Movie Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

 I'm not sure how cool it was to have this song playing during this scene. Seems a little dark. (Yes, I'm joking.)

Wes Anderson’s (Rushmore, The Life Aquatic) long awaited adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s novel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, opens in wide release next week.  With witty dialogue mixed with the charm and nostalgia of classic stop-animation, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a silly, smart, sweet and truly fantastic tale of existential angst.  Slightly irreverent and touching on some adult themes, it still retains oodles of kid's appeal, though it’s probably the adults who will have the most fun.  Beautifully understated, muted, even drab landscapes are inhabited by exceptionally voiced and meticulously crafted characters. As Mr. Fox struggles between his wild animal urges and the demands of being a "domesticated" family man, the film maintains a loose and whimsical tone despite the years of planning and production that went into it.  Music, composition and tone keep it firmly in Anderson's oeuvre, but stop-animation combined with a sophisticated contemporary script elevate it from retro homage to something very special.  Fantastic Mr. Fox is simply wonderful.  And the animals wear clothes and have cell phones, and that is always fun.

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Post-Henson World: I hope that something better comes along...

From 1965 to 1969, Henson's LaChoy commercials featured both full bodied and hand puppets of a lumbering dragon named Delbert.  This beats any Geico commercial any day.

You still have 2 more weekends to catch Jim Henson's Fantastic World (JHFW) at the James Michener Museum, all the way out there in Doylestown, PA, on view through November 29th.  A traveling exhibition brought to us b by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services and The Jim Henson Legacy, JHFW features original Henson character drawings (Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Barkley), screen prints, storyboards, as well as videos of his life's work and of course, some classic Muppets in vitrines.  The exhibit itself seems crammed into too small a space and the flow is just awful, but the contents are proof of the genius that was Jim Henson.

It was a Monday morning near the end of the 7th grade and my friend who proceeded not be friends with me in high school told me that Jim Henson died earlier that morning.  This May will mark the 20th anniversary of his death.  Children's television would not be in the sad state it's in if Jim had lived past the tender age of 53, no doubt about that.  Where we had old skool Sesame Street with trippy shorts and trippier monsters (and aliens!), kid's today have cheesy digital animation and rapping guest stars.  But, you've heard this from me before.  But fear not, fair readers. Hope is out there.  It's just at the movies.

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TV: What You Might Have Missed - Catching Great Whites and Big Boners

I loves me some Amazing Race. This season (which is the 15th of the always Emmy winning reality series) is pretty good. All the terrible people left pretty early on and we're left with an OK crew of competitors. The interracial couple, reconnecting father and son combo, some Harlem Globetrotters, Ken and Barbie types and the brothers. The not so ambiguously gay duo, Sam and Dan. And Sunday night, Sam and Dan had giant erections. Well, I don't know if they were actually giant, but any erection during prime time is big news.  Of course, CBS blurred them out.  But there they were...boners...on network TV.  I was online a bit yesterday - how the hell did I not see anything about this groundbreaking TV event?  CBS sure likes the wang. Remember that Survivor ep when America was flashed with full frontal?  I do, but only because InfoMania told me about it.  (Can't seem to locate link to that.)

But inappropriate chubbies weren't the most excited thing on TV during this very young week.  The National Geographic Channel ran a pseudo-scientific special just last night about a crew of extreme fisherman and their nerdy science buddy on a quest to catch, tag, release and track Great White Sharks.  Really.

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Sesame Street Season 40: Can you tell me how to get the heck out of here?

A "new school" resident of Sesame Street, Murray is pretty cool. He does the Word on the Street segment. I always loved it when monsters or Barkley went out into the real streets.

If I started singing "1-2-3-4-5, 6-7-8-9-10, 11 - 12. Dooo, do-do, do-do-do-do, dooo-dooo...." You would totally know what I was talking about, right?

