The movie is based on a story by Roald Dahl.  I’m not familiar with this particular story, but I get the feeling that Anderson added a lot more to it in this imagining.  Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) is an aging reporter who longs for one last chance to act like a fox (i.e., harassing and stealing from farmers) despite the reservations of his wife (Meryl Streep).  With the help of his inept but well meaning friend Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky) he orchestrates his last big score.

Since a movie needs conflict, something goes awry and Mr. Fox, Kylie and the rest of the animals have to go about finding away to survive an all out assault from a trio of evil farmers.

And it is soooo cute.

I’ll certainly admit to being a big fan of Wes Anderson.  Rushmore is definitely among my most favorite movies of all time.  It doesn’t take a film major to realize that, though the scripts are rife with clever humor and the stories are fun and quirky, what sets his films apart from any number of other indie-quirky-cutesy movies is the obsessive attention to production design and the ephemeral idea of good taste and style.  Wes Anderson has style in droves.

With this in mind, I think Anderson left what will be a lasting impression on the genre of stop motion animation.  The details of the characters in Fantastic Mr. Fox are exquisite (there is another word I don’t use very much).  Their furry little faces gleam, their character traits are as alive, distinguishable and compelling as any (dare I say more compelling than more) live actor.  In short, this movie is beautiful.  Now, I saw Wall-E and I saw Up.  To me, these movies rely on tugging heartstrings and, at times, very effective character development to be compelling.  When CG animation looks “good” it looks “real.”  This movie doesn’t look real, it looks beyond real.  It looks alive and magical.  It still has a cute story, some very funny scenes and even very memorable voice performances, but what really makes it special is that it is so fun to look at.  Even if there was no sound,  it would be visually compelling.  I hate to make yet another corny statement about it, lest I be branded some kind of Wes Anderson fangirl (um…) but in short, this movie is more than a movie — it’s art.

I was just lamenting the other day that I really don’t get to do enough drunk blogging anymore because I don’t really have the internet at my house.  But really that just stops me from drunk *posting* not drunk blogging.  So, the original intent of the Drunk Reviews tag was to both watch and review the movie while I was drunk I am going to make an exception tonight.  Because I am drunk and I already have 3 movies that I watched and need to blog about.  So at least one of them will be a drunk blog.  Holy shit that was wayyyy too much explanation.

On Sunday I was supposed to see that movie about Nazi zombies (does anyone else have trouble reaching the “z” on the keyboard?  It’s very uncomfortable) but instead I saw Up.  I really don’t like the title of this movie.  I want it to have an exclamation point or, something.  Another word, I guess.  The Fantastic Adventures of a Clinically Depressed Elderly Man and a Racially Ambiguous Child who Lacks a Father Figure might be good.  A little wordy, though.

I wasn’t head over heels for Up, but it is recognizably well done.  The animation specifically is very impressive.  Sure, the story (is it an allegory?  I’m going to have to google that) is charming in a Pixar-y way.  It’s impossible not to cheer on the protagonists, Carl and Russel, who are both adorable and earnest in their own ways.  The thing about the absent father I feel like has been Done to Death.  Sure it’s a problem that plagues America (I don’t even know if this is true, but I’m sure it must suck when this happens) but you can bet your sweet ass (WTF, why did I just say that?) that someone would have been up in arms if the kid (Russell) with an absent father had been African-American.  I mean, right?  Because then it would have been saying something about the irresponsibility of black men towards their children like that one time that Bill Cosby told black people to stop spending their money on sneakers.  Did my blog just suddenly get controversial?  Anyway, that just kind of annoyed me.  The missing dad part, not black people.  I actually don’t remember seeing any black characters in this movie, except at the very end.

What I did like was the really dumb talking Golden Retriever named Doug.  He was funny, even if his schtick got a little old.  I used to have a Golden Retriever.  She was really sweet but dumber than a brick.  Poor Claudia.

I was also kind of offput by how much littering happened in this movie, especially considering that WALL-E, Pixar’s last offering, was basically 90 minutes of “Don’t Litter” propaganda.  Russell and Carl go to the remote jungle, the whole point of it being that it is remote and secluded and “a land lost to time” and they just leave all kinds of shit everywhere.  They unload a whole house full of furniture right there on the jungle floor, they release all kinds of balloons into the atmosphere (also, come on guys, BALLOONS CAN’T LIFT A HOUSE!) and eventually (SPOILER!) they just leave a whole fucking house!  Right there at the top of a waterfall!  Maybe most kids aren’t going to take away any messages about littering in the rainforest from this movie, but it just seemed kind of weird to me.  Yes, this is actually something I thought about while watching Up.  No, I am not a dirty hippy.  It’s just weird, right?

