FANTASTIC MR FOX post release - Page 2

Right, but before that we actually had the possibility of an animated film winning Best Picture-- witness the nomination for Beauty and the Beast. Now the field is ghettoized, and along the lines of technique instead of content. In a fair fight Iron Giant could have pasted American Beauty and you know it.

The whole third act of Happy Feet is out of left field and pretty bananas. Even my kid was like lolwut? And she was what, 2 when it came out?

I used to think that and then I came to my senses and realized that a cartoon would never win Best Picture ever.

Just some fun images from the the film:

A cool blogsite for screengrabs.

http://framefilter.blogspot.com/2009/09/fantastic.html

Um, have you even seen Brad Brid's masterpiece, The Incredibles??? It deals with such scintillating topics as families and objectivism. Bam! Biff! Pow! Cartoons aren't just for kids anymore. I was literally weeping inconsolably when it ended and I'm tearing up now just thinking about it. It deserved to win every Oscar.

That's pretty weak shit when you compare it to sophisticated movies about paralyzed lady boxers.

If Eastwood ever directs a cartoon, then maybe.

Schwartzman was my favorite in this.

"No you're not. You're disloyal."

Schwartzman's delivery of that line made my friends and me crack up hard.

The spitting was a masterstroke.

Such a great, great movie. I'm amazed two animated family movies as good as this and UP could be released in the same year.

I was particularly fond of the recurring musical cue of the nursery rhyme, particularly in the climactic diversion in the village with all the burning pinecones.

And the Jarvis Cocker scene, especially Gambon's interruption, was spectacular.

"That's no way to write a song. You wrote a bad song, Petey!"

The storyline was a bit all over the place, and the malleability of their physical situation (once they start digging) lacked in urgency and cohesion. First they dig here...then they dig there...then they are happy, and do a little dance, then they are back underground and somehow vulnerable to flooding. OK.

They can't just dig far away enough to go somewhere else, apparently...I realize I'm asking futile questions here for a "children's book adaptation", but they invite those questions by trying to maintain tension with mortal danger.

Besides those quibbles, it was a very enjoyable movie. The artwork, animation, and visual composition were all extraordinary. The combination of the actors and the physical expression of the creatures was effective. I felt for Mr.Fox. It sounds just a bit goofy to say that.

The supporting cast was great, full of the usual Anderson style character interaction moments.

I'm still unsure whether the dialogue musings on animal nature amounted to anything, I'll see how I feel when I watch it again on DVD. All the ponderings were worth it just for the scene where Mr.Fox and the badger growl at each other in the office, though.

I totally agree. I think of all the silliness that is contained within the film, that particular moment had me laughing the hardest. Something about Michael Gambon scoling someone for bad songwriting is just undeniably hilarious; I could not resist. I guffawed louder then than I probably have at any movie this year.

This is a really inspired film and I'm happy to see that Anderson's demands paid off. Like many others I wonder why he hasn't thought about doing stop-motion animation sooner-- the aesthetic really fits the kind of stories he tends to tell. At the same time that stylization is going to be the deciding factor for a lot of people; even if the content works for them the film may just fall flat for them on the basis of the animation. It's a throwback style. Frankly I can't imagine the movie being quite as good without that retro touch, but I could see how other people might be bothered by it.

A pity for them. The movie is truly wonderful.

I liked that aspect of it.

Beaks' entry for the film in his Best of the Decade list doesn't forget to mention the line. Fantastic! (cilcks tongue)

My 6 year old loved the ...

"He redeemed himself."

"Well maybe, but at the end of the day he's just another dead rat on the back of a Chinese restaurant" line.

The ending of the film really elevates it for me, though I may prefer the mopings of Where the Wild Things Are in total. Their situation is tenuous, but they can still dance.

And then they dance just like Peanuts characters.

At the end I wondered, "Do supermarkets really put manhole covers in the main floor? Or at all?"

As the characters danced I went, "WHO CAAAARES!!!"