Sesame Street premiered its 40th season yesterday morning at 6am in the Philadelphia area.  At least I think I was watching Sesame Street.  Maria, Luis, Gordon, Bob, Barkley and Big Bird were there, but so was some monster named Murray, some CGI fairies at a CGI daycare and a whole lot of generically arranged "hip-hop".  Absent were trippy animation shorts about aliens, farm animals with names or ladybugs jumping rope that featured scores of every musical genre.  Sesame Street is a weird place now.  Hooper's has an outdoor cafe and a one episode character like yesterday's sleazy real estate agent for birds that tries to sell Big Bird a new habitat was played by a human instead of a Muppet.  Creepy Muppets = funny, creepy humans = creepy.  Sesame Street feels off in its present form, which is odd since you'd think a lot of people responsible for making it also grew up on the original.  Am I saying that watching classic episodes doesn't leave me compulsively counting in my sleep?  Actually no, I'm not, but I don't think the DVD of "old school" Sesame Street should come with a warning that it is not intended for children.  Old school Sesame Street simply no longer reflects the accepted sterilized and imagination free practices of today's preschool education programs. Sure, it wasn't perfect the first 4 years or so, but today's version is simply lacking innovation.

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Movie Review (sort of): The Box

The gist:

Norma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a gift, which bears fatal and irrevocable consequences. A mysterious stranger, delivers the message that the box promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button. But, pressing this button will simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world; someone they don't know. With just 24 hours to have the box in their possession, Norma and Arthur find themselves in the cross-hairs of a startling moral dilemma and must face the true nature of their humanity. (Written by Warner Bros. Pictures)

 

Hello, there, young lady. Would you like to check out my button unit?

It's not that I don't like writing negative reviews.  Oh, hell yes, I do. It's just that I tend to write a lot of them. Does this mean that most movies are bad?  Sort of.

So, why did Richard Kelly's new riddle, The Box, which opens tonight, make me think of this?  I guess it's that with Kelly's films (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales) his presence is so obvious you can almost see him thinking through the next steps of his films, which is usually a bad thing.  But The Box is in "so bad it's actually good" territory.  With Kelly, weirdness turns to mystery and then back to just plain hollow oddity and back around to well-lit weirdness again with no clear drawn conclusions. His plot choices seem random and self-indulgent on top of just plain confusing or silly.  Even though The Box is his first foray into the blatantly commercial, it's a crazy-ass art movie and for that, Kelly gets mad props.  The crazy-ass artist in me that once made many terrible and personal short films loves that Kelly awkwardly jammed bits from his own childhood as well as those bizarre water-time-portal-tube-things from Donnie Darko into an already uber-wacko The Box.  I would just really like to get a beer with this dude.

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Movie Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

    Bad news, ladies (and germs), you only get to see Ewan's ass in this flick - no wang.

Grant Heslov as a writer gave us the subtle and sophisticated Good Night, and Good Luck in 2005. Director Grant Heslov in 2009 gives us the surprisingly goofy "inspired by a true story" war satire, The Men Who Stare at Goats, which hits theaters this Friday.  You've heard of this one, right? Commercials have been running nonstop for the last 2 weeks or more.  I got the chance to see it at the 18 1/2 Philadelphia Film Fest last month and it wasn't quite the masterpiece I was hoping for, it was a pretty fun flick.

Crammed with Star Wars terminology, Lord of the Rings references on top of more paranormal psycho-speak than an X-Files episode, The Men Who Stare at Goats stays firmly in the realm of the ridiculous, farcical and lighthearted.  If you’re looking for Dr. Strangelove for the 21st Century, you’re out of luck.  But, if you’re into George Clooney playing an eccentric philosophy spouting Jedi with Level 3 Invisibility, well that’s another story.  Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey are psychic spies part of a secret government operation created based on a rumor that the Russians were delving into supernatural warfare.  Ewan McGregor is the easily impressed reporter desperate to break the fantastical top secret story that spans decades. 

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James Cameron always does makeup touch-ups himself.

So, the first teaser for Avatar didn't exactly get our hopes up, especially after it was pointed out that it looks a hell of a lot like this movie no one saw.  And then, came more accusations of swiping more than just inspiration for the story.  A little known sci-fi novella from 1957 has a very similar story line of a paraplegic who is linked with another life form in order to explore a planet not fit for human respiration.  In case you didn't know because the Interweb in your cave dwelling was out the week the teaser was released, that's the basic premise of Avatar.

But, now with trailer no. 2 just out, it seems yet another sci-fi classic might have been a source.  Check it out and think...Dune (the movie or the books, whatever floats your boat - but not that mini-series, that blew).  Our hero arrives as the native population's enemy and becomes their savior.  I'm not sure if this Avatar dude is the universe's super being, but if he is...that's a deal breaker.

