Fantastic Mr. Fox

I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox over Thanksgiving weekend, and quite frankly, it was fantastic. It was much better than this year's overrated Up. The movie stood out to me for three reasons:

1.The personal connection. I love Bill Murray and Wes Anderson, so I was looking forward to this movie for quite some time. In fact, Bill Murray is one of my favorite actors of all time (I love love love What About Bob?) But things get a little weird from there. Bill Murray plays a badger in the movie who is a lawyer. I am a badger (UW alum!) and a lawyer. Not only is Bill a badger lawyer, he is a badger real estate lawyer. I am a real estate lawyer!

But the strangest fact of all is that previously unbeknownst to me, I have owned a Fantastic Mr. Fox t-shirt for about 5 years. I found it in the 50 cent section of Urban Outfitters while in college. It has a cartoon fox on it and the words "I'm fantastic!" I wear it about once a month when I am feeling particularly cocky. All these years, I never knew that my shirt was referencing the Fantastic Mr. Fox book by Roald Dahl. I may have never made the connection if it wasn't for my husband. Right before I was going to leave the house to see the movie, Erik asked if I was going to wear my I'm Fantastic shirt. I had one of those rare "Aha" moments and I felt like my whole life was leading up to the movie. It was a strange feeling indeed.

2. The animation. This movie uses the old fashion technique of stop motion - you know, the technique used in the 1930s classic King Kong. Last night I was watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and then Santa Claus is Coming to Town on TV, and I realized just how truly special Wes Anderson's film is. The detail in Fox is impeccable. Every outfit is tailored and every detail artfully chosen. But in the Christmas classics, the details just aren't there. The dolls clothes are sloppy and the backgrounds have almost no detail whatsoever. It makes you appreciate how much time he must have put into the making of this film.

3. The cussing. Yes, cussing. The animals swear constantly in the film! At least once a minute. But instead of actually saying the F word, the animals say "cuss" instead. For example, Mr. Fox would say "Clustercuss" or "Let's cuss with his head." What a hilarious and ingenious way of inserting cuss words in a children's movie.

Have you seen Fantastic Mr. Fox? Did you think it was the best movie ever?

The limits of contemporary animation

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion among film critics about whether we are in the golden age of animation. I don't think I would go as far as to say that we are in the golden age , but it is certainly true that contemporary animated films are pushing the boundaries of the genre.

It seems that increasingly, animated films are targeted at adults just as much as children. No longer are movies about princesses in love and their talking animal friends, but they tackle serious adult themes. The plot of last year's Wall-E, one of the best films of the year, centered consumerism and its negative effects. This year's Up featured a heart-breaking scene early in the movie of a couple's miscarriage.

But this is not all about Pixar. The movie Waltz with Bashir single handedly pushed the limits of animation more than all animated movies combined have done in the past 50 years. Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary from Israel. Yes - an animated documentary. The movie is about the film director's efforts to reconstruct his memories of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. He has a reoccurring dream about his role in the invasion and he doesn't know if the dream is true. To find out, he interviews several other Israeli veterans. Every veteran's story is incomplete, and the gaps have been filled in with their own dreams. What works so well in this film is these very dream sequences. The animation really allow the viewers to gain a deeper understanding of the veteran's visions. Dream sequences in live action just cannot have the same affect.

Techniques in animation have become more advanced as well. Pixar has mastered CGI animation, many studios are experimenting with 3-D, and other studios are revisiting the wonders of hand-drawn animation (this year's Ponyo comes to mind). Persepolis - an biographical story of growing up in Iran in the 1970s and 80s, uses black and white and 2-D animation to great effect.

These are just a few examples of how contemporary films are pushing the boundaries of animation. I encourage everyone to explore some of these films and others! Let me know if you have suggestions on what I should watch next.