Entertainment
Still a Nico and Devo fan, Wes Anderson looks back on 30 years of musical moments
Right now in Los Angeles it’s Wes Week, with multiple tributes to the career of filmmaker Wes Anderson, known for his fastidious visual style, melancholy longing and nerd-chic aesthetic.
On Monday night there was a sold-out 30th anniversary screening of Anderson’s debut feature, “Bottle Rocket,” at the Academy Museum with the filmmaker making a rare in-person L.A. appearance. He sat for a warmly endearing Q&A with actor Luke Wilson and director James L. Brooks, an early champion who executive-produced.
Then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Hollywood Bowl will have three nights celebrating the music of Anderson’s films, hosted by the director’s 10-time fixture, Bill Murray. Among those scheduled to perform are Beck, Jenny Lewis, Karen O, Rufus Wainwright and Devo, among many more. Other surprise guests may appear as well, performing songs familiar from Anderson’s music-stuffed movies.
“I was surprised how many things we did have to leave out,” Anderson, 57, tells The Times in a recent interview conducted via voice notes (his personal preference) recorded from Paris, where he has long lived. “There’s so much music over all these movies because I’ve been doing them for so long. We could do a whole other round of this, but let’s see how it goes on this first one.”
Because of his unique use of music, combining left-field vintage pop songs with classical pieces and original scores by favored composers Alexandre Desplat and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, there have been frequent requests over the years for live performances, but Anderson and his longtime music supervisor Randall Poster have always declined — up until now and this ambitious three-night event at the Bowl.
“From the moment that he said yes we’ve been on the phone talking about his vision and how to execute it,” says Johanna Rees, vice president of programming and creative partnerships at the L.A. Phil, during a recent call from San Diego. “It’s about exploring and celebrating so many styles of music. It’s been such a fun adventure.”
Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman in Wes Anderson’s 2012 movie “Moonrise Kingdom.”
(Focus Features)
This will be more than a typical evening at the Bowl, with dedicated Anderson-branded merchandise and uniformed bicycle riders dispensing candy. “The plan is you walk into the Hollywood Bowl and you are immersed in the world of Wes Anderson,” Rees says.
Criterion, which has long put out high-end home video editions of Anderson’s work and recently issued a 20-disc box set, will also have a special presence at the Bowl. Alongside the popular Criterion Mobile Closet making another stop in L.A., there will also be a lounge, a listening booth and a screening room showing Anderson’s movies as well as ones curated by him, including “Yojimbo,” “Amarcord” and “Belle de Jour.”
“Wes is an amazing community-builder as a human being,” said Peter Becker, president of Criterion, in a video call from the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy. “If you look at his films and the people he’s been working with consistently, we’re not the only ones who’ve been part of the greater Wes Anderson family for the last 25-plus years. How could we not be a part of this?”
From left, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson in the movie “The Darjeeling Limited.”
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Music supervisor Poster met Anderson in 1996 at L.A.’s Original Farmers Market shortly after “Bottle Rocket” was finished and immediately began to assist in pulling together the soundtrack release. Though the CD at the time could not include some of the key songs from the movie, these Bowl events will finally offer a flexi-disc of the Rolling Stones’ “2000 Man” as well as a limited-edition yellow vinyl 12-inch record with two songs by the band Love.
The two have worked together on all of Anderson’s films since, with a process that is constantly developing.
“Sometimes we’ve been talking about it even before the film takes shape,” says Poster on a recent phone call from New York. “We get to that point where I feel informed to a certain degree, that we’ve identified an element or two, whether it’s a composer, a specific song, a specific band that allows us to sort of start weaving it together. Sometimes we have more details, and sometimes we’re in a little bit more of a process of discovery.”
As impeccably detailed as his movies can be, Anderson acknowledges that his method can still be a bit vague. “I really couldn’t tell you what it’s all about, where it came from or why,” he says. “It’s just totally instinctive.”
One of the most indelible moments in Anderson’s repertoire is Gwyneth Paltrow’s slow-motion exit from a bus in “The Royal Tenenbaums” to the sounds of Nico’s 1967 recording of the song “These Days,” perfectly capturing a tender, delicate rush of emotions.
