Book Review: The Wes Anderson Collection
No, I haven't seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, yet—have you? I want to, I do. But no hurries or anything. We gots time, you and me.
Anyway, a cute boy gave me this book over the winter holiday, and I've been slowly reading my way through it. Written by famed critic Matt Zoller Seitz, The Wes Anderson Collection has a deep chapter on every one of Anderson's films—including chats with Wes about each movie (you'll learn SO much), as well as "previously unpublished photos, artwork, and ephemera." Tons of ephemera!
I especially love all the inspirations pages. I mean, yes—Max Fisher totally IS 80s-era Tom Cruisey and Charlie Brown-esque all at once. It's so obvious to me now.
Wes Anderson movies are fascinating things. They tend to always get better with time. And all of them are good. I'll try to pick a favorite and find that it's usually the one I've seen most recently. Right now, that's The Darjeeling Limited—it's like a perfect little poem about India (and existential confusion?).
The guy makes more than movies, though, he makes a mood—a landscape in which to showcase stuff like the hilarity of heartbreak and the futility of trying to control things. And I defy you to find a better representation of how kids are little beings with adult-sized emotions and no idea how to deal with them. Or how many (most) adults are big beings with life-sized emotions and no idea how to deal with them. It's all such good human stuff!
Favorites 3.17.14
The last 3 minutes of every True Detective episode. A remarkable show that's very much repping dark, heady shit like Twin Peaks and Nietzsche. But the last few scenes of each episode—crikey! They wind down by winding you up with the haunting-est poetry of voiceover, soundtrack, and direction of photography. Not uplifting—but definitely captivating.
Grating and roasting your cauliflower. Discovered recently! When cauliflower encounters a cheese grater, it crumbles into a texture perfect for salting, olive oiling, and roasting on a cookie sheet until all its ragged little corners are brown and crispy. Then you can make all manor of things with it (fake rice bowl, fake pizza crust, fake hamburger meat)—or you can just, you know, eat it.
Doing whatever you want on a Saturday. Yes, yes, Sunday you'll do all that crap on your list. But Saturday, lovely sun-washed Saturday—it's the cool-down day after a hard week, made for doing exactly what you feel like with no underlying agenda. Like, parks and dogs and skateboarding and friends and long lunches at picnic tables with cups of wine and stuff.
"How to make courtesan au chocolat" via Wes Anderson and Mendl's: One is inspired to place dollops of frosting on everything.