FANTASTIC Mr. Fox

Not "The" Fantastic Mr. Fox as it says on my cinema ticket. Fools. Yeah, change of plan. The reviews of Dr. Parnassus and MJ will be going up tomorrow now. Thought that as I saw this today I'd review it whilst it's still fresh in the memory. I learnt a valuable lesson today though. Don't go see a family film on a Saturday evening. It tends to attract families. Noisy families. Bleh. Kinda obvious now I come to think of it but never mind. I'll stick to weekday afternoons from now on. The gits are at school. On with the review!

Well this is an oddity. You can pretty much tell that just by looking at it really. Mr. and Mrs. (Felicity) Fox are professional bird-catchers, but Mr. Fox promises his wife he'll stop being so fantastic at this particular job when Felicity finds out she's pregnant. Two years later (or twelve fox-years according to the film - I have NO idea whether this is true or not...) Mr. Fox has a loser of a son who thinks he's a great athlete and he writes a column in a newspaper, but he isn't satisfied with his life. When he hears about Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the meanest, craftiest farmers the land has ever seen, he just has to revert to his old ways and outwit them. They do not take kindly to his thievery and form an alliance in an attempt to kill him, his family and any of the other animals who happen to get in their way. Hence, a war ensues, and only the most fantastic can win! Yeah, I think I'll stop with the 'fantastic' references now. I'm starting to sound like Christopher Eccleston...

The Fantastic one himself. Oh balls.

Now, as we all probably know, Fantastic Mr. Fox is based on the legendary Roald Dahl book. I have read it on a few occasions, but not for a long time. Even so, I'm still pretty certain this is a very loose adaptation of the book. I don't recall Mr. Fox and the gang breaking into enjoyable little celebration dances in the book or Mr. Fox's "trademark" clicking and whistling. I'm fairly sure they had more than one son too and the other animals didn't play such a large part in the final revenge plan of Mr. Fox. Nor was the book so damn random and crazy. None of this really matters though. Straight adaptation of source material can be great (Watchmen!), but I often feel that if you are going to bother adapting a story you should at least try to do something new with it rather than retreading what has already been done before. Mr. Fox does exactly that, taking the core story of the book and then adding it's own personality to proceedings. It doesn't harm anyone, the original book is still there to enjoy if you prefer it, it just provides a new take on a classic story.

The first thing anyone will notice about this film is the stop-motion animation. Personally I think its great and gives the film a really unique look but I know there will be some people out there who will hate it. The fact that the animation hasn't been done as absolutely perfectly as you might expect with, say, Wallace and Gromit, gives it quite a rough and ready feel. This never spoils it or makes the film look bad though as the characters and environment look so textured, detailed and realistic that you don't care if Mr. Fox's hair position changes from shot-to-shot or the characters seem a little jerky. That's almost how stop-motion animation SHOULD be anyway. Do not listen to the nay-sayers, the film is gorgeous and a real strong point.

Unfortunately Mr. Fox does take a while to get going though. The first 20 minutes or so that set up the real action drag a little and it isn't initially as funny as it thinks it is. When the jokes occassionally fall flat it feels rather awkward. The constant clicking and whistling of Mr. Fox with no real explanation or pay-off starts to grate after a while, as does the constant use of the word 'cuss' to replace actual swear words. Your wishing the film to move on quickly and thankfully it does, the madcap pace later on really making up for the first act. And by the time you get to the last 25 minutes the film is on a roll with an enjoyable, action-packed finale that doesn't stop to take a breath. This is Mr. Fox at its best, fast paced and often rather crazy. If something doesn't quite work it doesn't matter too much as the film moves on straight away and you forget about it. The problems are still there but it does a good job of convincing you they're not.

Something to thoroughly praise the film for though is the all-star lineup that provide some superb voice acting and, as a result, really memorable characters. George Clooney (Mr. Fox), Meryl Streep (Felicity Fox), Michael Gambon (Boggis, Bunce AND Bean), Bill Murray (Badger) and Willem Dafoe (Rat) turn in some great performances, as do relative unknowns Jason Schwartzman and Eric Chase Anderson as Mr. Fox's son Ash and nephew Kristofferson respectively. In fact, Ash and Kristofferson really play off of eachother well throughout the film with Ash's jealousy of Kristofferson shining through due to Kristofferson being almost as fantastic as Mr. Fox himself, whilst Ash is hugely un-talented and "different." Cue a movie of character growth for Ash as he strives to become as awesome as his father. Meanwhile, Clooney's cocky but charming portrayal of Mr. Fox just works and Meryl Streep plays Felicity with real warmth and affection. The rest of the cast are all very entertaining too and it would have been nice if the film had given just a little extra screentime to some of the less-central characters.