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Happenings: Shark Cannabalism

Shark on Shark Violence is Tearing Them Apart!

You're just minding your own business, paroling the coastline, looking for some lunch when you happen upon some exceptionally tender rotting whale carcasses. Not one, but 3! I know what you're thinking...this is my lucky day.  Sure, nearly every day as an Apex predator is a good one, but a free lunch is always welcome.  And then, you're reminded that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

                                 Insert play on "We're gonna need a bigger boat," here.  

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Movies: MJ

Wow, this really is it.

So, Michael Jackson's This is It has a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes with 96 reviews in.  Bet, nobody saw that coming.  I've kept my feelings about MJ's passing off this blog, but it is comforting to know that this last assemblage of footage is not the macabre spectacle I was sure it was going to be. That is, if what my fellow more established critics are reporting turns out to be as true as anything can be in this most subjective arena.

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Um, happy belated birthday, TRICC!

The Rest is Cream Cheese was born on October 12, 2007 with a short and disjointed little rant, "First to Post, Suckas!", about how the newly announced J.J. Abrams Star Trek "bastardization" was going to suck. Oops. Actually it wasn't even about the new Star Trek. It was about previous attempts and fails to reinvent franchises that were influential in my youth. It was silly and not very good. But, it got me writing again and these past 24 months have been better for it.

Since starting up TRICC I've become a poorly paid movie correspondent for a paper outside Philly whilst still toiling away at the old day job and I couldn't be happier. I hope my movie reviews are getting better though a part of me thinks they're lacking in the funny lately and I vow to correct that. This of course means there will be an increase in typos that you will just have to deal with. When the funny happens, it happens fast and for some reason I have the inability to see my own typos even after the 3rd or 4th edit. I'm sure there is a name for this most debilitating condition. For now I'm calling it Semiagraphic Typonosis. I hope together we can raise awareness, because my typos not only make me seems careless and amateurish, they make me feel that way too.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish Ye Olde blog a happy belated b-day and to welcome our new readers. We (my imaginary web team and I) have totally noticed you checking us out and frankly, we're flattered and now slightly less desperate for approval than we were a few weeks ago. Welcome new readers!

Oh, also:

• Wasn't 30 Rock kick ass last week?
  
• Go Phillies! Yankees blow.
  
• Way to use upcoming World Series as bargaining chip, SEPTA! I guess it's worth it if you get to keep the clause that allows your workers to be "total assholes to riders". Yay, unions!
  
• Will you still hang out with me if my Halloween costume is lame. I was going to sew a Zuul dress, but I remembered that I don't know how to sew.
• And finally, Trick 'r Treat is arriving in our mailbox this week and I am gonna watch the heck out of it and report back.
  

Have a great Monday, everyone.

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Movie Review: Amelia, Even Stunt Freckles* Couldn't Save It

I don't know about you, but my spouse and I always shake hands before one of us gets on a flight. That's not weird or suspect at all, I don't know what you're talking about. We totally have intercourse all the time.

I like lady adventurers, the Great Depression, airplanes and Ewan McGregor. So why didn't I like Amelia, which opens tonight (and why aren't you going to like it)? Um, maybe because it was a disjointed characterless character piece with more newsreel footage than Citizen Kane. After a while it felt like a death march through a badly narrated soap opera with cheesy sets, cheesy dialogue and one really shiny leather jumpsuit. As a matter of fact, the Great Depression has never looked so neat and well-dressed. Amelia makes Annie look gritty.

Amelia Earhart was at one time the most famous women in America. She was everywhere and that pioneer image of her has been sustained since her disappearance in 1937, and rightfully so. Only a handful of films have been made about Earhart, but millions have found themselves enamored by both her achievements and the mystery surrounding her final flight. She was also pretty cool and flying was an extreme sport at the time. An open marriage, a short wild haircut, creator of a ladies line of active wear, and the first person to equal the feats of Lindbergh, Earhart clearly rocked. This latest film by Monsoon Wedding director, Mira Nair, does little to delve into Earhart's real person, especially with Hillary "Oscar Bait" Swank in the title role, and stays firmly in the realm of personae. From multiple key scenes that feel cut short, to the complete lack of chemistry between Swank and Richard Gere, Amelia is simply a great opportunity lost. It also includes a scene where this feminist hero confesses that she wears pants because she hates her legs. Ugh.