“That music was part of the inspiration for the entire movie,” Anderson recalls. “There’s a Ravel string quartet in F Major and this song — those two things together, for whatever reason, suggested something to me that slowly became the whole movie. With Gwyneth Paltrow coming off of the bus, we played the music on the set. It was all a bit choreographed to that.”
“Everybody wanted to do ‘These Days,’ ” says Poster of the artists lined up for this weekend’s shows. “But Jackson Brown wrote ‘These Days’ and Jackson Brown is going to perform ‘These Days.’ Nobody could really argue with that one.” (The rest of the song choices and performers are being kept under wraps.)
Ben Stiller, left, Gwyneth Paltrow and Gene Hackman in the 2001 movie “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
(James Hamilton / Touchstone Pictures)
In choosing music for the movies, inspiration can strike from just about anywhere, as with the Johnny Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys’ recording of “Last Train From San Fernando,” memorable from the opening credits of 2023’s “Asteroid City.”
“I knew that song because my daughter used to listen to it,” says Anderson. “She had a CD of western swing from the ’50s and ’40s that she was listening to again and again. So I stole it from her.”
Poster mentions Anderson’s affinity for woodwinds and novelty instruments along with his tremendous sense of rhythm, which is why the music often has a strong percussive feel, from Gene Krupa’s “Drum Boogie” in last year’s “The Phoenician Scheme” to Japanese taiko drums and the work of composer Peter Jarvis.
“I would say that I think the biggest change is that Wes has taught himself how to read music,” says Poster. “He just really gets into the score’s DNA and really has a great insight into how to arrange thematic pieces that I think help make the movies more wholesome, just being a whole thing.”
Poster playfully refers to Anderson as “The Maestro” and remains struck by how fresh the music cues feel in the context of the films.
“When those clips come on — ‘Here Comes My Baby,’ ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away,’ ‘These Days,’ ‘Needle in the Hay,’ ‘Ooh La La’ — I mean, countless, countless, I always get a kick out of it.”
All of which should add up to a special alchemy at the Bowl.
“They won’t happen again,” says Rees of the three nights curated by Anderson. “Not knowing what he’s going to do in the future, but certainly this is a special event, a one-of-a-kind weekend. It won’t be happening like this again.”
For Anderson, putting together the Hollywood Bowl shows has been a reminder of how far his work has evolved.
“When we made ‘Bottle Rocket,’ I didn’t intend to have an original score at all,” he remembers. “We had some Ennio Morricone music. We put Bob Dylan’s ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’ in the movie originally — and that’s a score from somebody else’s movie. At a certain point everything sort of changed, and Mark Mothersbaugh came and saw the movie and he liked everything we had in there. And so he brought his own voice in, but from the point of view of somebody who was very sympathetic to what was already in place, and that led to more movies together.”
Showing a bit of his own trademark wistfulness, he adds, “It is quite an amazing thing to have Mark and Devo coming up on the stage to do this music that reflects back on all these years — this whole gathering.”
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: July 11th, 2026 / 10:07 PM
EVIL DEAD BURN movie poster | ©2026 New Line Cinemas / Screen Gems
Rating: R
Stars: Soheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Errol Shand, Maude Davey, George Pullar, Greta van den Brink
Writers: Sébastien Vaniček & Florent Bernard, based on characters created by Sam Raimi
Director: Sébastien Vaniček
Distributor: New Line Cinema/Screen Gems
Release Date: July 12, 2026
The first THE EVIL DEAD was released in 1982, launching the careers of (among others) filmmaker Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell. The film had two direct sequels, 1987’s EVIL DEAD II and 1992’s ARMY OF DARKNESS, both also directed by Raimi and starring Campbell. A three-season TV series, ASH VS EVIL DEAD (2015-2018), executive-produced by Raimi and again starring Campbell, continued the narrative.
The franchise was resurrected for the big screen with a quasi-remake, 2013’s EVIL DEAD, followed by 2023’s EVIL DEAD RISE, and now EVIL DEAD BURN. The latter three have Raimi and Campbell among the producers, but not as immediate creative participants.
