so here's the thing...
What the cuss?
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Based on the book by Roald Dahl and directed by Wes Anderson, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” is sweet, funny, ironic and not necessarially for very young children. While the kids may be amused by the talking animals, a lot of the humor may go over their heads. The look of the film reminds me of a child’s picture book and stop motion is a great vehicle for the animal characters, so no computer animation here. There is a “Rushmore” (an earlier Wes Anderson film) quality to some of the relationships in the film. If you like Wes Anderson’s other films, you’ll like this one too.
And as Mr. Anderson is rewarded for his work, so are we. This is also fantastic:
"and a Poppins was averted."
Richard Williams note to all Animators working on “Roger Rabbit”
via Letters of Note
In the Loop (2009) dir. Armando Iannucci
HIL-ARRR-IOUS!
A biting political satire based on Iannucci’s British series “The Thick of It” (which I’ve never seen). Tight, sharp and fast dialogue with keen insights to both British and American politics that had me laughing while keeping my head spinning to keep pace with the story. It took me a good few minutes at the beginning to get used to the various U.K. accents and this film demands your entire attention as the story rapidly rolls ahead at top speed that keeps you working on keeping up — in a good way. It’s filmed documentary style like ‘The Office”. Not surprisingly, the discussions about entering war, which is clearly Iraq, though the country is never directly mentioned,is more about the careers of the politicians then about the good for any of the countries involved. Instead many conversations quickly veer off to petty and small details that make up bureaucracy.
And yay, soon on DVD so I can turn on the English subtitles.