My friends and I were all doing variations of the dances as we left the theater.

One of my customers who saw the movie started 'cussin' at me. YOU CUSSIN' AT ME!?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found themselves doing that.

Something about the various long shots of the characters dancing was just utterly hilarious to me. It's just borderline surreal.

I've gotta say it: this was the first time Anderson's style really, truly worked for me. Maybe it's because quirky, mannered stuff fits better in animation. Maybe it has something to do with the source material. Maybe it was because of the need to be kid-friendly. But this is by far Anderson's funniest, most fundamentally entertaining film. I've always admired the guy's craft, but I've often felt like his quirks actively get in the way of connecting to the characters, or helping the jokes land. This time, everything clicked for me, and I laughed my head off.

I like that Anderson didn't just flat-out transpose his style into animation, despite what people are saying. He absolutely does get the medium, and how it differs from live action. For instance, the classic Anderson slo-mo tracking shot was replaced with sped-up tracking shots of these goofy-looking, rubbery characters blasting through traps or digging en masse (another recurring shot that made me laugh repeatedly).

Also, the theme about civilization choking out nature was extremely well done and nicely subtle, to the point where it didn't even register with me until they were sucking on processed goose rinds and apple juice in the supermarket. What I love is that the film is commenting, among other things, on the dangerous aspects of anthropomorphizing animals, via a movie about anthropomorphic animals.

It's sad that the film's done so poorly. It's not like the film is inaccessible either. It totally works but people totally skipped on it. Got totally ignored during the New Moon storm.

Good thing it's a kid's movie. Those often find new life on DVD.

Between "That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey!" and "I just picked up a radio signal with a tin can!", I nearly died laughing.

Truly terrific movie, and one of my favourites of the year.

Oh, and one big reason I'll be getting this on BR is to freeze-frame and read Mr Fox's newspaper columns. The brief glimpse I got of one had a paragraph that started like "Rye is my drink, 85 proof", which is pretty much the perfect thing for a fox-about-town voiced by George Clooney to write.

I actually feel the same way as Prankster; Fox is the first movie in Anderson's oeuvre that truly benefits from his almost obsessively detail-oriented and quirky style. I think it has an enormous amount to do with the medium he chose this time around, which I think tends to benefit from both such qualities. (Ditto on the repeated "mass-digging" shot, which I always chuckled at.)

Loved this movie. Thought I'd posted in here already. Oh well.

Just a heads up: the soundtrack is only $3.99 to download from Amazon. Don't know how long that'll last but I'd jump on it.

The point still stands, Animated films don't have a chance of winning, ever. It's just how the voting system is set up, even without the best animated film category.

Anderson accepts a special achievement award for his film from the National Board of Review.

So cute.

http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/01/13/...ptance-speech/

Late pass - caught this at the Beverly Center earlier today and I have to agree with pretty much every bit of praise in here as well as the weird tonal shift when they send the rat downriver, and the payoff with Fox's tail still cracks me up. Now I feel bad for not catching it...you know, LAST YEAR, but I'm still glad I got to see it on the big screen.

Yeah I caught this with my mum just as it was finidhing up at the theatre. (I'm taking my mum to the cinema a few times as a Christmas present. Trying to convince her to see The Hurt Locker next!)

I loved it. Reminded me of the Wallace and Gromit efforts simply due to the sheer attention to detail and visual comedy packed into it. I totally lost it with the wolf at the end. The pinecone game explanation and subsequent demonstration also had me in stitches.

I agree with the perfect movie comment.

Obviously it's 2010 now, but this would be my second favourite film of 2009 after District 9.

Late to the game for me too. I've always liked Wes's sense of humour a lot but this film is much more packed with jokes than any of his others. I was laughing like a loon, especially during the first act where the lol-per-minute ratio was higher than any comedy I've seen for maybe half a decade.