As a whole then, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a pleasant and satisfying film with some great character to it and a good few laughs. It's a shame that it has a slow start really as this prevents me from being able to give it one of the top scores. As previously stated though, the final act is worth the wait and forces you to forgive early mistakes. Some mildly annoying habits throughout also pull the score down slightly but there is enough charm and wit to keep you entertained regardless. Fantastic Mr. Fox, then, earns a solid and respectable

7/10

A Groovy Guide to the Scoring System

Right, if I'm going to be doing reviews on here I suppose I should probably define just exactly what my scores out of 10 mean, eh? But wait, I promised a review of Dr. Parnassus didn't I? Well fear not all you people who aren't reading this, that will finally come on Saturday (hopefully) along with an extra special little surprise! (Note: may not actually be that special. It depends if you care about This Is It. Oh fuck now I spoilt the surprise...) Ahem. Without any further ado, the Scoring System!

1/10 - Absolutely and agonisingly terrible. Consider suicide rather than watch this film. Don't worry, you will never see me give out this score unless they do a limited re-release of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in cinemas and Phil forces me to go and see it because he's a sadistic little git at times.

2/10 - Really, really bad with no redeeming features other than the fact that it's not Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Rest assured, if that film didn't exist a film scoring 2/10 would actually score 1/10. Think yourselves lucky 2/10'ers!!!

3/10 - Seriously not worth your time. There might be a tiny glimmer of hope in there somewhere but it's hidden under so many piles of shit that it's really not worth digging for. Avoid.

4/10 - Might be worth seeing with your mates if only to have laugh at. This is the point were a film is bad but almost enjoyable for various reasons. Terrible reasons, but still. Don't watch it on your own as you probably won't get a lot out of it (if anything) but rag it with your mates and you'll have a good enough time.

5/10 - Meh. It's watchable but you won't want to see it again. Some good things about it but unfortunately too many flaws to really be anything too decent. Shame. See it if you want but don't expect a lot.

6/10 - Good. If you have an interest in this particular type of film you'll probably get enough out of it to make a viewing fairly worthwhile. It's not gonna change your life but it won't exactly be a waste of your life either. Worth considering.

7/10 - Now this is more like it. The official point at which a film would be worth seeing again at some point and could maybe even earn itself a place in your DVD collection if it plays its cards right. An enjoyable film spoilt by a few things which let it down a bit but which ultimately is a satisfying viewing. If you have any interest in this type of film you should definitely go to see it.

8/10 - Pretty much a 7/10 but with less flaws, resulting in a better overall package. Thoroughly recommended!

9/10 - You need to see this film. Very little to complain about and the only things I can really think of are pretty minor niggles. Almost perfection.

10/10 - Heaven. Reserved only for the likes of Pulp Fiction, Fight Club and a few others. I doubt you'll see me score this unless I review one of my all time favourites. Hopefully a new cinema release will prove me wrong at some point though!

Additionally I will clarify that you will never see me giving '.5' marks. That would basically be scoring out of 20 which is absolutely RIDICULOUS. The scope is far too wide to really mean anything. I mean, how would you clarify the tiny little difference between a 15/20 and a 16/20? It's seriously not worth it. The only time '.5' should ever be used is when scoring out of 5. But if your giving half marks in that situation your scoring out of 10 anyway so you may as well just use a 1-10 scale you idiots.

And that is why I don't give half marks. OK?

See ya soon!

The Halloween Horror Film Update!

Good news! After being released in America last week, Saw VI has become the worst performing Saw film ever! Bringing in just $14 million over its first weekend it's worse than the original Saw's $18m and a much lower return than the $30m upwards that Saw's II to V's opening weekends...erm...saw. Now, Saw VII has already been confirmed so don't go getting your hopes up too much but at least this makes Saw VIII seem a bit more unlikely. God knows there's been far too much torture pornfest films in the last 3 or 4 years. Hostel, Hostel II, The Hills Have Eyes, The Hills Have Eyes 2, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (sensing a pattern here?), The Hitcher, Captivity. Enough! There's only so many different ways to gruesomely kill someone and you found them all! Well done. Now fuck off will you?

