Dedicated readers of this blog know that I’ll take advantage of pretty much any excuse to write a post that lets me use the “Natalie Portman” tag. Look: we’re bound to fall madly in love at some point, so deal with it. Just as soon as she knows my name.
But today the stars have aligned and I don’t even need to stretch. The Wall Street Journal reports that director Wes Anderson will be debuting his new short film, Hotel Chevalier, tomorrow night at Apple Stores in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Santa Monica. Wednesday morning, the 13-minute film will be distributed free on iTunes.
Hotel Chevalier is effectively a prequel to Anderson’s forthcoming feature, The Darjeeling Limited (here’s the trailer for that on Apple’s site). While you’ll be able to watch Darjeeling without seeing Chevalier, the short does flesh out the backstory of one of the main characters from the longer film.
And as much as I hate to fuel the prurient interests in my beloved dream girl, the fact that Hotel Chevalier features Portman, in the words of the esteemed Journal, “in an extended nude scene,” will probably guarantee a fair amount of the downloading.
That’s all to the good, of course, but what’s really of interest here is the shift this marks in terms of film distribution. Anderson financed the short himself, which means there’s no studio involvement in Chevalier at all. Could iTunes become an alternative distribution market? Might the traditional studio system be under attack from online media? Could this change eve—you totally didn’t hear a thing I said after “nude scene,” did you?
[via Daring Fireball]
No, no I didn't.
She's an avid Windows user and is waiting anxiously for her pink Zune.
A moment of complete horror on Dan's face...priceless!
:P