Better late than never?
Continue reading “Royal Tenenbaums at the NYFF: 10 Years Later Q&A”
Criterion Reveals “Darjeeling” Cover (and it’s not what you think…)
It looks so detailed I imagine it’ll be even more impressive in person, but we like it.
Pre-order the DVD here and the Blu-Ray here. For specs on the set take a look at our earlier story, the DVD and Blu-Ray will be out on October 10th.
Update: You can view a hi-res version of the cover over the Criterion Cast.
Fantastic Mr. Fox press conference transcript
Transcribed by iFlicks:
George and Wes – what was the appeal of Fantastic Mr Fox? Why did you want to work on a film, particularly a stop-motion animation, based on that book?
WA: Well, we all grew up with Roald Dahl’s writing. Fantastic Mr Fox was the first book I owned, so it made an impression upon me. I always wanted to adapt the book as stop-motion, using puppets with fur, because there’s something sort of magical about that.
GC: I just did it for the paycheck. The money. [Laughs] But it was also the chance to work with Wes, which really appealed to me.
George, in what ways do you identify with the character of Mr Fox? What did you think of him as a fox?
GC: What I thought of him…as a fox? [Laughs] Well, he’s an optimist, which was really fun to play. I had a lot of fun on the film, working with such a great cast. I didn’t enjoy working with Bill, though. There was a lot of hatred there at first. We’re okay now, though.
Continue reading “Fantastic Mr. Fox press conference transcript”
“If Wes Anderson were a novelist, this is the novel he’d write.”
A little book recommendation from that great literary journal South Coast Today (Massachusetts), The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen:
If Wes Anderson were a novelist, this is the novel he’d write.
This is 29-year-old Larsen’s first novel, and he is incredibly, almost supernaturally, gifted.
Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is a 12-year-old genius, the son of a silent Montana cowboy born 100 years too late and an entomologist more interested in tracking a rare tiger beetle than in her family.
T.S. is an exceptional cartographer and scientific illustrator, contributing to various magazines, such as Scientific American and Science.
In his color-coded notebooks, he maps loneliness, the way his sister shucks corn, the way his dad drinks whiskey, the plot of “Moby-Dick,” how the parts of a train correspond to the parts of a sandwich, and all the possible outcomes of Cat’s Cradle, among thousands of other phenomena.
When his illustration of a rare beetle is given the prestigious Baird award by the Smithsonian — the institute assumes T.S. is an older gent — he hops a train and hoboes his way to Washington, D.C.
In reviews, you’ll read that this book is “whimsical” — a word I hate, because it’s vague, semi-meaningless, and kinda lame.
Has anyone read this? It reminds me of Eric Chase Anderson’s Chuck Dugan is AWOL.
Press notes and credits for Fantastic Mr. Fox
from Hollywood.blog (Netherlands):
These are said to be the press notes and credits for Fantastic Mr. Fox. I cannot absolutely confirm their authenticity at this point but have no reason to believe that they are are a fabrication.
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Based on the beloved story by Roald Dahl, the film tells the tale of the noble, charming and fantastic Mr. Fox, who uses his wits and cunning to outfox three dimwitted farmers who tire of sharing their chickens with the crafty creature.
“Boggis and Bunce and Bean. One short, one fat, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean.”
Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited) directs the stop-motion animation of Roald Dahl’s much loved children’s book. Fantastic Mr. Fox is voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray and Michael Gambon, and scheduled for release in the fall of 2009.
Continue reading “Press notes and credits for Fantastic Mr. Fox”
Wes & Jason on the Reel Geezers, India, Mr. Fox, and Bottle Rocket on Criterion
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.
Chuck Dugan is Awol: A Novel with Maps
A late note about a not-so-recent book (one released in April 2005, actually). But, I feel guilty. And, I just found out. Eric Chase Anderson wrote and illustrated a book called Chuck Dugan is Awol. It looks phenomenal. There has been some discussion of it over at the Yankee Racers board (go to the thread), but not nearly enough. So, buy this book, and let’s talk about it (and sorry for being so out of the loop).
(buy it from Amazon through this link and support the site)