Recovery area (It’s not easy being green)
Kermit the Frog (not the real one) reenacts the “Needle in the Hay” scene from The Royal Tenenbaums. Brilliant or disturbing? You be the judge.
The original:
(link)
An Evening With The Royal Tenenbaums
Columbia College will be putting on Round 10 of its fantastic Cinema Slapdown series this Friday, April 18th. This edition features Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums followed by a spirited debate between Sheldon Patinkin and Tim Kazurinsky (Sweetchuck!) over the movie’s merits (or lack thereof). Previous entries in the series have included Crash, It’s A Wonderful Life, and SuperFly.
We’ve always considered ourselves fans of Anderson’s work (even his commercials) and have greatly enjoyed repeat viewings of this movie in spite of its shockingly dark turn. Where it falls in the cinema canon of “great works” we’ll leave up to Patinkin and Kazurinsky to decide.
Cinema Slapdown Round 10: The Royal Tenenbaums, Friday April 18, 7 p.m. - 10 p.m., Free Admission, Columbia College Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor. Call 312-344-6708 for more information. (link)
Readers in Chicagoland. If you go, send us a report!
Karen Patch talks costume design
Costume designer for Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums, Karen Patch is currently featured in an article on W’s website called “Dressing the Part.”
(Mary Zophres, Jacqueline Durran and Karen Patch, from W)
Marc Jacobs “most influenced” by The Royal Tenenbaums
Paris fashion week is in full swing and Marc Jacobs, as usual, has been impressing the critics. We of course know that Marc Jacobs (creative director for Louis Vuitton) had a close working relationship with Wes Anderson on The Darjeeling Limited with the creating of the spectacular luggage and suits used by Francis and his brothers. But in the Guardian piece it seems that the film that “most influences” Jacobs his The Royal Tenenbaums:
Louis Vuitton only started making clothes 10 years ago under the aegis of Marc Jacobs, almost 150 years after the label first knocked out the ubiquitous bags. But its fashion division has become a credible player and last year the label achieved record growth. As if to rub in the American-ness, Jacobs has said that the film that influences him most is not Breakfast at Tiffany’s but The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson’s offbeat film about a dysfunctional family.
Anderson was also in attendance at this show (as was Sofia Coppola and many others).
These Days
A rather lovely version of “These Days” (from The Royal Tenenbaums) by St. Vincent, found thanks to aerolls.
indieWIRE: “Mr. Anderson, welcome back, we missed you”
From IndieWIRE’s 2007 critics’ poll:
“The idea that ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ is somehow lazy Anderson redux amazes me. It’s a huge leap forward — the first movie to feature characters that aren’t emotionally constipated, and the suffocating over-designed tableaux are taken in an unexpected direction: there’s too much stuff to take in, so you don’t bother. As opposed to that awful games closet in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums.’” - Vadim Rizov
“Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited” marked the greatest evolutionary leap forward by a major American filmmaker this year. He was so far ahead of everybody this year that almost nobody recognized what, exactly, he was doing. There are no epiphanies in the movie, only thwarted potential epiphanies and almost-epiphanies, experienced by brothers who narrate every feeling they have, add soundtrack music to their real world experiences and generally seem hell-bent on narrating their own autobiographies in real time…. They plan and execute their spiritual odyssey as if it were a shopping spree. They’re metaphysical consumerists. That’s America circa 2007. Anderson has evolved, yet his critics — lovers and haters alike — are still reviewing ‘The Royal Tenenbaums.’” - Matt Zoller Seitz
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…
“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.
