Wes

Last night I found myself watching Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums again. I say 'again' but I hadn't seen it since I watched it, in a cinema, when it was released, all of 25 years ago. It was the first of his films I'd seen (I only caught up with Bottle Rocket and Rushmore later), and I remember being mightily impressed by the distinctive Wes Anderson style. Since then I've become more familiar with his tricks and mannerisms, that unmistakable look, but I still likes me a bit of Wes, and I greatly enjoyed watching The Royal Ts again, not least for its terrific ensemble cast – Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Glover, Ben Stiller, Owen and Luke Wilson, all at their best. Two things struck me this time, one being the bookishness of the enterprise – it's framed as the reading of a physical book (as in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) and books are everywhere in the interior scenes (most noticeably Royal Tenenbaum's set of Encyclopaedia Britannica) – and…