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Halloween costume contest details announced…

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Enter our First Annual Wes Anderson Inspired Halloween Costume Contest. Thanks to our good friends over at Fox Searchlight, we are giving away three prize packages, featuring those ever-coveted marketing items from The Darjeeling Limited. Each package contains:

  • Travel bag, with “Darjeeling Ltd.” soap, hand sanitizer, and toothbrush.
  • Darjeeling tea, in  “Darjeeling Ltd.” train box.
  • TDL travel ID tag
  • Savoury Snacks packet
  • Sweet Lime packet

To enter, upload a picture of yourself in your Wes-inspired costume to Flickr (registration required) and tag it with “rushmoreacademy.com” (if, for whatever reason, you can’t use Flickr, e-mail me to make alternative arrangements). Who will you be? Peter Whitman? Max Fischer? Steve Zissou? Wes Anderson himself? Bob Yeoman? Dart Boy?

Entries will be voted on by the founders and members of the Yankee Racers forum. By submitting an entry, you:
a) confirm that you are eighteen (18) years of age or older and that it is legal for you to post your picture.
b) give permission to rushmoreacademy.com to post your entry on its public website.

The three prize packages will be awarded for 1) Best Costume (overall); 2) Second Best Costume (overall); and, 3) Best Costume (Darjeeling Limited).

The contest submission period ends November 5, 2007 at 11 p.m. EST. Contest rules, stipulations, and prizes are subject to change at the sponsor’s discretion. RushmoreAcademy.com cannot control the content of Flickr.com. Please report inappropriate entries to the Flickr administrators. Direct inquiries to edwardappleby @ yankeeracers.org (no spaces).

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E-mail your questions for Wes…

to edwardappleby @ yankeeracers.org (no spaces) by midnight ET tonight (Tuesday).

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Wes, Jason, and Roman on another train

All aboard! AP writer Ryan Pearson rode along with Wes, Jason, and Roman on another train ride… this time in California.

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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

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First Annual Wes Anderson Inspired Halloween Costume Contest; Monday update

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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.

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Wes Anderson and Adrien Brody on AMC’s Shootout

Wes Anderson and Adrien Brody will be on AMC’s Shootout Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 11.00 a.m.

A few clips:

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Wilson Brothers’ “The Wendell Baker Story” out on DVD

We have been rightfully caught up in the excitement over Hotel Chevalier, The Darjeeling Limited, and the Criterion version of Bottle Rocket, BUT… The Wendell Baker Story (2005) — a film co-directed by, written by, and co-starring Luke Wilson — will be available on DVD October 30th. Andrew Wilson co-directed, Owen co-stars. From Stephen Holden’s New York Times review piece:

This shambling, good-natured comedy is a Wilson family affair. Written by Luke Wilson, who directed with his older brother Andrew, it also stars a third brother, Owen, as Wendell’s nemesis. The appeal of “The Wendell Baker Story” depends on how charming you find the Wilson brothers, with their chipmunk grins and hip smart-aleck attitude. For my taste, a little goes a long way (more reviews).

To pre-order, click here.

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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.

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Wes and Jason On Tour, 2007

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.

Fox Searchlight schedule

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.“

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Weekend box office, and “High Tea, India Style”

Box Office Mojo is projecting that The Darjeeling Limited will finish 15th in the weekend box office race, making $1,125,000 in just 95 theatres nationwide. Well played!

The New York Times Travel section has a great article about the Darjeeling region of India, called “High Tea, India Style.”

Images from the New York Times

Enjoying tea at Makaibari was an involved business, one that began before I’d even woken up. At 7:30 every morning, a knock would come at the door of my bungalow, and Mr. Lama, the grandfatherly caretaker, would present me with a cup of fresh, hot “bed tea,” which I’d sip groggily before leaving my woolen blankets for the chilly mountain air.

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Onboard video: train tour, and more production videos

Go see The Darjeeling Limited this weekend, newly available in 13 new markets this weekend! Also be sure to join our community forum, the Yankee Racers.