A thread for Wes Anderson's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox"

Depends on how "back-to-basics" you think Anderson needed to go; the guy reveled in his limitations as far back as Bottle Rocket.

well, i mean back-to-basics in that the story and style very closely resemble both rushmore & the royal tenenbaums, though packaged in a more family-friendly manner. in that light:

"the animated film puts his limitations in their most attractive context"

otm

i guess i felt like in darjeeling limited he WAS doing something kind of new. not breathtakingly new, and not really on the thematic level, more on the stylistic and narrative levels. but new enough that i didn't really feel like he was just repeating himself. and the one excruciatingly "Wes Anderson" detail--the stylized louis vuitton luggage--was such that it almost felt reflexive.

relative to what i meant, both the darjeeling limited and the life aquatic are experimental films, in that they find anderson attempting to employ his basic narrative and visual devices in a somewhat novel context - and both films fail to some extent, imo. they both seem watered-down and emotionally disconnected.

i suppose mr fox is experimental in exactly the same sense, but here the experiment is successful, largely because he's always been making nostalgic children's films - or young adult films, anyway - and here he finally admits it.

(I think he is in Fox, btw, insofar as he acknowledges that the animated film puts his limitations in their most attractive context)

i haven't seen it yet but this is what i was thinking, too. however, i don't think that is incompatible with saying that he isn't growing or that he's moving towards being more of an art director than a director. i mean, don't the links up thread basically say that his "technical" involvement with the animation was very, very limited? like, he just gave 'em storyboards and specs and said have at it?

xpost

and it was the most crushingly obvious metaphor for all the stuff he felt like he was dragging around with him. i didn't love darjeeling, but it did feel like a conscious struggle with his own arrested development, an acknowledgment that he had these same themes he couldn't avoid repeating. i haven't seen mr. fox and i want to, but even just the fact that he's gone and made an animated film of a children's book feels like sort of a lateral move -- not pushing past any of his own boundaries or obstacles, just sort of taking a break from them at most. but having done that, it'll be interesting to see what he tries to do next. he can't keep making man-boy movies forever. or can he?

I'm the regressive one. I recognized Anderson was trying to do something different with Darjeeling but didn't much like it. In this case, I recognize that this is very much the animated version of Tenenbaums and isn't really doing a whole lot I haven't seen before (from either Anderson or Nick Park), but I enjoyed it a ton.

(oops my post was an xpost to the post about the LV luggage)

i guess i've always imagined that he heavily storyboarded ALL of his films (they're so formal), so animation is kind of a move towards what the rest of his movies have suggested

so basically what contenderizer said?

he's always been making nostalgic children's films

most OTM thing in this thread, probably

'll be interesting to see what he tries to do next. he can't keep making man-boy movies forever. or can he?

That's what it looks like! When I saw The Royal Tenenbaums I thought, "Oh, Jesus, here we go again."

btw most of the crew of Serious American Directors I cited a few posts above are man-boys, including the one girl in the group (i.e. her films center around boys and girls of privilege, and I like hers best).

there was a fair amount of andersonian detail in the darjeeling limited. relentlessly symmetrical framing, contrasting colors, suitcases & contents, various diagrams and typographical announcements, traveling shots through the train, absent parents & wayward/shellshocked offspring, thoughtless dreams of romance with someone from another world, etc.

agree that it did was somewhat less reliant on his typical visual devices, and that it seemed to struggle against his characters' narcissistic inertia, but i found it such a failure as a film that it's hard to see this progress as positive.

most of the crew of Serious American Directors I cited a few posts above are man-boys, including the one girl in the group (i.e. her films center around boys and girls of privilege

this is probably why Ramin Bahrani's films are so much more appealing than any of these SADs; he's interested in underprivileged people forced to grow up.

but I'm still psyched about seeing Mr. Fox tomorrow!

btw no "The" in title

(waiting for freebie)

Finally saw Goodbye Solo this weekend

(xpost)

what you guys need to see is "historias extraordinarias." blew my dome open like no other movie in the past long long time.

btw most of the crew of Serious American Directors I cited a few posts above are man-boys, including the one girl in the group (i.e. her films center around boys and girls of privilege, and I like hers best).

ha, true. here's where i say, i wrote a book about that. tho i also included linklater and haynes, who are more "mature" in various ways. (and david o. russell, who may or may not be.)

well wouldja look at that!!

cool!

yeah, it's ok. it coulda/woulda/shoulda been better. but that whole thing of trying to grow up, what that means or how to do it, was an obvious theme to tie together a lot of that group.

