Finally, The Darjeeling Limited opens nationwide this weekend. Hotel Chevalier will be playing as well. I leave you with the words of fellow Yankee Racer slint:
I just got back from seeing it, finally. Interestingly, Hotel Chevalier did play beforehand, and I’m glad it did. Frankly, having seen the film, I can’t imagine why the studio had pulled it originally.
So…I loved the film. It was such a relief, after my experience with TLA. It flowed so much more naturally, and just carried me along, rather than dragging me. I agree with the Bottle Rocket comparisons; it did feel like Francis is a logical extension of Dignan. His laminated itinerary reminded me of Dignan’s spiral notebook with plans for 6 months, 1 year, 10 years, etc. Overall, this film was just a joy to experience. I had a permasmile, and seriously felt giddy a few times. This totally reaffirmed my love of Sir Anderson’s films…. This was a confident and graceful return to the saddle. Bravo. (thread)
Conclusion: Bravo Swedes, Wes Anderson, and slint.
Updates:
Jason Schwartzman appeared on Live 105.3’s “Wild Ass Circus Show,” Houston/Ft Worth (videos).
IMDB has rescinded an earlier report that Natalie Portman was unhappy with her nude scene in Hotel Chevalier:
UPDATE: A U.S. magazine has been forced to apologize to actress Natalie Portman after suggesting she’s far from happy with her performance in short film Hotel Chevalier. Sunday supplement Parade stated Portman was talking about the movie, in which she appears nude, when she commented about an “uncomfortable” scene she shot in a forthcoming essay she wrote for the publication. But the actress’ publicist, Kelly Bush, has pounced on Parade, insisting her client was actually talking about a torture scene in new film Goya’s Ghosts. A statement from the magazine’s publicist reads, “We say that Portman regrets doing a nude scene in the movie Hotel Chevalier. This is wrong. When Portman writes about this in Parade, she does not mention a specific movie title. She tells us she was referring to a torture scene with a body double in Goya’s Ghosts, which was taken out of context and leaked onto the Internet. Portman is very happy with Hotel Chevalier and proud of her work in the film.” In her essay, Portman admits she is still rather upset about agreeing to do something she felt awkward about, writing, “I’m really sorry I didn’t listen to my intuition. From now on, I’m going to trust my gut more.” (link) (thread)
All aboard! AP writer Ryan Pearson rode along with Wes, Jason, and Roman on another train ride… this time in California.
The Darjeeling Limited goes national, with Hotel Chevalier, this weekend!
And Hotel Chevalier is one of the many mysteries in The Darjeeling Limited, according to USA TODAY.
“Are the three brothers — Francis, Jack and Peter (played by Wilson, Schwartzman and Brody, respectively) — inspired by the film legends Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson and Peter Bogdanovich?
Close but not quite, Anderson says. Jack is actually named for Schwartzman’s father, not Nicholson. “We named the (Wilson) character after Roman’s father, and Peter … well, I’d like to give that to Peter Bogdanovich because he’s my friend.”
Fox Searchlight Pictures
We are organizing our First Annual Wes Anderson Inspired Halloween Costume Contest. Thanks to our good friends over at Fox Searchlight, we will have some great prize packages, featuring those ever-coveted marketing items from The Darjeeling Limited. We will have more details very soon (including the exact contents of the prize packages). Direct enquiries to halloween@yankeeracers.org. Who will you be? Peter Whitman? Max Fischer? Steve Zissou? Wes Anderson himself? Bob Yeoman? Dart Boy?
Do note that we will have a special “Darjeeling Limited” category. And, please spread the word!
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We are reporting about the addition of Hotel Chevalier to The Darjeeling Limited print and the weekend box office at the Yankee Racers forum.
Also, please check out the big Darjeeling feature at Premiere.com.
Glenn Kenny sits down with Wes, Roman, Jason, Adrien, and Amara.
Finally, the New York Times has an article on Hotel Chevalier:
Nancy Utley, a chief operating officer of Fox Searchlight, said that her company did not even know about the short until “The Darjeeling Limited” was completed. Even though Fox was aware of the critical acclaim, the company decided not to release it along with the feature. She said Fox decided to remain “flexible” on what to do.
“We thought it would be too challenging to moviegoers to be exposed to the short in theaters right at the beginning of the run,” she said. “We wanted to make sure ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ got established first as a movie.”