You might want to prepare yourselves for me turning into a dirty big hypocrite at this point. Ready? Good. Wes Craven may be directing Scream 4!!! (See what I mean?) Scream 4 is basically going ahead whatever happens but the big question is whether Wes will be there to give the franchise the best chance of having as decent a return as it could possibly get. He recently stated on Twitter, "In response to the rumors about me directing SCREAM 4, a deal has not yet been set, so stay tuned for accurate information." Yes, I know, that's technically a denial not confirmation. But he says a deal has "not yet been set." In other words there are talks in place and there is a possibility of it happening. And I really hope it does.

The Scream franchise was actually, y'know, good, as opposed to most horror films out there. The first two films are absolute genius, parodying the hell out of themselves and other horror films in hilarious fashion whilst also managing to be somewhat scary and shocking. The third one was weaker and probably stretched things a bit too far, but it was still fun and worth seeing if only for Randy's cameo appearance in which he gives his awesome horror trilogy rules (Number one: You've got a killer who’s gonna be superhuman in this film. Stabbing him won’t work, shooting him won’t work. Basically in the third film you gotta cryogenically freeze his head, decapitate him, or blow him up!).

However, I suppose me saying Scream 3 ran out of steam isn't very promising for a fourth film is it? Well, it's been 9 years since Scream 3 so at least the franchise has had a bit of a rest and some new ideas may have spawned in that time. And the original writer is returning which is promising. There are also rumours that this will be the first in a new trilogy. That may be a bit much to be honest but we'll see. The last bit of good news is that a lot of the original cast are also returning. Neve Campbell (Sidney), Courtney Cox and David Arquette (Gale Weathers and Dewey Riley) and Jamie Kennedy (Randy) are apparantly all signed up. If Wes Craven gets back on board too, Scream 4 will surely be at least as good as Scream 3. And compared to most other horror films, that's the equivalent of The Empire Strikes Back or Pulp Fiction. Hooray!

Lastly, I may post a review of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in the next couple of days. Depends if I have anything else that needs doing. Keep an eye out!

I Really HATE People Who Talk at the Cinema...

and I could quite happily shoot them all. Well. Maybe. With a water gun I suppose. Actually what I should do is follow them home and when they're watching something they really like on TV play Knock Knock Ginger, slowly driving them insane until they're unfit for work and lose their house and everything in it and they have to watch TV in the window of Curry's instead. Then I'd heckle them from across the street so they couldn't even enjoy that sorry form of entertainment. Maybe then they'd learn a lesson. Dicks. As you can probably guess I had a couple of people talking in front of me when I went to see Up. Repeating the jokes every 5 seconds and talking in not at all quiet voices about things they knew were gonna happen later in the film that I DIDN'T KNOW. Grrrrrr. Come to think of it this is supposed to be a review of Up isn't it? Suppose I should get on with it really...


Oh, Up, you curious little film you. Who would have thought we'd get an animated childrens film about the story of a 78 year old man who isn't Santa Clause? Carl Fredricksen is an ex-balloon salesman who promised his wife they would one day live her dream and travel to South America. Whilst always very serious about making their trip Carl and Ellie never quite make it and, unfortunately for Ellie, it is left too late. Spurred on by Ellie's death and the threat of demolition to his house due to building work, Carl sets sail to Paradise Falls, South America in that very same house, using his history with balloons to make it all possible. It's an astounding sight:

What Carl doesn't realise however is that Russel, a 'Wilderness Explorer' (or Cub Scout) is on his porch when the house takes off, presenting both annoyance and companionship to Carl on his journey. In fact, Carl's adventure soon becomes a little too crowded for his liking with a rare, exotic bird (whom Russel names Kevin!) and a talking dog named Dug joining the pair once they reach South America. I don't really want to spoil the story from this point on but I will tease that Kevin's rarity and a childhood hero of Carl's come into play during the second half of the film.

I can't stress enough how touching and emotional this story can be, especially for what is supposedly a 'kids' film. It's surprising how sad it can be at times. The opening montage of the film, showing Carl and Ellie growing old together whilst continuously having to put their plans to travel to South America on the back burner, is sad because you KNOW they're not going to make it in time; if they did then it wouldn't really be much of a film. But seeing some of the reasons why Ellie doesn't ever get to live her dream is even more heart-wrenching. Your only 10 minutes into the film and your already close to tears! There are a couple more moments later on too which really highlight the love and devotion the couple had for eachother and make you fully empathise with Carl about his lost love. It's sadder than any other animated film I've seen, more so even than Bambi or The Lion King (damn Disney parent-killers!) but, to be fair, it's questionable whether many of the kids watching the film really have the ability to empathise with Carl and fully comprehend how he is feeling during these moments. Maybe they're not such strong moments for the younger viewers but I know I was very surprised at some of material on show here. Girls (and probably some boys) may want to take some tissues!

