May 17, 2006
Wes Anderson, My Life, My Card
After reading this piece on Slate.com about Wes Anderson's new, immensely enjoyable two-minute film—a commercial for American Express—I waited for a second article to appear so that I would have an excuse to link to it. Well, Slate.com itself answered my wishes, publishing this piece on Monday evening:
Wes Anderson's new film is a lustrous widescreen ode to moviemaking. It's an ultimate movie-movie, a cinephile's wet dream that is, actually, a spoof of François Truffaut's 1973 movie about movies, Day for Night. In fact, Anderson's film is better than Day for Night: It's more complex because it doesn't just fetishize movies the way that Truffaut did. Plus, it's shorter.
It's titled, "Dear Wes Anderson, Why does it take you so long to make a movie?" and goes on to analyze the (relative) slowness of the "American Eccentrics" (Anderson, Spike Jonze, David O. Russell, Sofia Coppola, etc.), who only make a new movie every few years. Make what you will of the author's argument, but be sure to enjoy the short film.