Noiseless Chatter Archive

In preparation for Moonrise Kingdom , I thought it might be interesting to compile some brief words about each of Wes Anderson’s previous films into a short primer, in the hopes that it might interest some folks who have never experienced his work to check him out. Hopefully this will function as a nice starting point for newcomers, or maybe those who felt left out because they started with the wrong film. Or, perhaps, it’ll just be an excuse to relive the great stuff (and Fantastic Mr. Fox ) that Anderson’s done in the past. I hope you enjoy. Bottle Rocket (1996) Written By: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson Starring: Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Robert Musgrave, James Caan, Lumi Cavazos Overview: There’s really no more diplomatic way to put this: Bottle Rocket is the work of somebody who would become a great artist, before he was either great or an artist. The story of three friends who turn to high-reward heists as a way of financing their meticulously planned futur...

As of this writing (April 22) the released footage from Moonrise Kingdom amounts to no more than a trailer, and three exclusive clips drizzled around the internet. Each of the clips are under a minute long and don’t really demonstrate much beyond the fact that Wes Anderson is absolutely at his most Wes Andersony…and that it’s still a beautiful thing. We’ll touch on those below, but only in passing, as this is a look at the official trailer for the film. If you are interested in seeing the clips, you can watch them here , here and here . No spoilers, apart from what we already know from the trailer, but, as always, watch at your own risk. And please link me if you know of any other footage I missed. In summary, yeah, this looks pretty fantastic. Growing up has always been one of Anderson’s favorite themes, though this looks like it will tackle the issue head on for the first time since Rushmore . (It was skirted in The Royal Tenenbaums by using childhood as a mechani...

One month from today sees the release of Moonrise Kingdom , Wes Anderson’s seventh film and one I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. To celebrate, I will be giving this blog over to discussions of Anderson and his work, and I can’t think of a living director more deserving of that attention. The rolling tribute will last for one month, up to the release of Moonrise Kingdom , so if you have no interest in that or any of his other films, I’ll see you in June! Nah, I’ll probably have a bunch of non-Anderson posts here as well, but this will give me a good outlet for what is some pretty major excitement right now. What you can expect to see: – Commentary on the Moonrise Kingdom Trailer , along with some analysis and conclusions drawn from what we know so far – A Noiseless Chatter Spotlight on one of Wes Anderson’s films. Feel free to suggest which one. – That’s How We’ve Always Done It: A discussion of the consistency of Wes Anderson’s approach, themes and char...

Maybe I will do a list of this kind every month. Or maybe I won’t. I probably won’t. I hope you didn’t like that introductory paragraph very much, because I’m going to write another one: Comedy is difficult. Making people laugh is the easy part…making people laugh for the right reasons, at the right times, satisfyingly and consistently, is practically a science. For that reason, we come to expect that not every comedian will make it big, and that not every joke they tell will make us laugh. We know that an impressive hit rate is difficult to maintain, and we adjust our expectations accordingly, striking a balance between how much we’d like to be entertained, and how much we can reasonably expect of a fellow flawed human being. But, sometimes, a particular comedian is doomed from the start. He is not only incapable of making us laugh, but he’s without control over his material, his audience, or even his demeanor. It’s tragic when this happens, and painfully awkward....

The Farrelly Brothers have been promoting their movie The Three Stooges by saying that first and foremost they wanted to pay tribute to the originals. Well, their movie is out this weekend, and from all accounts it doesn’t sound like all that flattering a tribute. Personally, here’s how I’d pay proper tribute. I know it’s complicated, so I’ve tried to break it down into simple steps. 1) Take some time and go through all the surviving Stooge shorts. From these, take about 80 minutes’ worth of the best and most memorable material. You can narrow it down to a few complete shorts, or mix and match sequences from however many you like. I can see pros or cons either way. The important thing is, you’re using the originals, and not some lesser, artless stab at joyless re-creation. 2) Get someone knowledgeable and well-respected in the film industry to record an introduction for you. Roger Ebert won’t do for obvious reasons, but I’m sure you can find somebody important to ...

Just a quick post to give a lot of love to Billy’s Gourmet Hot Dogs , for basically just being awesome. Oh, and for opening another restaurant closer to where we live now, even if they had the audacity not to tell us . I’m not exaggerating when I say that Billy’s is the only thing I miss about our old apartment. In fact, between the defecating hobos and gang wars Billy’s was about the only thing I felt comfortable looking at directly. And it was delicious. My girlfriend and I fell in love with that place soon after I moved in. She’d never been there, despite living right next door, but I changed that. She started making me eat salad, so in an act of supreme revenge I forced her to eat hot dogs. Personally, I think she got the better end of the deal. Before we moved we bought mugs with the Billy’s logo on them, so we wouldn’t forget their almost criminally perfect hot dogs. (White Hot, I’m looking at you.) But we didn’t need them, because we still go back pretty regu...

  The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism was all the law was ever intended to be. NOTE: This article is spoiler-free, for those who care about that. How I managed to write over three thousand words about a mystery without spoiling anything is a case I’ll never be able to solve. There’s something sad about a man losing everything. There’s something even sadder about a man who has nothing finally finding himself with something to lose. It won’t stick around…it can’t stay. The universe can’t let you get away with happiness for too long. At least, that’s the kind of thing Philip Marlowe might think. And by the time we join up with him — toward the very end of a long, cruel and dangerous career — we really can’t blame him. After a few false starts with interchangeable detective figures known as Dalmas and Mallory and Carmady, Raymond Chandle...

The AV Club has recently reported that a full series DVD set of Get a Life is finally in the works . This is fantastic news for me, and it should be for you as well. I remember Get a Life better than I should probably be proud of. For two years in the early 90s it was a Fox Sunday night staple, which means every week I could look forward to seeing it along side The Simpsons and Married…With Children , both of which were in their prime. And as much as I loved both of those shows, I think I looked forward to Get a Life the most. Something about it appealed to me in ways that so many other shows didn’t. It’s commonplace now, but Get a Life was the largest-scale, balls-out genre subversion I had experienced at the time, and it probably did more to shape my personal sense of humor than anything else before or since. It was dark, sardonic and periodically psychotic…but everything was painted over with the veneer and style of a non-threatening 1950s sitcom. It had a laugh t...