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After Moonrise Kingdom swept people away with its whimsical meditation on first love, the sartorially-minded autuer has been working hard on his next ensemble feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Anderson and his slew of handsome stars have been shooting in Germany since the new year and whatever sector of Wes' world this film falls into, he's surely rounded up quite a cast. With Alexandre Desplat scoring the film, the synopsis tells us that The Grand Budapest Hotel will follow, "The troubles and tribulations of Mr. Gustave, who serves as the hotel's perfectly composed concierge." Everyone from Bill Murray and Jeff Goldblum to Ralph Fiennes and Adrien Bordy to Willem Dafoe and Harvey Keitel are in the mix, and thanks to The Film Stage we now have a nice roundup of images from on set, as well as a behind the scenes clip. Enjoy.

And in more festival news of the day: the inagural First Time Fest—a new New York festival showcasing the talents of first time filmmakers—has offered some exciting news as of today. The premiere Fest will be held between March 1^st and March 4^th at the Loews Village VII Cinema in Manhattan, and includee a hefty lineup of wonderful new films, as well as a retrospective of established directors first films. The organization hosting the event, The Player's Club, have also announced that the John Huston Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinema will go to the thrilling genius Darren Aronofsky. And better still, he will be presented the award by none other than Hollywood's greatest living cinematic treasure himself, Martin Scorsese. 

Get off Instagram, don’t design minimalist posters for Wes Anderson movies, and stop talking about decades you didn’t live in, just for a second: it’s time for actual nostalgia. Desert Noises, a four-piece indie rock band hailing from Utah, have released a simply gorgeous music video—filmed in the 1940s.

2012 was an interesting year for cinema—whether it be Hollywood franchise blockbusters, independent stage-play-turned-comedies , or haunting and heartbreaking foreign dramas. In the first half of the year, we saw young filmmakers such as a Brit Marling, Benh Zeitlin, and Leslye Headland debut their innovative and fresh take on modern stories, with films that established them as unique new voices of independent American cinema. Hollywood staples David O. Russell, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, and Whit Stillman once again pleased audiences and won critical praise for their idiosyncratic features. And then there were the beautifully guttural foreign films from Michael Haneke, Miguel Gomes, and Leos Carax that constantly reinvent, not only what film can be, but the experiential nature of cinema as well.

Conan O'Brien imagines what Star Wars as directed by Wes Anderson. As you might imagine, it is twee.

Last year, the award for Best Feature went to Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, with Breakthrough Actor going to Felicity Jones for Like Crazy, but leaving both Mike Cahill (Another Earth) and Sean Durkin (Mary Marcy May Marelene) in the dust for Breakthrough Director. And as of this morning’s annoucement, the 2012 Gotham Awards look to highlight a potpourri of some the year's most beloved films, from P.T. Anderson's The Master and Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, to more independent films that garnered acclaim for their trenmendous performances and directorial breakthroughs. The ceremony will be held on November 26 at Cipriani Wallstreet with Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, David O. Russell and Participant Media founder Jeff Skoll to receive career tributes.

Upon seeing the news this morning about a new Wes Anderson film titled The Grand Budapest Hotel and starring Johnny Depp, I immediately assumed someone was making a joke about Anderson and Depp’s recent work seeming tired or repetitive, wrapped in an allusion to the early-bird-special comedy, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. But it seems I was wrong! After Moonrise Kingdom brought in $40 million at the box office with its whimsical meditation on love and youth, the sartorially minded auteur is already gearing up for his next project—and everyone seems to be abuzz with anticipation.

Part four in The Dark Knight Rises trailer series was unveiled this morning, and although this one seemed to pack more bite and excitement than the previous three, my brain immediately shut out the world of Gotham City and floated to Christopher Nolan’s last popcorn thriller, Inception. Now, that could have something to do with the brilliant but almost-identical Hans Zimmer score or the slow-motion, zero-gravity action sequences, but I’m pretty sure it’s just the fact that both films share nearly the same cast, including Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotilliard, Michael Caine, and Tom Hardy. In honor of the new trailer’s release and the countdown to the film’s premiere, here are some more directors who love to recycle their casts—for better or worse.

Wes Anderson’s latest film, Moonrise Kingdom, is more than just a movie. In addition to the actual film, which gets a wide release later this month, the film has been bolstered by a soundtrack and a set of seven interactive posters that introduced the characters—and then there is everything from the clips released to the font used in the posters that Anderson freaks have been dissecting. Now there's this.

Some people judge a movie based on reviews, other will go see something just because it features a favorite actor. Here, we're judging this weekend's offerings based solely on what we see in the trailers and ranking them accordingly.