Whilst being a bit of a teary affair though, Up combats this by also being very, very funny. The classic 'odd coupling' of Carl and Russel works really well. They play off eachother superbly with Russel's humorous over-excitement and awe being counteracted wonderfully by Carl's world-weary attitude, dry wit and forced tolerance of the young boy with whom he is stranded. Add Dug's doggy behaviours and thoughts being translated into English and Kevin's hilarious squawking and mannerisms into the mixture and you realise you have a great set of characters here. None of them really outstay their welcome and the funny lines just keep coming. Another high point is seeing their relationships with eachother grow to the point were they enjoy being together on their fantastic adventure. This makes the film both more heartwarming and funny, as Carl begins to become a father figure for Russel and their camaraderie leads to even more amusing lines. The final scenes of the film really show how important the two become to eachother.

I saw Up in 3D and I must say I was a little disappointed by that aspect of the film. This surprised me as I was thoroughly impressed by the last 3D film I saw (Toy Story 3D). I think I've narrowed this down to 2 main reasons though. Firstly, I'd had 15 years to get used to seeing Toy Story in plain old 2D so the sequences and images from the film were all stored in my head in this way. Knowing how the film looked without 3D seemed to make more of an impact on me as you could literally see the differences in front of your eyes. With Up I have nothing to compare it to. Whilst I can imagine what it all looked like in 2D, I can't directly compare it to this format unless I go to see the film again but in 2D instead. And whilst I'd be tempted with a film as special as Up, I'd say balls to that if I have to see every 3D film in 2D as well just to be impressed. So what am I saying? If you want to release a film in 3D you should release it normally first and then do a 3D version 15 years later? Hmmmm. No. But something didn't quite work.

Maybe it's due to my second reason - you simply get used to the 3D after a while. Toy Story 3D was the first 3D film I saw. Maybe I enjoyed the 3D so much because it was new and a novelty for me. With Up it wasn't really a new experience anymore and the 3D suddenly just becomes expected and shockingly normal. If I've become so blasé with 3D after only 2 films I hate to think what it would be like if I'd gone to see all the tens of 3D films released this year. 3D should be kept as a rare thing, for films that can truly benefit from the technology. Whilst having 3D in Up was nice, I can't really justify it being an extra £2.

So, I think you can tell I quite enjoyed Up. Whilst I question the overall necessity of the 3D and am slightly concerned about some of the cutting real-life issues the film deals with (but don't get me wrong, they didn't spoil it AT ALL), I was thoroughly entertained for the full 96 minutes and would encourage everyone to see it. It may look like a cute kids film but Up could appeal to anybody. There was even an old man sat alone in the audience at the showing I went to. Maybe he could relate to Carl and will now be inspired to follow his dreams despite being in his twilight years. Or maybe he was just lost. I'm not sure.

9/10

Shall we carry on like nothing ever happened?

Look! New post! Now I'm back at Uni I will try to update this place more. Promise. I meant to do a load of reviews over Summer as I saw 20 odd films but I never found the time and it felt too much like work. Ahem. So we'll pretend Summer didn't take place and carry on as per the mission statement. Which I posted a couple of weeks ago of course >_>

Anyway. TOY STORY 3 TRAILER! Now, I'm aware it could seem like this place is becoming a Pixar dedicated site after my one other entry being that Up preview I did (which, incidentally, came out last Friday and I'll try my best to do a review of in the next few days when I see it...see what I mean about Pixar dedication?), but I love Toy Story so much I couldn't not tell people about the trailer. Yeah, I'm a big kid, I think we all know that. Just take a look at the trailer and then come back for some opinions...oh and make sure you watch it in HD.

Click on the poster to go to the NEW trailer!

Awesome. Andy's all grown up (deep voice and everything) and the toys are no longer needed. So he's shipping them off to a kindergarten! That gives the story the perfect 'toys escape' set-up that the other 2 films had. Admittedly it's not entirely original but it worked very well for the previous films and I think having the same basic formula will play towards the strengths of the franchise. Namely the stunning action sequences as the toys' plans come together and the humour, which seems very much in place just on the basis of these 2 minutes ("Lets see how much we're going for on ebay!") The big question though is where will Woody and the gang escape to? Will they try and return to Andy? Thankfully the trailer isn't giving much away about the second half of the film and we'll just have to wait and see.

