Wes Anderson Should Headline Coachella

Plus: The Invite at The Vista, first time at Director's Village.

Jul 16, 2026

ICYMI: I had the honor of joining Richard Rushfield for a lunch time Substack Live where he redirected the moviegoing questionnaire on me and it was a very fun hour. Watch it here.

I wouldn’t call myself much of a festival girl, I don’t like crowds of that magnitude and the need to line up for basic necessities. I went to Coachella once a few years ago to see Tame Impala and sold my wristband right after their set, after realizing no one was forcing me to inhale such a ridiculous amount of dust. But if more festivals felt like last weekend’s Criterion-sponsored “Music From The Films of Wes Anderson” event at the Hollywood Bowl, I would be converted. An entire weekend dedicated to a director’s work with LA Philharmonic and an assortment of superstar musicians playing songs from his movies, set in an outdoor venue that randomly decides to allow BYOB sometimes? Say less.

My friend Peyton and I had the time of our lives getting wine-drunk and checking out the attractions at Wes Anderson Fest: The mobile Criterion closet (that was spotted in the car wash earlier that day), a huge tent adorned in pastels selling limited edition boxsets and vinyls, a fancy Swedish candy collab with a different flavor dedicated to each of his movies — what can I say, I love consumerism when it fits my interests. To top it off, all this took place outside in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by the types of people who would also be at a Wes Anderson festival (complimentary). This was such a fun event that it made me consider which other directors I’d want to see get their own festival:

Sofia Coppola feels like a no brainer — lineup featuring Air, New Order, Phoenix and of course, the people’s princess Romy Mars.
Luca Guadagnino. I mean duh. Can you imagine the Challengers score echoing through the mountains?
A Christopher Nolan/Ryan Coogler double headliner so we get the full Ludwig Göransson discography.
Noah Baumbach, for me and my 2 oomfs who would be into this.

However incredible, that wasn’t even my first time seeing and celebrating Wes Anderson that week (a ridiculous sentence). I was indeed present at The Great Academy Museum Elevator Malfunction of 2026, where Wes got stuck in the courtyard elevator for 45 minutes alongside James L. Brooks and Luke Wilson. Like many others I yearn to know every single thing that was said during those 45 minutes. The incident followed a very cute Q&A they did for Bottle Rocket’s 30th anniversary, that was mostly Wes asking James L. Brooks his burning questions. I loved seeing this on the big screen, I’m always in awe watching a beloved director’s first feature and seeing the earliest signs of their now infamous style.

@saveyourcinema Wes Anderson and James L Brooks saved by the Los Angeles Fire Department from a broken elevator at the Academy Museum! I can’t wait to see him direct a movie based on this event! 🙌

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Shoutout to Save Your Cinema for this boots on the ground journalism moment.

Other moviegoing highlights of the week included a solo outing at The Vista for Olivia Wilde’s hilarious The Invite, which I highly recommend seeing in a sold out room for maximum effect. I saw this on the first truly hot day of the summer in Los Angeles and consumed so many ice cold beverages, pictured below is my newest bullshit drink of the month: the Erewhon Pink Salt Lemonade Kombucha.

The grand finale of a pretty grand moviegoing week came at Westwood’s Director’s Village. A group of 35 directors (including Steven Spielberg, Bradley Cooper and Christopher Nolan) bought the previously shuttered iconic theater to revive it and enlisted American Cinematheque to do the programming. The theater’s not quite renovated yet, but will reopen for a few weeks starting today to screen The Odyssey. To celebrate that, and to quite literally see if the projector and sound system still work as they should, Nolan programmed a short series last weekend. I ended up catching 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of my biggest cinematic blind spots, and wow. I’m actually so glad I waited this long to see it on that gigantic screen in 70mm.