After 25 years and nine films, we know what to expect from a Wes Anderson movie. It is the cinematic equivalent of that stand at the county fair selling handcrafted elf figurines. It’s not going to blow you away with technology or special effects or even any sweeping dramatic gestures, but you can’t help but marvel at the exquisiteness of the craftsmanship and the obvious care that has gone into every element of the production, all the while feeling an odd mixture of admiration, melancholy, and whimsy over the fact that so much love has been devoted to something so seemingly meaningless and ultimately inconsequential.
About 30 years ago, the fiction writer Tony Earley wrote a short story called "The Prophet From Jupiter," for Harper's Magazine, which concerned the goings-on of a particular town, from the perspective of a semi-omniscient narrator so close to the characters, it was as if perched on their shoulders. It's a sprawling, astonishing work that seemed capable of encompassing an enormous swath of material, a sentiment echoed by its author, who wrote as much in the author's notes after it was accepted for the "1994 Best American Short Stories" anthology. Earley claimed the story was smarter than he was, capable of accepting everything he could think of to throw into it.
Adrien Brody could have been a magician, and now he’s rediscovering his passion for painting. But with a dizzying array of major roles and a new Wes Anderson film coming out, the Oscar-winner explains why this is very much ‘a special time’