The Onion's "A.V. Club" asked director and writer Wes Anderson some excellent questions concerning THE DARJEELING LIMITED as well as his body of past work, and I've included some of the highlights below. Even more, they assembled a list of 16 classic films they theorize may have helped shape Wes's unique style today.

Embarrassingly, I've only seen three of them. Time to kick my Netflix account back into gear!

P.S. Video from some of the movies are also provided! Click the title to go directly to it.

 
16 Films Without Which Wes Anderson Couldn't Have Happened (as theorized by The Onion's A.V. Club)

1. The Graduate (1967)
2. Paper Moon (1973)
3. Harold And Maude (1971)
4. Brewster McCloud (1970)
5. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
6. The World Of Henry Orient (1964)
7. The River (1951)
8. Bande À Part (Band Of Outsiders) (1964)
9. A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
10. Stolen Kisses (1968)
11. Big Deal On Madonna Street (1958)
12. Local Hero (1983)
13. The King Of Comedy (1983)
14. Metropolitan (1990)
15. A Thousand Clowns (1965)
16. Murmur Of The Heart (1971)

The Onion's AV Club also interviewed Wes, the full text of which you can read here. Some highlights:

AVC: "Bottle Rocket established Anderson's knack for lacing whimsical comedy with a touch of melancholy..."

 

AVC: "[One would think India] would be a place where a precise itinerary would be impossible to follow."

Wes: "Well, I don't know if it would work anywhere, but India would be the last place in the world it would. India is a place where one of the great pleasures for a foreigner is that you're constantly surprised. Everywhere you look is something that is either funny, or very moving, but there is always so much that is so unexpected. That's part of the reason why people who like it tend to love it."

AVC: Did the film surprise you in how differently it turned out than what was planned?

Wes: "People seem to think that my movies are so carefully coordinated and arranged—and in a lot of ways, they are—but every single time I make a movie, I feel that every director makes these choices... And for me, what ends up happening is, I wind up surprised at the combination of all these ingredients. It never is anything like what I expected. That was certainly the case with this movie. In the end, it doesn't resemble anything like what I had in my mind..."

Wes: "We planned a train journey, because we wanted to see what that was like. But we went there for two main reasons: So I could introduce those guys to India, and because we needed to write somewhere. So I thought this would be a good way to keep us together. Most of our time on that trip was spent writing, sitting in one room or another working on our story."

6. The World Of Henry Orient

6. The World Of Henry Orient (1964)- Full nonsense;)webtutes divx blog, Ipod movies, 20 ipd blog, box ipd blog, magnetic ipd blog, media ipd blog, review ipd blog, 2mp3 ipd blog, bibby ipd blog, movtana ipd blog

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1. The Graduate (1967) 2.

1. The Graduate (1967)
2. Paper Moon (1973)
3. Harold And Maude (1971)
Best movies.Movie reviews comedy, NURSE BETTY, Chicken Little, Volver, Dinosaur, Dr. Dolittle 2, Against The Ropes, Capturing The Friedmans, Brooklyn Rules, Arlington Road, Topsy Turvy, The Perfect Storm, The Crew, The Negotiator, Review movie The Weather Underground

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The DARJEELING has saved my

The DARJEELING has saved my whole year from the total disaster!
Really.
Explaining, using a little more of space: I've read, in any of the related UTb links from TDL, a fella saing that he does not expect any revealing, or epiphanny, neither from life, neither from death, neither from love, with Anderson's movies.
He said the he only went to the cinema to see the plasticity, the colours, the shapes. I mean: if you left away ALL of the story, of the characters, of the humanitity CASUALITY (one of the "secrets", let's call it like that, from Anderson's movies and this list of 16 other flicks), I think, that you could think like that fella from the UTb. I really can not understand how can you only look at the screen, and do not understand what is on the screen. Always, excelent stories, fullfilled with traumas, solutions. It's the real life, oniric, happening inside the head of every character as it should be (or, risking, how they will like to remember it was!).

Wes does not work hard his ass for stupidity. DARJEELING only proves this statment.
I only can thank this director and his selected crew for all of his movies
(including, the short one!).

rla
Sao Paulo - Brazil

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I beg to differ,

I beg to differ, "Metropolitan" fits perfectly...it also reflects the angst of the upper middle class which is at the center of Wes Anderson's films.

One of the many fascinating aspects of TDL is that Angelica Huston's role as the mother is the polar opposite of her character in The Royal Tenenbaums - in TDL, she's totally self-centered, in TRT, she's totally selfless.

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I forgot to say something

I forgot to say something about Anjelica, on my post.
The truth: she is absolutelly worderfull! beautifull!!! gosh!

rla

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Metropolitan does not belong

Metropolitan does not belong on the list.

By no means does that come through in Wes's works.

Either way, Darjeeling was the best movie of the year.

I hope he gets to work on one before the Fantastic Mr. Fox is out.

I hope we don't have to wait until 2011

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mos def Harold and Maude

mos def Harold and Maude

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Yes! Brewster McCloud!

Yes! Brewster McCloud!

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The Darjeeling Limited is

The Darjeeling Limited is great, a few new tricks from Anderson as well as the same cinematic experience you've come to expect from him. The list seems pretty dead on, except for "Metropolitan." I don't get that one....

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I agree with Amit, those 3

I agree with Amit, those 3 kids also deserve something; atleast upto 1% of what u guys are making. If not in $ then probably education and a small house. The whole funny scenes were done by them and we don't even see their names/pictures in promotional websites.lingerie

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