The Charlie Rose interview is up online:

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2007/10/26/2/a-conversation-with-director-wes-anderson

Excellent Wes interview in today's Guardian newspaper:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/in ... 97,00.html

Jones' characterization of the art of Wes Anderson, part of an essay on The Royal Tenenbaums, holds as true now as it did then, and I almost inserted it into the comments section of my best-of-year post, wherein Steve M. of Kinophilia and Don Lewis of Film Threat were having a lively, um, debate. I reproduce a pertinent section of it below the fold:

'What has made Anderson a tough pill to swallow is his extremely rarefied, almost Brahmin-ish sensibility. His work betrays an overall sense of an artist who's grown up in a polite, quietly repressed environment, accustomed to hiding under the covers with a flashlight and folding his emotions into make-believe, silently cultivating a poetic universe of self-protection. In this homemade, handcrafted world [...] there's a strong aroma of sixth-grade shop class, of the ashtray you made for your mom and found in the back of the closet after twenty years. Engraved pocket knives, shirts worn backwards as smocks, old Stones albums, and forgotten board games carry weight and presence as tokens of loss. Given the current vogue for just-plain-folks-ness and the branding of "elitism" as the biggest sin of all, it's no wonder that Anderson gets defamed by man-of-the-people types. At his best, his cinema is built from layer upon layer of self-consciousness, tottering not by mistake but by design, always on the verge of exposing a quivering emotional core. It's a highly idiosyncratic way to make a movie, and the fact that Anderson's films veer so close to ridiculousness so often makes them, in my eyes, all the more remarkable.'

Damn. That is movie criticism. Jacob Weiner, author of the heinous Anderson slam "Unbearable Whiteness" (no link, go search for it on Slate if you must), ought to recycle his computer and...well, I want to say "throw himself into the East River" but as this is the season wherein we are advised to practice "goodwill toward men," I'm gonna say he ought to...recycle his computer and throw himself into the East River. Sorry!

The other book in my satchel is a longer one, by Tolstoy, and I'm gonna get back to it now. Which means it'll be a while before my next post. I'm still on holiday.