Wes Anderson

Back in October we learned that Wes Anderson is returning to the world of stop-motion animation for his next film, which is about the life of dogs. As predicted by just about everyone when the initial voice cast was announced, frequent Anderson star Bill Murray is re-teaming with the director to lend his vocal talents to the project — obviously.

Over the weekend we learned that Wes Anderson is returning to the stop-motion animation format for his next film, which will take place in the world of dogs, thus sort of making up for how many dogs Anderson has killed in his films (including his previous stop-motion film, Fantastic Mr. Fox). And it looks like Anderson is already lining up the voice cast, which includes a few regulars along with one Anderson-newcomer.

Wes Anderson proved that his talents translate well to animation with Fantastic Mr. Fox, and since then we’ve wondered when or if the consistently delightful director would return to the medium. As it turns out, his next project is a stop-motion animated film that will once again center on animals — this time with dogs.

In 1962, Alfred Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut spent a week in a room at Universal Studios talking about movies. That interview became the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, which proceeds systematically as the two explore Hitchcock’s career, analyzing each of his films one by one. The discussion wasn’t filmed, but the audio was recorded, and now that audio forms the spine of Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut documentary, which doesn’t so much adapt the book as it does bring it to life onscreen. Hearing Hitchcock and Truffaut makes clear something that’s easy to forget reading words on a page: That this conversation — maybe the greatest ever on the subject of films and filmmaking — was conducted through a translator. Hitchcock didn’t know French; Truffaut couldn’t understand English. But both spoke the language of cinema, which transcends communicative limitations.

If you subscribe to auteur theory, then Wes Anderson is definitely an auteur — there’s no mistaking the director’s signature style, with his fondness for particular color palettes and fine details. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in a Wes Anderson film, you can now do just that…if you have money to spare to travel to Milan, Italy that is, which is now the home of a cafe designed by Anderson himself.

April Fools’ Day is an occasion marked by silliness. Many websites choose to celebrate by tricking their readers with goofy pranks. But for every one of these hoaxes that’s funny, there are ten more that are terrible (plus our budget would not allow us to turn the site into ScreenFlush, the #1 place on the Internet dedicated to movie toilets, for a single day). So instead, let’s honor some humor professionals; the men and women who’ve made the best comedies of the last 25 years.

Okay, so there was a fair amount of disappointment around the 2015 Academy Award nominations. Everything was not awesome for ‘The Lego Movie,’ robbed of a Best Animated Movie nod, and David Oyelowo’s dreams of a Best Actor nomination vanished when Steve Carell and Bradley Cooper’s names were mentioned instead. ‘Force Majeure’ got snubbed for a Best Foreign Language Film nomination and ‘Selma’’s Ava Duvernay was robbed in the Best Director Category. I just keep looking at the list of nominations and playing “Sad Trombone” over and over again. It’s basically the official theme song of the 2015 Academy Awards.

When the Golden Globes handed out their Best Picture award for the finest musical and/or comedy of 2014, they chose ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel,’ Wes Anderson’s story of legendary concierge Gustave H, at the titular hotel.

We're still basking in the afterglow of Wes Anderson's 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' (which, by the way, is available now for rent if you missed it in theaters), but everyone's favorite director of shots where characters look directly into the camera is already working on a follow-up.

How do you make the beautiful world of Wes Anderson even more precious? With LEGO, of course. It's actually surprising that no one thought of this before, but thanks to one clever fan, you can now see The Grand Budapest Hotel from Wes Anderson's latest flim recreated in charming detail with the help of hundreds upon hundreds of tiny LEGO bricks.