Pixar love getting a Buzz Lightyear that still believes he's a space ranger into the films though don't they? They put a second Buzz into Toy Story 2 and now it looks like our Buzz is being reset to his factory settings! Which makes him a Spanish space ranger for some reason. Toy Story told us he was made in Taiwan so that's not it. Maybe 'the real Buzz Lightyear' was Spanish? But then surely Buzz toys would all sound Spanish anyway...whatever. If it means we see Buzz prance around like an idiot and say "to infinity...and beyond!" in Spanish then I'm not going to complain.

It struck me the first time I saw the trailer just how GOOD it looks too. I saw the original Toy Story in 3D last week and whilst the first fully computer-animated film still looks impressive there's no denying this type of animation has advanced a lot in the last 15 years. Most notably, Pixars human animations now look a lot more realistic. The new 17/18 year old Andy looks beautiful!

Lastly, I'm obviously just excited Toy Story 3 is almost here. I mean its not got the best history and almost didn't get made a few times. It was canned for a few months when Disney and Pixar were about to go their seperate ways a few years ago. Disney then anounced they were going to make the film themselves without Pixar. Then Disney ended up buying Pixar and they both said they were scrapping Toy Story 3 AGAIN. Finally a few months later the two companies came to an agreement on a new story for the film (which originally involved Buzz malfuctioning and being recalled by his manufacturers, leading to the other toys trying to rescue him) and decided that Pixar would be the ones to make it after all. It's no wonder Toy Story 3 is being released 11 years after the last installment!

Up

Might be a slightly odd topic for my first proper post but I wanted to highlight Pixar's next effort Up, mainly because I haven't heard anyone talking about looking forward to it so maybe I need to let them know about it. And with the track record Pixar have with awesome films I feel people really SHOULD be looking forward to this.

The thing is though, it's a bit of a strange concept. The main characters are a 78 year old man, a fat kid, and a dog who has a collar that reads his mind and talks for him in an amusing English accent. Check them out:

The story begins when old man Carl there takes off to South America by attaching balloons to his log cabin and riding the winds. Only he forgot that Boy Scout Russel had just been at the door trying to do good deeds so he ends up coming along for the ride too. Looks like things go a bit tits up along the way and they get lost, find Dug the dog, and fall into all manner of thrilling adventures.

So not really your average kind of animated family film. No large cast of talking animals here (see Over the Hedge, Madagascar, Bee Movie, Shark Tale, Kung Fu Panda, Antz, A Bugs Life and on and on and on and on and ON) No, this seems to be another risky film from Pixar, following on from the equally risky WALL-E of last year. A film were there's practically no speech for the first 30-40 minutes and, lets be honest, not a lot of story presented in that time either. Kids could have easily got bored by that fact but it's a credit to Pixar that they managed to create such an amazing, naturally funny character as WALL-E who makes us all laugh and not care that there's actually not a lot happening. Basically a pattern seems to be emerging. If you want a blockbuster style film with crazy characters voiced by A-List celebrities watch a Dreamworks film. If you want innovative ideas with an underlying, thought-provoking message then you want Pixar's offerings.

That being said, it still seems an odd choice to base this type of film around an old man. Can you really see kids going to school with Carl on their lunchboxes or buying Carl soft toys to take to bed with them? Merchandising makes A LOT of profit for films like this and it strikes me that in this area Up will not be as successful as similar films in the past. Maybe they'll want to centre the merchandise around Dug instead as he's at least a more conventional character. He is a talking animal after all.

Ultimately none of that really matters to me though if the film is still funny and entertaining. Up hits cinema screens in the UK on October 16th a full FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS after it's American release. Which is ridiculous. However judging by the trailer, it'll be worth the wait:

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/up/

Mission Statement

So it's quarter to 2 in the morning and I'm gonna give a quick overview of this thing. Basically Hayley suggested I should start a blog about films so I have something extra to show if I wanna get in the business in some way. That all sounds quite professional and serious...don't worry, this blog will probably epicly fail at being either.

I'm gonna be keeping an eye out on film news and posting my opinions on the stories that interest me and I'll also be attempting to see some of the biggest new releases so I can give reviews. Which probably means seeing Wolverine at some point. Bollocks.

Expect to see some reviews/views on the films that I love too. Other than that I'll probably try to think of some cool projects to do (I have a list of 100 films I wanna see - maybe I'll make a feature of it and post reactions to them as I work through the list). Hopefully it will be fun and some people will actually read what I have to say.

That's all for now. Post again soon xx

First Blog

Hello. No time to write anything, The Apprentice is coming on. So y'know. Sorry. I'll explain later.