With the wider release looming and “Darjeeling Limited” doing small business at the box office (just over $2.5 million so far), it seemed the obvious choice to include the film’s more popular little sibling as a bonus. Fox Searchlight also is hoping the short is Oscar-worthy and plans to promote it as a contender in the best live-action short category.
Wes Anderson and Adrien Brody will be on AMC’s Shootout Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 11.00 a.m.
A few clips:
Help get/keep The Darjeeling Limited on the Yahoo! Buzz Index of most popular searches by clicking here.
Wes and Jason were on CBC’s The Hour last night (video). Wes promised that Hotel Chevalier will be added to The Darjeeling Limited print in Canada.
Ain’t It Cool has a great interview with Wes and Jason, including Wes’ confirmation of a Criterion Collection edition of Bottle Rocket. Some highlights:
[about this]. Roman said they are both very smart, and he really liked them. And the old man said that he liked these brothers, that the movie is from their point of view traveling through India. And she doesn’t like them, but she also felt that the film exploited people in India. And I always feel like, that makes me unhappy to hear anybody say that because we went to India because I was fascinated with this country. We fell in love with it. We are tourists there; that’s all we can ever be there. But we’re tourists who are very interested in this culture and learning about it. It’s a place where people who go there and like it tend to love it, and the people who love it tend to want to go back. There is more religion, more variety of religion, more practice of religion, more rituals there than any place else I’ve ever experienced. I think that’s why people go on pilgrimages there because it’s a place where, if you’re open to it and interested it will genuinely have quite and impact on you just because of the intensity of the place. I’ve always found that I had very emotional experiences there, but then you get sensitive and wonder if that sounds kind of naive. I don’t know. I just hate to sound self-protective and defensive; I’d rather just express our real feelings about it….
It’s taken us a long time to get this [Fantastic Mr. Fox] going, but we finally got it going. Noah Baumbach and I adapted it. George Clooney is going to play Mr. Fox. We’ve just started working on it in England, and it’s going. We have a guy named Mark Gustafson directing the animation. Henry [THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS] Selick was going to do it originally but over time that didn’t work out because Henry has his own thing he’s directing [CORALINE, based on Neil Gaiman’s novel]….
I think the closest thing to compare it to is that Eastern European stuff, because the animals are going to have fur, and the sets are meant to look kind of like real life. So it’s more in the vein….
[about the Criterion Collection DVD] That’s right. We just have to do a lot of work to prepare it, but that’s in the works. I was supposed to do a bunch of stuff already that I didn’t do yet, so I’m going to get on it though. But some of the stuff is at my mother’s house in Texas, so I have to go to Texas and dig through all my boxes, because there’s materials for the movies that I haven’t looked at in a long, long time. And we want to try and include everything that might be good….
Jason’s new album Nighttiming is available as an MP3 download on Amazon.com. Buy it here — it supports the site.
Thursday evening update: Wes and Jason will be on CBC’s The Hour tonight — Thursday, October 18th at 11 pm ET. We will post the video tomorrow.
Toronto, D.C., Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, and more*
* note, not all dates include BOTH Wes & Jason
The Huffington Post compares Wes to Sofia Coppola
Someone who’s never seen a Wes film (other than TDL) interviews the writers and gets some interesting answers:
“I can’t remember having a work experience or travel experience that I felt was more life-changing than this one, just in terms of how it affects your point of view and just the feeling coming out of it . . . We wanted a mechanic who looked like a Nazi but then turns out to be a good guy. . . I mean, he’s Ringo. Does Ringo get offended? I don’t know. I doubt it.”
The Cleveland Free Times, compares Wes to Richard Lester and Peter Bogdonavich, and also gets a scoop:
“Anderson is also in the process of writing a new live-action film that he hopes to get before the cameras within the next year. “Ideally, I’d like to have two movies opening at the same time,” he says optimistically . . . I’ve had offers and have even thought about directing some big Hollywood tent-pole kind of thing, but that’s about as far as it’s gone.”
The Retriever Weekly calls TDL “simply awesome”
Check out this great essay on Wes from Fanzine
Broadside Online praises a Wes trait that often goes unnoticed these days, his sincerity:
“With his latest film, the oddball auteur takes his audience on a train ride fraught with a newfound maturity that elevates his talent as a filmmaker to impressive new heights. So hop aboard The Darjeeling Limited and experience Wes Anderson’s eclectic, eccentric, esoteric and always entertaining blend of comedy, tragedy and heartbreaking sincerity.“