Wes Anderson

Will the actors and filmmakers from your favorite movie be making room on their mantels this award season? Or watching the Oscars from afar? Oscar 8-Ball knows all. Throughout the coming months, Gold Standard columnist Glenn Whipp will assess the chances of every film in contention. Maybe that includes "Ted. " Probably it doesn't. Only the magic Oscar 8-Ball knows. We start by rounding up the early comers, beginning with Wes Anderson's beguiling storybook tale, "Moonrise Kingdom.

Think of the Sundance Film Festival's shorts program as a glimpse into the future of movies. In 1994, you could have caught Wes Anderson's brilliant "Bottle Rocket," which grew into a full-length feature a couple of years later and was the first step on the road to his current masterwork, "Moonrise Kingdom," as well as his second screenplay Oscar nomination, this time with Roman Coppola. In 1993, Paul Thomas Anderson's short "Cigarettes & Coffee" resonated with the singular contemplative voice that would craft "The Master," with stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Joaquin Phoenix up for Oscars as well.

Wes Anderson called the other day from his office in Paris to talk about his latest film, that magical tale of first love, "Moonrise Kingdom. " You can read Anderson's thoughts on the movie here in a 13-image gallery we put together. But while we had him on the line, we couldn't resist asking about the project he's currently prepping. "We're getting ready to make a movie in Germany," Anderson says. " 'Grand Budapest Hotel' or 'Grand Hotel Budapest.' " Told that we'd heard it titled "Grand Budapest Hotel," Anderson chuckled.

Wes Anderson won't formally begin his next movie, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," until the new year, but he's on the phone after a busy day spent filming "little shots" in Saxony with a very good German driver named Peet who's quite adept, Anderson says, at weaving through traffic behind the wheel of an old car that Anderson's production team has meticulously converted into a taxi. Anderson admits he's still puzzling over the success of his last film, the coming-of-age comedy "Moonrise Kingdom," which has received best picture nominations for the Spirit Awards and Golden Globes and grossed more than twice the box office of each of his previous three films.

Wes Anderson won't formally begin his next movie, "The Grand Budapest Hotel," until the new year, but he's on the phone after a busy day spent filming "little shots" in Saxony with a very good German driver named Peet who's quite adept, Anderson says, at weaving through traffic behind the wheel of an old car that Anderson's production team has meticulously converted into a taxi. Anderson admits he's still puzzling over the success of his last film, the coming-of-age comedy "Moonrise Kingdom," which has received best picture nominations for the Spirit Awards and Golden Globes and grossed more than twice the box office of each of his previous three films.

It seems fitting that "Moonrise Kingdom,"arguably Wes Anderson's most grown-up film yet, is a warm and funny fable about kids on the cusp. Here the writer-director's tendency toward the allegorical casts a magical spell with Anderson finding a near perfect balance between the humanism and the surreal that imprints all of his work - sometimes for the better ("The Royal Tenenbaums,""Fantastic Mr. Fox") and sometimes not ("The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou"). In this tale about growing up and falling in love, it seems Anderson has found his true heart.

To varying degrees, all filmmakers create worlds. But when people say this of Wes Anderson - and invariably they do - they're talking about an überspecific sensibility. With its handmade aesthetic, signature curios and saturated colors, the Anderson cosmos is identifiable in every frame of his films. His seventh feature, the 1960s-set comic drama"Moonrise Kingdom,"bears all the hallmarks of his uncommon style, in perhaps their most compelling configuration. Since its prestigious slot as the opening-night selection at Cannes, the film has emerged as one of Anderson's best-received productions.

As the director of "Bottle Rocket" and now "Rushmore," Wes Anderson has quickly emerged as one of the country's most talented--and original--young directors. But the only person who recognizes him as he makes a tour of various La Brea-area shops and galleries is a local merchant who has used furniture on display, al fresco, in an empty parking lot. "Hey," the man bellows with a friendly wave. "It's the Table Guy!" It's only later, when visiting Anderson's house, that you get the joke.

Wes Anderson didn't set out to create one of the year's most talked about short films when he wrote, directed and produced the 13-minute "Hotel Chevalier." Instead, the quirky, creative force behind such films as "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" intended the short as a kind of prequel or "introduction" to his comedic road drama, "The Darjeeling Limited," which lands in theaters Oct. 5.

On a recent visit to his family home in Houston, Wes Anderson discovered a play he had written in grade school sitting in a pile of childhood drawings. Titled "The Initial Bullet," it was a stockpile of whodunit cliches featuring rival investigators who bore not-so-mysterious resemblances to Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. When the killer was unmasked at the end, it was revealed that he used bullets engraved with his initials to commit the murders.