The Raimi-directed EVIL DEAD movies centered on Campbell’s Ash, who found himself battling relentless Deadites (think chatty, sadistic rotting undead) summoned by the (fictional) forbidden text THE NECRONOMICON (originally invented by writer H.P. Lovecraft in the 1920s for his Cthulhu Mythos). The Deadites delight in transforming luckless humans into, well, the evil dead.
The first three films and the TV series were splat-stick comedy, with jokes cheek and jowl with the gore.
The subsequent films have flashes of humor, but they are much more focused on straight horror, as well as family drama.
This is absolutely the case with EVIL DEAD BURN, written by Sébastien Vaniček & Florent Bernard and directed by Vaniček.
Here, the family at the center of events is on the verge of imploding, even without demonic intervention.
EVIL DEAD BURN is tangentially related to EVIL DEAD RISE, insofar as the earlier film’s wraparound deposited Deadite Jessica (Anna-Maree Thomas) in a lake. At the start of BURN, two unfortunate fishermen snag a Deadite played by Greta van den Brink, who was Thomas’s stunt double on RISE, so this may be the same character.
Meanwhile, Joseph (Hunter Doohan) is in a dusty upstairs room, curiously perusing clippings, writings, reel-to-reel tape recordings and more amassed by his grandfather. We’ll learn that Grandpa is considered the family flake because he declined to spend time with his wife and daughters in favor of traveling the world investigating the occult.
A recording Joseph’s grandfather left behind conveniently provides us with what we (and Joseph) need in terms of exposition. This includes a bit about the Kandarian dagger, which the Deadites want to obtain and destroy, as it’s the only item that can permanently kill them. Grandad has left it somewhere on the premises.
It’s Joseph’s birthday, and there’s a celebration for him at the party club owned by his older brother Will (George Pullar) and Will’s French wife Alice (Soheila Yacoub). Joseph’s supportive girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) tries to mediate as Will first condescends to his little brother, then gets into an aggressive fight with Alice.
The argument spills into the club parking lot, where we see further evidence of Will’s controlling, contemptuous and violent personality before he gets into his car and drives away at top speed.
Meanwhile, our lake Deadite has taken to the road, where she easily causes Will to crash. The car erupts in flames.
At the sparse funeral held at a crematorium, Alice is wearing running shoes, to the great displeasure of her grieving in-laws Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Errol Shand). Susan’s elderly mother Polly (Maude Davey) is in a wheelchair and keeps confusing Susan with Susan’s deceased sibling Bonnie.
Susan and Edgar generally resent Alice and blame her for Will’s death. They also disapprove of Joseph, who they view as a slacker. He hasn’t done a good job of maintaining the isolated two-story family home he’s been given by his parents, and Susan takes a very dim view of Joseph’s investigation into his grandfather’s interests.
So, this is a toxic setup even before Edgar decides he must take one last look at Will in his coffin before the cremation. Then everybody heads back – Edgar is infected, but not “showing” yet – to the house.
From here, EVIL DEAD BURN goes pretty much where we anticipate, and where the subgenre demands, with almost nonstop violence, excellent practical effects, lots of gore, and admirable acting of that encompasses unhappiness, terror, and taunting Deadite glee.
Director Vaniček makes sure to incorporate some of the EVIL DEAD touchstones, including the racing low-to-the-ground shots (using one for a nice in-joke), chainsaws, and some catchphrases. At the same time, there are plenty of new set pieces and types of physical altercations.
With no forcing at all, EVIL DEAD BURN serves as a solid metaphor for both spousal abuse and what happens when parents turn a willful blind eye to the nature of a favored child, to the detriment of everyone and everything in the vicinity.
For those who care about these things (does this really even count as a spoiler?), the dog dies, albeit there’s at least a plot logistics reason here.
There are a couple inconsistencies, like why some people become infected so fast while others take much more time and still others seem immune. Mostly, though, EVIL DEAD BURN does what it’s supposed to do as a horror movie overall and as part of its specific lineage.
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The actor and musician Jason Schwartzman pulled a cassette tape from his pocket on stage at the L.A. Phil’s tribute to Wes Anderson. Schwartzman was just a teenager when he was cast as the obliviously ambitious Max Fischer in Anderson’s 1998 film “Rushmore,” and on Friday, he recalled the night Anderson played him the film’s entire soundtrack in his car.