I'll echo the praise for Schwartzman as Ash, I haven't been his biggest fan but here he totally won me over. I thought the way he was written just pushed the sense of his inferiority to Kristofferson a little too far (I felt like several things suffered this small imperfection, like Fox's click-whistle trademark and the team dig) by the time he turned it around but the delivery of his dialogue from Schwartzman was perfection. Wallace Wolodarsky was brilliant too and I loved Kylie's body language, especially the small moves he'd make while doing headlights-eyes. He's a character as endearing as they come and I'm sure he got all my biggest laughs.

I loved what Gambon and Dafoe did too, they also stood out from a uniformly good bunch of vocal performances that seemed to benefit from the same thing that helped Where The Wild Things Are feel so much more immediate and intimate than animation (including the masters at Pixar) can usually accomplish. I hope I get to see more animated films in which the recording of dialogue is done by actors together in spaces that aren't a sterile studio environment.

Yeah, he got guaranteed laughs out of everybody whenever he zoned out. And Dafoe WAS fantastic. I'd venture to say I liked his voicework almost as much as Gambon and Schwartzman's, and he didn't even have half the screentime of the other two. Also, the "canis solidarity" moment as well as the payoff to Schwartzman's "I am as light as a piece of bread" moment were both great.

That wolf scene was pretty damn awesome. I know I should've seen it coming given the frequent foreshadowing by my man Kylie, but I didn't. I was just thinking it was a little random quirk to make Kylie seem a little more crazy, and it worked well as that too, but even the moment before we see the wolf, when Kylie's eyes go big as he looks over, I didn't expect that that is what he would see. It didn't have the catharsis of the jaguar shark meeting in TLA for me but it was still oddly touching as well as being comic gold.

Loved this movie. The wolf moment felt like what Anderson was trying to say at the end of the Life Aquatic. But while there I found it too affected (and silly/cheap) here I think it really works. Go figure he has to do it with stop-animated animals to get that moment right.

Lots to love throughout the whole thing. Best Anderson since The Royal Tenenbaums.

I don't know if it was done with quite the same intention as TLA, in that film the shark means something like vindication and relevance to Zissou, it's his stated quest throughout the whole film, whereas in Fantastic Mr Fox it was only something that ever seemed to cross Mr Fox's mind when Kylie mentioned it, like an aside. It felt like a phobia that was barely important because it never got tripped because there were never any wolves around. But it definitely felt like a nice callback and to me it was perfectly realized visually. I'd even say it's the most striking image in what's a remarkably visually striking film.

And right now I'd put Fantastic Mr Fox above Tenenbaums mostly on account of the more engaging characters and higher laugh-count. I think I've only seen Tenenbaums twice but each time I had the same feeling that the characters were very entertaining but at their cores not much more than personifications of the writers' cleverness. They're very, very watchable creations but remained oddly unsympathetic, so that apart from feeling for what Etheline has to go through there's not a moment I can remember the film moving me to anything except curiosity and laughter.

In Fantastic Mr Fox though I found myself caring about the fates of many of the characters, and that's even though I know deep down a kid's movie probably isn't going anywhere too dark. Ash, Kylie and Mrs Fox, and to a lesser extent Kristofferson, all felt to me like they had something real at stake (because they were all dependent on Mr Fox to take care of their vulnerability) and I was pulling for them in a way that I never pulled for any of the Tenenbaums. That's the most important thing to me in any film and it was more than enough for me to forgive the few things I thought Fantastic Mr Fox got a little bit off key and to place it above The Royal Tenenbaums in my vitally important Wes Rankings.

They're both the obligatory scenes in both movies and they both use animals to illustrate them.

Yes, the shark is Zissou's goal, but its also his turning point, the place where he decides that revenge isn't the answer, that life (including death) is in fact beautiful. Quite literally in this case.

In Fox, the wolf represents that they are in fact wild animals acting by their nature. That's the connection I'm talking about. They don't mean the same things, but they're definitely similar devices.

