Rocks In The Attic #1102: Various Artists – ‘The Darjeeling Limited (O.S.T.)’ (2007)

I missed this and FANTASTIC MR. FOX during the Capitol Balmoral’s WES-FEST last month, so it was great to catch them as encore screenings last weekend. And what a day – a mid-period Wes Anderson double-bill, followed by a double-bill of LABYRINTH and TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE over at the Hollywood Avondale.

On to THE DARJEELING LIMITED. This was the first Wes Anderson film I was disappointed with upon release, and have struggled with it ever since. I had disliked some of the lazy armchair tourism captured on screen, and what I initially perceived as a punching down of the Indian culture.

This rewatch on the big screen has shown the film in a different light. I now see it as reverent of the culture, not exploitative, and if anything, it’s in awe of it.

I had completely forgotten that the late, great Irrfan Khan appears in one small scene and seeing him on screen was like running into an old friend.

I loved the long lens shooting of Owen Wilson explaining his injuries in the restaurant car. In fact, it’s Wilson’ character I had initially struggled with. I had originally seen his performance here as an extension of his role as Dignan from BOTTLE ROCKET, one of Anderson’s least likeable characters. Again, this isn’t true – Wilson’s character here, Francis, has his heart in the right place even if he does come across as overbearing as Dignan from time to time.

I appreciated this film more on this watch than I think I have ever before. And that music – I may have listened to the soundtrack more often than I’ve seen the film – it’s just gorgeous hearing it in its rightful place.

Great also to see my queen, Natalie Portman, in a shot at the end of the film – a call back to the HOTEL CHEVALIER short that played before the main feature on its original release.

Hit: Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)– Peter Sarstedt

Hidden Gem: Bombay Talkie (Main Title) – Shankar / Jaikishan

Rocks In The Attic #821: Various Artists – ‘Lost In Translation (O.S.T.)’ (2003)

I recently watched Sofia Coppola’s fourth feature Somewhere, from 2010. The film stars Stephen Dorff as a movie star bumming around the Chateau Marmont, where he lives between acting roles and promotional responsibilities.

It’s a film that’s as aimless as its central character, and as aimless as Coppola’s career so far. She was thrust into the limelight, unfairly, as the ill-fated daughter of Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, after Winona Ryder dropped out of the film. Nepotism is one thing but for her father, Francis Ford Coppolam to give her such a pivotal role was setting her up to fail.

She reinvented herself as an indie director, with the slow-burning The Virgin Suicides in 1999. It showed promise but I haven’t liked anything she’s done since. If she came from nowhere, I might not be so disappointed in her career, but her father’s status as the Oscar-winning director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now seems to have opened many, many doors to her. Even with this opportunity, her output can be best described with the shrug-emoji. I haven’t seen her recent remake of Don Siegel’s The Beguiled yet, but I’m not expecting to be blown away. Frankly, she lost me with Lost In Translation.

There were a couple of films in the 2000s which served as lazy armchair tourism for uncultured Americans. First we had Coppola’s Lost In Translation (subtext: aren’t Japanese people funny?), followed by Wes Anderson four years later with The Darjeeling Limited (subtext: aren’t Indian people funny?). These films feel shallow and exploitative, with too much importance given to location and foreignness of the culture, rather than character. Danny Boyle’s Best Picture-winning Slumdog Millionaire from 2008 is a superb example of a film that does the opposite – it celebrates the Indian culture from within, not from the perspective of a patronising outsider.

Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird from 2017 is the kind of character-piece that Coppola could be making. While Gerwig may have been heavily influenced by her partner, the director Noah Baumbach, Lady Bird still feels fresh, unique and personal. I haven’t seen Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women yet, but I’m looking forward to it after such an impressive debut.

But no matter what my reservations about Lost In Translation are as a film, I’ll always love the soundtrack. It feels like a perfectly put-together mood piece by Coppola and music-supervisor Brian Reitzell, and was accurately described by Consequence Of Sound as the third star of the picture.

Unfortunately, this vinyl edition of the soundtrack, finally released for last year’s Record Store Day, excludes Bill Murray’s karaoke version of Roxy Music’s More Than This. The rear cover of the record lists the credits for the song though, which feels like a disappointing oversight when they brought over the artwork from prior versions of the soundtrack, where it exists as a hidden track.

Hit: City Girl – Kevin Shields

Hidden Gem: Alone In Kyoto – Air

Rocks In The Attic #436: Various Artists – ‘Rushmore’ (1999)

One of my favourite films of all time, and I finally have the soundtrack on vinyl. Up to now, only the lesser Wes Anderson films have been granted a soundtrack release on vinyl – the Moonrise Kingdom 10” from Record Store Day’s Black Friday a few years ago, and The Darjeeling Limited from Record Store Day earlier this year.

Don’t get me wrong, the soundtracks to Anderson’s films are always universally awesome; it’s just that the later films themselves aren’t a shade on his early films. From The Darjeeling Limited onwards, he’s been repeating himself, with nothing that fans of his early work haven’t seen before. And those weighty Oscar nominations for The Grand Budapest Hotel don’t mean a thing – only that the Academy are consistently terrible at recognising talent early on. Just like Scorsese’s The Departed, The Grand Budapest Hotel is far from being Wes Anderson’s finest achievement.

So back to Rushmore. In 1999, I finished University and moved back into my parents’ house. Due to the nightly boredom of living with my parents again, I joined a video shop – and without a car I used to walk the three miles there and back whenever I wanted to visit the shop. One of the first films I rented was Rushmore. I was an instant Wes Anderson fan from that moment on. His brand of whimsy, teenage rebellion and school-notebook perspective on life really struck a chord with me.

Part of the reason those early Wes Anderson films work so well are the scores by Mark Mothersbaugh. From Bottle Rocket through to The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Mothersbaugh has been an integral component of Anderson’s work, offering a surprising range of musical styles that you’d never expect from the lead singer of Devo. From Fantastic Mr. Fox onwards, Anderson has turned to Alexandre Desplat as a composer; and while there’s nothing wrong with Desplat’s soundtracks, a Wes Anderson film without Mark Mothersbaugh is to me like a Spielberg film without John Williams.

Hit: Ooh La La – The Faces

Hidden Gem: Making Time – Creation

Rocks In The Attic #192: Alexandre Desplat & Mark Mothersbaugh – ‘Moonrise Kingdom (O.S.T.)’ (2012)

I made a rule when I started writing this blog that I was only going to write about 12” records – full albums, and not EPs or 12” singles. I’m breaking that rule by writing about this little oddity, because I love it.

Released as a limited edition 10” Record Store Day release on Black Friday (November 23rd) in 2012, this collects nineteen minutes of score from Wes Anderson’s latest film. With only certain soundtrack releases getting a vinyl release these days, I never expected to be able to walk into a store and buy a Wes Anderson soundtrack on vinyl. Even though this is only a 10”, it’s a happy addition to my collection.

I finally got around to watching Moonrise Kingdom the other day, and despite being a huge Wes Anderson fan, I was pretty disappointed. The film looked fantastic, and the music was just as good as it ever is in his films, but the character arcs didn’t really go anywhere and overall if just came off like a watered-down version of a Wes Anderson film, just like The Darjeeling Limited was five years ago.

These exclusive Record Store Day releases are really becoming something to look out for – and it’s great that there now seems to be two release dates each year.

Hit: The Heroic Weather-Conditions Of The Universe, Part 1: A Veiled Mist

Hidden Gem: The Heroic Weather-Conditions Of The Universe, Part 7: After The Storm