“He said, ‘This is the soundtrack to the movie. This is the order it’s going to be in,’ and he walked me through the entire film narrating it,” Schwartzman said, still agog at the completeness of Anderson’s vision before a frame was shot.
More recently, Schwartzman said, “I was at my mom’s house tying my shoe, and I see a cassette tape on the ground titled “Rushmore songs.” He then chucked the tape into the audience, a piece of film history that hopefully someone caught unscathed.
Anderson’s use of far-flung needle drops and lovely original score work is, like everything in his film universe, planned down to exacting detail. But this opener of a three-night stand — sporting an all-star roster of guest vocalists, an exceptional backing band, and a light touch from the Phil — was more in the spirit of how fans revisit Anderson’s films: as old friends that pop back into your life, affection only deepened with time, right when you need them.
Guided by the genial riffing of the night’s MC, Bill Murray (an Anderson regular from “Rushmore” onward), the program made its case that Anderson’s savvy with soundtrack curation and delicate, evocative scores are the heart of his films, right along with his meticulous visual style and arch, melancholy tone.
The director, recently freed from a malfunctioning elevator in a pithily Andersonian incident, made a brief appearance onstage with Murray. But the focus was the music itself on Friday, and the ragtag roster of artists that fully conjured it.
To start, huge credit is due to the show’s musical director Justin Meldal-Johnsen and the session-killer band of Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Jason Falkner, Joey Waronker and Gus Seyffert. The sheer amount of music to arrange and assemble for this was vast and demanding, and they got to all of it from 1996’s “Bottle Rocket” to the present.
Beck performs Friday at L.A Phil’s Music of Wes Anderson show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
The Phil took a more modest role, performing poignant, rigorous slivers of scores from Anderson’s go-to composers Alexandre Desplat (“Canto at Gabelmeister’s Peak” from “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Mr. Fox in The Fields,” from “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”) or his frequent collaborator, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh (the propulsive “Ping Island” from “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.”)
Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet took a lively solo crack at “Moses Rosenthaler” off “The French Dispatch;” Rajib Karmakar and Aakash Pujara played aching sitar and flute drones from “The Darjeeling Limited,” and taiko drummer Kaoru Watanabe nearly blew out the Bowl’s speakers on “Shinto Shrine” from “Isle of Dogs.”
The surprises came from the rock acts brought in to reimagine the most evocative needle drops from Anderson’s ouvre.
Jackson Browne, in an unbelievable career first, finally got around to performing “Fairest of the Seasons” and “These Days,” tracks he wrote as a teenager, eventually covered by German art-rock chanteuse Nico, mournfully used on “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
Beck took a pass at the late Elliott Smith’s ghostly “Needle in The Hay,” used to harrowing effect in the same film, and later Love’s “Alone Again, Or.” Karen Elson beautifully covered Françoise Hardy’s “Les Temps De L’amour” from “Moonrise Kingdom” while the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O simmered through the Rolling Stones’ “Play With Fire” off “Darjeeling.”
Actor and host Billy Murray speaks at L.A. Phil’s Music of Wes Anderson show Friday at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Yet the delighted gang’s-all-here element that ties Anderson’s regular cast together was embodied by an endearingly shaggy run through “Zorro Is Back” with Jenny Lewis and Rogê. Toward the end of the night, just before a closer with the Faces’ “Ooh La La,” Murray brought out a one-of-a-kind instrument for a big flourish. A $9 desk bell, seemingly purchased at Staples hours before showtime, requested specifically by Anderson.
“Front of house, make sure Bill’s bell is ripping,” Beck implored the sound techs at the Bowl. Indeed, as the band, including Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Lewis and Schwartzman, performed the Bobby Fuller Four’s single “Let Her Dance,” Murray indeed whacked the hell out of that thing.
Unanswered//Butterfly is far from the first anime to be released as a video game extra—in this case the Echoes of Aincrad Ultimate Edition. However, rather than an extra episode or OVA, Unanswered//Butterfly is a full on feature film that clocks in at just under two hours in length.
