There’s barely a dry eye in the corner of the Electric Ballroom where I’m standing when as part of the taped music that introduces Mick Jones’ Carbon/Silicon, Joe Strummer’s lovely, wistful “Willesden To Cricklewood”, the dreamy closing track of Joe’s ‘comeback’ album, Rock, Art And The X-Ray Style, plays over the PA.
The arrival of a new Wes Anderson film is pretty much always a cause for celebration in the UNCUT office. He's a master of dry, melancholic comedies and a meticulous visual stylist, with a fine ear for music and who's surrounded himself with a peerless roster of actors -- Bill Murray, Anjelica Huston, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman and Gene Hackman among them -- who faultlessly bring his peculiar, poignant stories to life.
It's perhaps emblematic of Anderson's universe that, in the production notes handed out at last night's press screening for The Darjeeling Limited, Anjelica Huston describes her character in the film as "something of an action hero nun." I am also warned, half-seriously, by the film's press officer to prepare for the continuous use of Peter Sarstedt's ballad "Where Did You Go To (My Lovely)" over the soundtrack. Oh, and Bill Murray crops up for the opening five minutes in a mute cameo.
After a week off, holed up in the Cotswolds since you ask, it's been a busy time for film screenings. I went to see The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford on Tuesday, this time on a proper 35mm print rather than the beta tape I saw a few months back, and tonight there's Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited that I'll hopefully blog about tomorrow.
Last night, though, our album reviews editor John Robinson and I went to see American Gangster, at close to three hours as epic as it gets, with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington manfully chewing chunks out of the scenery in late Sixties/early Seventies' New York.