I agree with Parker. The wolf scene is the culmination of all of Fox's questions about the nature of Fox and the other animals in the cast; they might wear clothes and they might be able to speak French but they're wild animals nonetheless, at the end of the day.

Sure, we already saw eye to eye on the fact that the two scenes had similar elements, that's exactly what I was getting at when I drew attention to the similarities in the first place (although I realize now that you might not have seen that post even though it was directly above yours). It's not so much that, as you originally put it, The wolf moment felt like what Anderson was trying to say at the end of The Life Aquatic, it's really that while those scenes are constructed from similar elements, they don't have the same intentions.

But to me the jaguar shark scene is quite a bit more fundamental to The Life Aquatic than the wolf is to Fantastic Mr Fox. For a start, while Zissou seeing the jaguar shark is not actually a turning point (Ned provides the real turning point), it's the main focus of the plot and the trigger for the final confirmation that what Zissou does is still important.

In Fantastic Mr Fox though I didn't feel like the wolf is a major plot focus or a main driver for Fox's decision making. His decision to do something different with his life is triggered by the danger his farm-raiding actions put his friends and family in. The wolf is given a part to play in conveying one of the themes of the film, but it's a minor part, not as significant to the overall film as the jaguar shark, which haunts every scene, has in The Life Aquatic. If the wolf scene was cut from Fantastic Mr Fox we might have had a less fun movie but the story still would have been told. Cut the jaguar shark from The Life Aquatic though and you change the story.

For now we're not going to agree on the relative merits of these two films but I think there's a chance for us to see eye to eye on the plot mechanics of each of them Parker. I have to believe there's a chance.

Occasionally on CHUD I feel like I'm admitting I'm stupid. This may be one of those times.

I didn't really 'get' the whole wild animal thing. Like obviously foxes, badgers and wolves are wild animals. I wasn't sure if there was a point to me made that related to the human condition.

What I liked about most of it was the generall pacing and quirkyness of it. I'm not sure if I walked away from the film learning anything important life.

Don't worry about it Kriegaffe, I don't often learn any important messages from films themselves anymore either. Sometimes, if they're good, they'll inspire or move me, but at best they confirm or shine a new light on stuff I already know. And Fantastic Mr Fox is a kid's film after all, so there's no deep message beyond the obvious themes of fathers needing to leave the "animal" ways of their youths behind to some extent and kids needing to know that their parents value and are proud of them no matter how they compare to others.

I think Anderson was just making the point that anthropomorphizing animals is part of the same impulse that leads us to pave over nature and replace natural food with packaged, processed crap. We like things to be comfy, familiar, and predictable--understandably so--and raw nature doesn't fit in with that. So he contrasted cute clothing-wearing talking animals with occasional reminders that animals are very much not people. Partly for humorous effect, but partly to remind us that we need to take nature on its own terms sometimes.

But of course anthropomorphizing animals is a natural human tendency, and nature can be good and "friendly" as well. Hence, the wolf scene. It's a "real" wolf right up until that last grace note at the end.

Also, it's funny.

There's something that bothers me about Wes Anderson's films, and I'm not quite sure what it is. Here's my attempt to pin it down.

Every film of his I've seen has annoyed me. It's about characters who are narcissistic and destructive in their narcissism, but they seem to get forgiven, and even lionized by the end of the film. I hate that compulsive need to forgive the destructive characters, especially if they haven't changed.

Mr. Fox's ending was a total fantasy lionizing of Mr. Fox. He's shown to be destructive, heedless of consequences, narcissistic to the point of psychological child abuse (I guess he's "Different") but in the end he's a Hero. He hasn't changed, but the exact same qualities that have been identified as destructive magically start being positives at the end of the film.

This pattern holds for Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, even Life Aquatic (though it's really hard to like Steve Zissou at the end of the film, bu I think you are still supposed to).

Darjeeling Limited seemed to be the only film where it seemed to avoid lionizing the asshole-narcissist, and make it about letting go of the baggage that might be making one into an asshole-narcissist. That's why I loved Darjeeling Limited, while I still find it hard to stomach his others.