At its core, Unanswered//Butterfly has a fantastic hook. The heretical-seeming idea of series hero Kirito massacring people in the early days of Sword Art Online is more than enough to get any fan invested. Moreover, the idea of having the story be told not from the viewpoint of Kirito but of two new characters—a pair out for revenge on the Black Swordsman—is likewise compelling. Unfortunately, the application of these ideas is a mixed bag at best.
On the positive side of things, Rex, the first of our characters out to kill Kirito, is an interesting character from top to bottom. Due to an error with how the NerveGear interacts with his brain, he is unable to attack—leaving him only able to use a shield for defence. This weakness weighs upon him—as does having to rely on Emirun, a 14-year-old that he tutored in the real world. He is serious and goal oriented—which clashes with Emirun’s immature and flighty personality. He also has more than a few layers of hidden depths that completely change how we view his character over the course of the film—making him the movie’s stand-out character.
Emirun, on the other hand, is completely unsuited for her role in the plot—i.e., as a young woman driven to get revenge on a man by killing him. Her flighty and impulsive nature are taken to insane extremes. In the span of just a few minutes, she goes from depressed and angry at the murder of her friends during their funeral, to throwing a childish tantrum in response to another players provocations. This is followed immediately by her enjoyably chowing down on food and fangirling out at a concert. Over the course of the film, her constantly jumping from one emotional extreme to another is exhausting at best, annoying at worst. And while her bouncing back easily is a main facet of her character—and one acknowledged by the plot—she is so rarely focused on revenge that it makes her main goal seem secondary.
Her personality also gives the film an uneven tone. While fun and silly things do happen in Sword Art Online, at this point in the story, things are relatively dire. The survivors are still figuring out the best way to clear floors, people continue to die in sizable numbers, and PKers have begun their murder sprees. But Emirun often treats Sword Art Online like the game it was supposed to be rather than the life-or-death struggle it actually is. The film itself plays along with this—with the music and direction emphasizing the fun to the point that I can’t help but wonder if this aspect of the movie is supposed to be a kind of commercial for the attached game.
As for the main pair of Sword Art Online heroes, Asuna plays the role of Emirun and Rex’s mentor—training them in the more advanced aspects of the game. However, little does she know that the person they are out to kill is Kirito. And, at the same time, she herself is hunting Kirito, trying to understand why the person she has gotten to know more than any other has become a murderer.
Meanwhile, the Kirito we catch glimpses of is not himself. He is always on edge, eyes wildly looking at those he meets as the orange criminal icon hovers above his head. It serves as a scarlet letter of sorts, leaving him isolated from society as other players flee from him while the system itself prevents him from entering towns. Viewing him from the outside, he’s legitimately intimidating and the mystery of his sudden fall keeps the film engaging throughout.
The other issue with the film is a visual one. Now, to be clear, this is not a dig at the animation team. While it’s odd at first glance that this film was done by Polygon Pictures rather than Sword Art Online‘s usual studio A-1 Pictures, the 3DCG animation fits this VR world well and the fight scenes range from adequate to absolutely awesome.
The actual problem comes in the form of the characters. Emirun’s character design (along with the Echoes of Aincrad characters) clashes with those of the returning and background characters. The two tone nature of her hair, the flower accessories she wears, and even the colors of her armor do not match the established visual aesthetic for the early days of Sword Art Online. It breaks the immersion of the world in an odd way as she clearly doesn’t seem to belong there.
On the music side of things, the general soundtrack is passable and the insert song, “Reach for the Rainbow” by Iori (Kato LEIA) and LaLa (Rina), is good enough to sell the idol characters as such.
All in all, I like what Unanswered//Butterfly i trying to do more than what it actually does. Emirun is so out of place both visually and in personality that it undercuts the story the film is attempting to tell. On the other hand, Rex is an interesting character to add into the chaos of Sword Art Online and the entire mystery surrounding Kirito’s murderous turn keeps viewer investment in the plot high—especially if you’re a long time fan.
And while I feel this film is certainly worth watching to anyone who loves Sword Art Online, the fact that the bar to entry is $110—a full $40 above buying the Echoes of Aincrad game on its own—feels ludicrous. If you have the money to burn—and you’re super interested in both the game and this film—then by all means, go for it. If not… well, maybe Crunchyroll or some other streaming service will get the rights to it sometime in the future.
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