For most directors, there is usually one moment in their film that brings it all together while they are shooting - or sometimes before production has even started - one scene that unlocks key relationships among the characters or clicks so well the director knows the film as a whole is going to work. Or sometimes it depicts in just a minute or two the whole point of the film. The Envelope talked with five directors with films out this year who experienced just such a moment. David O. Russell / 'Silver Linings Playbook' "The obvious candidate is the 'parley' scene, when Jennifer [Lawrence]

Wes Anderson called the other day from his office in Paris to talk about his latest film, that magical tale of first love, "Moonrise Kingdom. " You can read Anderson's thoughts on the movie here in a 13-image gallery we put together. But while we had him on the line, we couldn't resist asking about the project he's currently prepping. "We're getting ready to make a movie in Germany," Anderson says. " 'Grand Budapest Hotel' or 'Grand Hotel Budapest.' " Told that we'd heard it titled "Grand Budapest Hotel," Anderson chuckled.

Will the actors and filmmakers from your favorite movie be making room on their mantels this award season? Or watching the Oscars from afar? Oscar 8-Ball knows all. Throughout the coming months, Gold Standard columnist Glenn Whipp will assess the chances of every film in contention. Maybe that includes "Ted. " Probably it doesn't. Only the magic Oscar 8-Ball knows. We start by rounding up the early comers, beginning with Wes Anderson's beguiling storybook tale, "Moonrise Kingdom.

To varying degrees, all filmmakers create worlds. But when people say this of Wes Anderson - and invariably they do - they're talking about an überspecific sensibility. With its handmade aesthetic, signature curios and saturated colors, the Anderson cosmos is identifiable in every frame of his films. His seventh feature, the 1960s-set comic drama"Moonrise Kingdom,"bears all the hallmarks of his uncommon style, in perhaps their most compelling configuration. Since its prestigious slot as the opening-night selection at Cannes, the film has emerged as one of Anderson's best-received productions.

While big-budget blockbusters were dueling it out at the multiplex this weekend, an independent film quietly made history at the box office. "Moonrise Kingdom,"Wes Anderson's quirky 1960s-set dramedy about two kids who run off into the wilderness, grossed $669,486 over the four-day Memorial Day holiday. But by Sunday, the film had already racked up a per-location average of $130,752 while playing in four theaters - the highest average ever for a non-animated film, said the film's distributor Focus Features.

It seems fitting that "Moonrise Kingdom,"arguably Wes Anderson's most grown-up film yet, is a warm and funny fable about kids on the cusp. Here the writer-director's tendency toward the allegorical casts a magical spell with Anderson finding a near perfect balance between the humanism and the surreal that imprints all of his work - sometimes for the better ("The Royal Tenenbaums,""Fantastic Mr. Fox") and sometimes not ("The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou"). In this tale about growing up and falling in love, it seems Anderson has found his true heart.

Jason Schwartzman limped around his friend's sun-dappled Nichols Canyon retreat looking highly apologetic. Frowning at his heels was his chubby French bulldog, Arrow. Schwartzman had broken his toe the day before, and as he made his way to a secluded outdoor table, he tried explaining. "It was like that scene in 'Karate Kid,' " he said, presumably casting himself in the Ralph Macchio role. Everyone was kicking soccer balls around like a bunch of Pelés, he said.

Muses are most often thought of as comely, lithe and young. Throughout history, they've usually been depicted as female guides to inner wisdom that spark the imaginations of great men. But for director Wes Anderson, whose loopy reimagining of the filmmaking experience, "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," opens this week, the muse has recently taken the form of a middle-age man with faintly pockmarked skin, tufts of graying hair and sad, teardrop eyes -- the comedian Bill Murray.

A self-described "total novice" in stop-motion animation, Wes Anderson severely tested the patience of his crew of stop-motion top guns by forgoing many of the most modern animation methods and new innovations in the genre to give his family thriller "Fantastic Mr. Fox" what he calls a more "rudimentary" feel. But even while exasperating his underlings -- "He has made our lives miserable," director of animation Mark Gustafson said on the movie's London set last spring -- Anderson's aesthetic mandate had an unexpected upshot.

The painstaking process known as stop-motion animation has brought all kinds of things to life, from that big ape King Kong to the very British Wallace and Gromit, but in the playful and funny "Fantastic Mr. Fox" it goes those feats one better: It reanimates filmmaker Wes Anderson's career. With George Clooney and Meryl Streep voicing the Foxes, the ultra-sophisticated Nick and Nora Charles of the vulpine world, this adaptation of the Roald Dahl tale does more than occupy its own particular space between the worlds of childhood and adults.