I never thought I would see that many takeoffs in one film. Oddly enough, I can't remember any shots of a plane landing...ooooh, how telling. The cinematography is nice, I guess. It looks way more expensive than the film's $40M price tag, but glorious vistas literally whizzing by is unbelievably boring and has absolutely no texture or depth of this director's previous efforts. It felt sanitized, emotionally and visually. This is the same Mira Nair that brought us Salaam Bombay!?


Pay no attention to the right side of the screen.

There is no tension anywhere in the film. It's absent when she beings a relationship with her manager and publicist, George Putnam (Gere). It's minuscule as she struggles between insane media demands he's orchestrated and her desire to physically fly away from it all. And how in the world can searching in vain for a 2 mile wide island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with the fuel gauge reading "E" be boring? Amelia also does little to inform us of the difficulties of flying at the time. I mean, we live in an era when two pilots can get into a heated discussion and miss an airport by 150 miles without even noticing. Planes didn't always fly themselves.***

Swank's Earhart stoically plays it for the camera until the very end with only brief glimpses of her character's unmediated self. There is one scene when Amelia and George talk over a radio thousands of miles apart the night before she begins the most dangerous leg of her around the world journey that touches on real emotion, but it's too little too late. Oh, did I tell you about the joyride she takes old Eleanor Roosevelt on after a dinner party. It was smashing, darling. From up there you can't smell all the hobos in the soup lines.

And then, there's Swank's voice. Yeah, she's trying that old Hollywood accent, somewhere between Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson. Maybe not that bad, but it's still really annoying. Photos and footage of Earhart showed a natural pleasant woman, a little gap in her front teeth, but there was a definitely androgynous sex appeal there - yet another mystery to which we'll never know the answer. Remember that pants thing I ugh-ed about earlier. Earhart makes a remark about a beautiful woman's equally beautiful legs in front of her soon to be lover, Gene Vidal (McGregor), and laments that her legs are ugly. Gene insists her legs must be lovely and wonders allowed if that is the reason she wears pants all the time. She admits it is and says something about wanting to be considered more than just one of the boys. So, no, looking at that hot lady wasn't a hint about Amelia's possible bisexuality or anything remotely provocative, it was about wearing pants to hide sub par gams and getting some that is not from your old and exploitative husband. Double ugh. Also, as far as chemistry goes between Swank and McGregor, I can't really comment because I didn't even notice that she was there when he was on the screen. Swoon.**

**/*****
(I'm only giving it 2 for two reasons - some cool planes and Ewan.)

Amelia
111 mins
Dir.: Mira Nair
Writ.: Ron Bass (Stepmom), Ann Hamilton Phelan (Girl, Interrupted)
Starring: see above
Rated PG for smooching, some mature themes maybe, blatant over-freckling of non freckled actor and smoking.



*Oh, and they put fake freckles on Hillary Swank (too many of them) and I consider that offensive. It's an insult to qualified freckled actors everywhere. I think you know where I'm going with this line of thinking.

**Next week - The Men Who Stare at Goats review. Unfortunately it featured a swoonless Ewan sporting a robotic American accent. Sigh.

*** 10/29/09 Update: OK, they were on their laptops checking out the new scheduling system at work. So lame. And they so have their licenses revoked.

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Quick Bites - Now Playing: Serious Zombieland

Wow, Wednesday, already. I had this plan that I’d blog everyday this week and most of the posts would be about Ewan McGregor because I saw The Men Who Stare at Goats on Monday night and am heading to Amelia tonight and he's in both films. But, as you can see that did not work out. I was going to make two lists of Ewan movies, one good column, one bad and make humorous comments on each one. Do you know how many bad Ewan McGregor movies there are out there? Like at least 15.

Anyway, maybe that will happen. I’m not promising anything with 2 movies this week, the impending city-wide riot that is sure to occur if the Phils take it tonight and keeping up with the DVR...if only I could free up more time by not having this silly healthcare providing day job? Come on public option! In the meantime, here's some quick bites for the Coen Brothers new one and Zombieland.



A Serious Man
105 min
limited release

OK, this doesn’t happen often, but I am at somewhat of a loss when it comes to this movie. The Coen brothers are some of my favorite filmmakers and while I haven’t loved everything, I usually still get their films. This one, I don’t get.

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