That secret ingredient

I suppose, when casting for a movie, you look for some special actor that can turn an ordinary movie into a magical one. Often times, in American movies, you grab a foreign actor to play that role.  But, if you are a foreign director, you get… Tom Waits.

For some reason, I cannot help but see this trailer and think: did Thomas Pynchon and Umberto Eco team up to write the script?