John K.'s h8rtacular post on this cracks me up hard.

saw this today, enjoyed it pretty much start to finish, whether despite or because of andersonisms gets sort of hard to day past a point.

it's a really imaginative movie. and pretty funny too.

hard to SAY past a point...

yeah it's kind of both, I mean I rolled my eyes a little when the Beach Boys came on because it's so predictable Wes Anderson but OTOH Heroes and Villains is a great song and that was a great scene

The models on this drove me nuts because half the time they didn't have proper elbows and knees! Sometimes they bent like proper joints and others their arms and legs curved like pieces of macaroni. Sometimes it looked like they had proper quality armatures & others like they were built around the unyielding wires found in Gumby and Pokey toys.

The characters weren't really built to make facial expressions, either. Any reaction shot where a character had to pull a face totally took me out of the moment. Half the time I only knew what type of face they were supposed to be pulling due to context & musical cues. Also their crying = freaky eye leakage was wrong. People blink when they cry, they don't just drain fluids everywhere.

I thought it was a decent movie & the human characters were good at facial expressions. I bet the animals could have made more readable, nice-looking expressions if Wes Anderson hadn't imposed constraints on them. I felt so bad for the animators after reading that article linked upthread where they talked about all these stupid demands Wes made.

The characters weren't really built to make facial expressions, either. Any reaction shot where a character had to pull a face totally took me out of the moment. Half the time I only knew what type of face they were supposed to be pulling due to context & musical cues.

this, completely.

But that's ok, cuz in Anderson's human movies the actors aren't built to make facial expressions either.

any link to john k's blog should be accompanied by a porn-style disclaimer that he is a complete lunatic.

fantastic! at the moment, my fave US film of the year and the first great animated film I've seen since The Iron Giant.

I felt so bad for the animators after reading that article linked upthread where they talked about all these stupid demands Wes made.

nb: fuck animators.

^^^ this. buncha whiny bastards.

First time Morbs and I have agreed on a best-movie-or-close-enough since Inland Empire, iirc.

that's not exactly eons...

Feels like it.

you're young.

I was remarking to tipsy mothra that Mr. Fox's character flaws neatly complement George Clooney's shortcomings as an actor! His most fitting role ever?

You're going to have to spell that out for me. (Also, this is probably Meryl Streep's worst performance in eons, but that's neither here nor there.)

I haven't worked it out entirely. Something to do with how their semi-ironic deployment of charm is used in the service of morally abominable Jason Reitman films / stealing chickens.

I disagree, I liked Streep, but then I skipped Mamma Mia etc.

Kylie the possum A+

o brother where art thou? = equally fine use of clooney's strengths & weaknesses (both of which boil down to "getting by on charm")

plus mama mia was good (not great, see "getting by on charm") and streep was fine in it. she avoided embarrassing herself, which under the circumstances = heroic triumph.

Something to do with how their semi-ironic deployment of charm is used in the service of morally abominable Jason Reitman films / stealing chickens.

yeah i think clooney always seems like he's trying to put one over on you a little. he's too cagey, he holds something back that makes his more "serious" roles (e.g. solaris) seem not-fully-inhabited. which is why his best roles are as sort of shifty characters (out of sight, three kings, mr. fox).

First time Morbs and I have agreed on a best-movie-or-close-enough since Inland Empire, iirc.

― really senile old crap shit (Eric H.),

^^^^^^^^

and Streep was strangely forgettable in this -- not even noticeably annoying.

my three and a half year old managed to sit through the whole thing, probably for my benefit. triumph! I quite liked it. In no way do I think it's be first great animated film since Iron Giant (Morbious, you don't like any pixar films?), but it's quite good, and I originally didn't think I would like it at all.

i thought streep was good. the scenes with the two of them were some of my favorites. "i love you too ... but i shouldn't have married you." that hurt.

Ponyo and Coraline were better animated films of 2009.

The possum was totally great, also had the best voice acting imo. "I pay my bills on time...I've always had good credit!"

possum is a fine addition to the canon of goofy sidekicks.