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A few quick notes

Just a quick update for now…

From Hans:

Tea Gschwendner in Chicago is throwing a release party for The Darjeeling Limited, complete with Sitar music, Indian finger foods and darjeeling tea. There will be a $5 cover, although you can get in for free if you can find and bring the ad in the Columbia Chronicle for the event. There will also be raffle prizes which will be given out every 15 minutes (Fox Searchlight Studios is providing a variety of movie goodies to give away). Also, everyone that comes to this party will receive a free ticket to the pre-screening on Oct. 1, at the AMC theater on Illinois St. Dress like your favorite Wes Anderson character. Sat Sept 29th 2007 6-9pm

Men’s Vogue has a great article called “Wonder Boys,” about Owen and Wes. We will post some pictures and text soon.

There are also some new pictures of the new one, which we will also post soon.

Glenn Kenny, at Premiere, positively reviewed The Darjeeling Limited:

A riotously colorful journey . . .

Those who complain about the emotional indirectness of the film, or that
its carefully controlled visual style sterilizes material that would be
better served raw, kind of miss the point. Withholding the prospect of a
direct connection between the viewer and the brothers is evidence of
Anderson’s larger purpose—this movie is as much, if not more, about the
construction of fictions as it is about its ostensible plot.

Last, but certainly not least, The Playlist blog has a great feature called, “If I Were a Wes Anderson Soundtrack.”

Update (9.50 am, September 21): The Louis Vuitton luggage from The Darjeeling Limited is on display at Louis Vuitton on 57th Street and Fifth Avenue through the weekend.

Darjeeling Limited luggage on display at LV, NYC

More details soon… !!!

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TDL in Film Comment, the New Yorker; and, FREE SCREENINGS

From The New Yorker:

New Yorker illustration by Zohar Lazar

(credit: Zohar Lazar, The New Yorker)

The October issue of Film Comment features the gang from TDL:

The finest iteration of the Anderson oeuvre to date. . .

Wilson brings back the corn-fed, spaced-out enthusiasm of his career-making character Dignan in the Anderson debut Bottle Rocket, recasting the caper-seeking outlaw as an adult shattered by near-death experience but still perilously full of gung-ho.

You can fake them [epiphanies] in films with swelling Bowie songs and tight emotive headshots, but it leaves a bad taste when the characters haven’t earned it. Such was the effect of the oddly lifeless Life Aquatic, Anderson’s last and worst film, which seemed built solely around Bill Murray’s prodigious charm. But the characters in Darjeeling earn their shot at redemption – partly through three excellent lead performances, partly by metanarrative devices that reveal the reality behind works of fiction. (Chris Norris)

Fox Searchlight is distributing passes for FREE screenings across the country!

(thanks to Chris for some of the leads)

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Guerilla Drive-in, and send us any leads

A funny episode of “Guerrilla Drive-in,” The Life Aquatic at Dudas Diving Duds. And, yes, you do need to read it for the title to make sense.

Be sure to send any media leads (TV, print, online) about Wes and The Darjeeling Limited to edwardappleby @ yankeeracers.org (no spaces).

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Poster sale

Preface: We have no affiliation with DeepDiscount.com, so we make no profit from this plug.

DeepDiscount.com, a site probably most famous for their free shipping, is having a buy one, get one free sale on posters (mostly 11″ x 17″ reproductions). And, they have a very nice selection of Wes Anderson posters.

Search for…

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“Underclass Overachiever / Weary Former Success”

I have neglected to post Ed Hardy’s most recent article in his Wes Anderson blog-a-thon, UNDERCLASS OVERACHIEVER/WEARY FORMER SUCCESS: Character Types in the Films of Wes Anderson. Through this admission, I am countering my own act of neglect. Well played.

A little teaser:

The two lead characters in Wes Anderson’s first film, Bottle Rocket (1996), Anthony and Dignan, established two main character types that have been articulated through the remainder of his films. Dignan, played by Owen Wilson, represents the Underclass Overachiever, and Anthony, played by his brother Luke Wilson, represents the Weary Former Success. Depth of character and variety of experience has made for a stunning series of characters throughout Anderons’s films, culminating in Steve Zissou, who is a synthesis of the two main types and is, in many ways, presaged by Royal Tenenbaum.

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Wes directs AT&T commercials

Wes is directing six commercials for a ‘re-branded’ AT&T, according to Reuters:

The company’s “Your Seamless World” corporate ad campaign features situations that “speak to the on-the-go lifestyle of today’s consumers and businesses.”

The campaign includes six television spots overseen by Wes Anderson, director of films including “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”

AT&T also said it will now use orange as its primary corporate color. Ads, company signage and its Web site are undergoing a “color makeover,” the company said.

Ad Week has a review of one of the new commercials. We will post the videos when we find them.