All of his main characters change. In some of his better films, so do the supporting characters. Film analysis fail.

Fixed.

I am interested in learning how Royal Tenenbaum somehow does not change over the course of his arc.

He did, but he didn't change .... a LOT. But he did change. I liked it much better than RUSHMORE and MR. FOX for that reason. But there's this implication that the children of this guy are partly to blame for dwelling on the damage that he caused ... it's why I liked Darjeeling better, because the Father Figure was out of the picture, and the damage caused was dealt with outside the issue of whether to forgive him or not, being that his being dead made the point moot.

Mr. Fox seemed to be trying to say that that narcissistic personality is something good, primal, "wild". It' seemed a regression from Darjeeling's focus. (yes, and I'm not saying it was the only thing it was saying).

I find it odd that I like Darjeeling so much, but so many seem to think of it as a lesser work. I wonder why that is.

I've been revisiting Anderson's films ever since Darjeeling. I managed to watch "Rushmore" through without feeling the revulsion towards Max that I did on a first viewing (a viewing which took several tries in order to make it through the whole movie). I'm just working on "getting" Anderson. He's definitely worth trying to "get" in my opinion.

I feel where you're coming from in some ways Buster. Because even though I like Tenenbaums and Fox I never get to like their main character. I was never crazy about Max either but since he's a kid I can empathise with him enough to root for him.

Maybe in some ways Wes makes villains his protagonists. Rushmore, Tenenbaums and Aquatic start out with kind of a rival figure somewhere in the mix, but by the end of the story we see that Herman, Henry and Hennessey are reasonable enough guys. Or at least they're as reasonable as the protagonist, so they're not really bad guys. Fox is the only one with full-on villains but ironically the good guy comes off to me the least admirable of all Wes's protagonists.

I like (as opposed to admire maybe) Zissou the best. Yep, I've heard plenty of times why the majority rate that film below Rushmore and Tenenbaums. I know I'm in a small group in this one, and he has things to dislike about him - personality flaws of various degrees (abandoning what might be your son without finding out for sure is not something to admire in the slightest), so I get why you feel what you feel about him. But without going into a dozen paragraph diatribe I'll put it like this: He's the most human of Wes's protagonists to me, his life's goal is something I admire, and although he might not be the smartest captain on the seas he cares about his crew - most obviously Klaus. When they go to rescue Bill from the pirates it's Steve who takes point and puts himself in the most danger.

Plus, it's Bill Murray man. It's Bill. Fucking. Murray. Even in his worst films the cosmos has decided that it's impossible for me not to empathize with that guy. So I'm biased like that.

I agree with pretty much everything Bucho just said about Aquatic and Murray, however how you can not see change or good in any of his other character is beyond me, yes they are more narcissistic than most things in Hollywood but are not we all? I mean would hate to see your reaction to a Baumbach film.

I would agree about Life Aquatic, but I also consider that to be one of Anderson's weaker films, but I still don't see how Royal Tenenbaum and Max don't change/haven't experienced change by the end of their respective films.

I do agree that Anderson's characters tend to be too bastardly to really like or forgive (or, for that matter, laugh at). Royal Tennenbaum in particular I find to be just a flat out jerk rather than "comically arrogant". Was there any particular reason he had to keep referring to his daughter as adopted? No, he's a doucherod. Anderson seems to think we'll chuckle at this, but the humour's pretty weak compared to the level of sheer meanness on display. That's one of the reasons Anderson's films don't usually connect with me.

Mr. Fox, on the other hand, just came off as self-absorbed but otherwise well-meaning. To me Anderson finally nailed the kind of character he'd been (I assume) trying to capture all this time.

Maybe, not to read too much into his movies, but ditching the "baggage" at the end of Darjeeling was a real catharsis for him and allowed him to look at these dickish father figures in a more sympathetic light.