Hotel Chevalier

• Hooray for "Ugly Betty"'s Becki Newton! Check out my interview with the thoughtful and funny lady. Also, did you notice how funny Tyler Labine was in "Reaper" this week? I interviewed him, too!
• Welcome back, fall TV! Want to weigh in on what you thought of this week's wave of season premieres? Check out my rundowns of this week's "Heroes," "House," "Private Practice," "Reaper," "The Office," "Grey's Anatomy," "Chuck" and "Ugly Betty." If you watched closely this week and think you know your stuff, take my TV quiz!
• Speaking of fall, get in the mood for the chilly season with Matt Pond PA's distinctly autumnal album Last Light. I think it's pretty darn great.
• Tell me: in this hypothetical situation, who would you cast in a modern remake of Fast Times at Ridgemont High?
• Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman star in Hotel Chevalier, Wes Anderson's short film that is now available for free on iTunes.
• What's your favorite one-liner from TV or movies? I had a hard time choosing between "I'll have what she's having" (When Harry Met Sally) and "May the Force be with you" (Star Wars).

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Wes Anderson and his stars, the amazingly adorable Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman premiered their short film, Hotel Chevalier at the Soho Apple Store in NYC last night. The 13 minute movie is meant to be watched in conjunction with Wes' feature length Darjeeling Limited which will premiere at the NY Film Festival on Friday. If you didn't make it to this screening last night, you're in luck, Hotel Chevalier is free right now on iTunes! Check out all the information on how to get it here! I just watched it, and beyond being a sucker for all things Wes/Natalie/Jason, enjoyed the vignette (with its awesome special LV luggage) thoroughly. I will warn you - it's a little NSFW. Now I'm just sitting back and waiting for Wes and Owen's Darjeeling Limited to hit theaters near me.

To see more of these three showing off their Hotel just read more

Hotel Chevalier, Wes Anderson's prequel to the forthcoming Darjeeling Limited, has been getting quite a bit of press this week — both because it's pretty unconventional to release a prequel like this and because Natalie Portman (briefly) gets naked in it. The 13-minute short film is available free on iTunes, and if you're a fan of Anderson, Portman, Jason Schwartzman or any combination of the three, it's worth checking out.

The short, which was made a year before Darjeeling started filming, takes place entirely in the Paris hotel room of Schwartzman's character. Portman plays his toothpick-chewing ex-girlfriend, who tracks him down in the hopes of a possible fling. It's a quiet little story — translation: not a whole lot happens — but it's certainly intriguing. It made me wonder what happened between the two of them in the past, and I wonder whether that will be explained in Darjeeling proper.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Anderson once considered making shorts to fill in the back stories of the other two main Darjeeling characters, who are played in the movie by Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody. Now, I really wish he had; if Hotel Chevalier is intended to raise my interest in Darjeeling, it definitely worked. Check it out, then come back and let me know what you think.

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