Update: Here are the video links (You Tube): Seamless World World Reporter | Mom | Businessman | Architect| Actor

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Darjeeling Limited tracklist

According to an ABKCO press release, the track list for The Darjeeling Limited soundtrack, out September 25, has been finalized:

01) “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)” — Peter Sarstedt
02) Title Music from Satyajit Ray’s film Jalshagar — Ustad Vilayat Khan
03) “This Time Tomorrow” — The Kinks
04) Title Music from Satyajit Ray’s film Teen Kanya — Satyajit Ray
05) Title Music from Merchant Ivory’s film The Householder — Jyotitindra Moitra
06) “Ruku’s Room” from Satyajit Ray’s film Joi Baba Felunath — Satyajit Ray
07) “Charu’s Theme” from Satyajit Ray’s film Charulata –Satyajit Ray
08) Title Music from Merchant Ivory’s film Bombay Talkie –Shankar/ Jaikishan
09) “Montage”from Nityananda Datta’s film Baksa Badal — Satyajit Ray
10) “Prayer” — Jodphur Sikh Temple Congregation
11) “Farewell To Earnest” from Merchant Ivory’s film The Householder — Jyotitindra Moitra
12) “The Deserted Ballroom” from Merchant Ivory’s film Shakespeare Wallah — Satyajit Ray
13) Suite Bergamasque: 3. “Clair de Lune” — Alexis Weissenberg
14) “Typewriter Tip, Tip, Tip” from Merchant Ivory’s film Bombay Talkie (Sung by Kishore Kumar & Asha Bhosle) — Shankar/Jaikishan
15) “Memorial” — Narlai Village Troubador
16) “Strangers” — The Kinks
18) “Praise Him” — Udaipur Convent School Nuns and Students
17) Symphony No. 7 in A (Op 92) Allegro con brio — Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
19) “Play With Fire” — The Rolling Stones
20) “Arrival In Benaras” from Merchant Ivory’s film The Guru — Ustad Vilayat Khan
21) “Powerman” — The Kinks
22) “Les Champs-Élysées” — Joe Dassin

Click here to pre-order (and support the site):

tdlsoundtrack.jpg

URL: Soundtrack thread on Yankee Racers

(alternative Amazon link)

Thanks to The Playlist.

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“Aspects of It Seem Slightly Fake,” and Chatter about TDL

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Ed Hardy, Jr. has posted another essay in his series on Wes Anderson, titled “Aspects of It Seem Slightly Fake.”

Some more reviews of The Darjeeling Limited with snippets by Yankee Racer “leeroy”:

  • Ain’t It Cool: “Well, not only did I like the film, but I am here to tell you that it is simply the most entertaining thing I have seen in my time here in Venice. The movie had me laughing out loud more than once. The cinematography is great with the use of color to underline anything that is going on. And the acting is superb. . . I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
  • Telegragh (U.K.): “Director Wes Anderson’s films (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) share a languid, calculatedly offbeat charm, but their characters often seem to belong to a cool, tight little clique, with an array of private in-jokes. Audiences can easily feel excluded. All this is true of Anderson’s new film The Darjeeling Limited: happily, its charm trumps its shortcomings.There’ s a genuinely sweet-natured feel to The Darjeeling Limited that makes this screwed-up trio engaging rather than irritating.” – David Gritten
  • Financial Times (U.K.): “The jokes are good, the saffron-filtered visuals even better” – Nigel Andrews
  • Guardian Unlimited (U.K.): “It’s a sensuous experience, gorgeous to look at and gently comic but, as it touches on family bonding, heirlooms and hereditary traits, it develops a delicately moving mood. One to savour when it closes the London Film Festival in November.” – Jason Solomons
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Darjeeling takes the Golden Cub at Venice

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From the Hollywood Reporter:

“Darjeeling Limited,” a comedy about a trio of brothers on a trip across India, was awarded its Golden Lion Cub by a jury of local youths studying at the Agiscuola, near Venice’s Lido. In 18 previous editions, the school children have correctly picked the winner of the festival’s top prize — Golden Lion — seven times.

The more prestigious prizes will be awarded Saturday. Update (8 September, 3.33 pm): The film did not win any of the more prestigious prizes at Venice, but the kids are alright.

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About Hotel Chevalier

About Hotel Chevalier (credit: NataliePortman.com):

Before the Venice screening of ‘Darjeeling’, Anderson presented a seventeen-minute short film called ‘Hotel Chevalier’, which he originally conceived to play before the main feature, although there’s now talk that it will only be available to see online come the film’s UK release in November. This wistful and maudlin short story offers some background to the main attraction as Schwartzmann and Natalie Portman play a pair of estranged lovers who square up to each other in the sumptuous surroundings of a Parisian hotel room.

Those fifteen minutes are classic Wes Anderson. His camera moves with grace and precision through the room as Schwartzmann, with a sad look on his face and a stark moustache above his lip, waits for Portman to arrive. Sitting on the floor is a beautiful tanned-leather trunk decorated with colourful images of elephants (one of a set crafted especially for the film by Marc Jacobs). On the stereo we hear Peter Sarstedt’s wistful ode to Paris, ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’, and all around there’s evidence of the same deep orange that characterises Schwartzmann’s hotel dressing-gown, from the thick duvet on the bed to the towels in the bathroom. If there’s one element of ‘Hotel Chevalier’ that’s surprising for Anderson, it’s a strong sense of romance and sexuality: in one shot, Schwartzmann gently pulls off Portman’s clothes to reveal her naked body from behind, and a later shot has Portman, nude, standing still in a doorway, one foot up against the frame. It’s a beautiful shot, and one that’s made even more pertinent by Sarstedt’s melancholic lyrics on the soundtrack. It’s the sexiest thing that Anderson has ever done.

URL: TimeOut review