Sen. Barack Obama accused rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today of attempting to “hoodwink” and “bamboozle” voters into thinking she was the front-runner by offering him the second slot on her ticket.

from yours truly:

 Hoodwinked?

Bamboozled?

What are you trying to say?  That supporting Hilary is akin to supporting bad CGI and implications of racism?  Oh, actually, that makes sense.

The oh-so-complicated plot involves a rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who wants to be a chef so he teams up with this kid named Alfredo Linguini (oh, great name.) who has a job in a kitchen but is completely inept at cooking. Together, they have to save the restaurant without letting people know that a rat is actually doing the cooking. I know, you’re totally in suspense right now, but I’m not going to spoil it for you!

Ok, I will.

The restaurant gets shut down by the health inspector but it’s OK because they open a new restaurant that magically doesn’t have to adhere to health codes and everyone lives H.E.A. Also, they convince a critic to stop being a jerk and Alfredo falls in love with Jeanine Garafalo who has a French accent. (The movie takes place in Paris, but most of the people & rats aren’t French for some reason).

So, it’s no Toy Story – in terms of story or voice talents – but it’s OK, not bad, great for kids probably.

But I had a couple of big problems with it. I realize that sometimes I really need to lighten up on the feminist stuff and maybe that should be especially applicable in the case of something like a cartoon about talking rats. But the way that women were portrayed (well, there was really only one woman) in Ratatouille really bugged me. Colette is a cook at the fancy restaurant when Remy and Alfredo show up. Towards the beginning, she even gives Alfredo a speech about how she has to be so tough and work so hard to compete in the male-dominated world of Haute Cuisine. Great, right?

Then, she falls in love with Alfredo. They go roller skating. When she finds out about Remy, she freaks out but eventually accepts it because the food is great. Then, she lets him tell her what to make. The little rat bosses her around and makes it look like she has no idea what she’s doing. And she is completely OK with it! She is mad at first because it’s a rat, but after her initial rant she is never mad about taking a back seat to Alfredo OR Remy. WTF? Why does she have to be made to look like she doesn’t know what she’s doing? Didn’t she have the ambition to be a chef at some point? Then, because she loves Alfredo, (also, WHY? She is a hot, purple-eyed, ambitious French chick and he is a total geek with no redeeming qualities!) she just gives up and happily resigns herself to help him out for the rest of her life instead moving up? This really really pissed me off. She is the only female character in the movie and she just serves the guys. Even when the guy is literally a RAT.

To me, this message is even worse than a princess movie where the girl just waits around to be rescued. This is promoting the idea – the very widely held and accepted idea – that if a girl falls in love she just gives up her ambitions because all she really ever needed to be happy was a man. You can dismiss the princess as a loser and an idiot, but Colette is depicted as strong, smart and talented – until this dude and his rat come along. Ugh!

Also, there is one black guy in the movie and the only thing they ever say about him is that he got fired from his last job for fooling around with someone’s daughter. Uh, stereotype much?

So, if you don’t have a huge chip on your shoulder about how movies portray women like I do, you will probably like Ratatouille a lot more than I did.

Actually, I sort of love this movie. I saw it on accident because Atonement was sold out and didn’t know anything about it except someone “heard it was good” and “was based on a graphic novel or something.”

So.

Yes, it is animated. Yes, it is based on a graphic novel. Yes, it is good.

Persepolis is the story of a young woman who spent her early childhood in Iran, during a lot of political upheaval, and was eventually sent to France because there was too much turmoil and danger in Iran. The story starts in the middle, then goes back to the main character, Marjane’s, early childhood and through her adolescence. It not only taught me a shitload of Iranian history (while still being monstrously compelling), it’s also a really sweet story of a girl growing up that I could totally relate to! Also, how fucking adorable is the animation: That’s the little girl (Marjane) pretending she’s Chairman Mao or possibly Jackie Chan. I don’t remember specifically, but sooooo cute!

I like princesses, big song productions and McDreamy as much as the next girl.  If not more.  But 2 hours?  Come on.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

What is the deal with Jason Lee?  I always think I like him.  But I’m pretty sure that he can’t act.  Like at all.  I’m sure it’s hard to act with like fake chipmunks and stuff  – but it can’t be harder than it is to act like you like Shannen Doherty. 

But David Cross was awesome.  Per usual.

Besides that, I went into Beowulf with basically no expectations.  Well, that’s kind of a lie because I basically expected it to suck.  I was surprised because it really didn’t suck.  It wasn’t great – it was okay and I wasn’t bored out of my mind and it was kind of interesting to look at – as much because of Angelina Jolie dripping in gold as because it was in 3D.  I was a little distracted from the story (not very complex or anything) by trying to figure out who all the actors were (is that John Malkovich? It is!). 

I was never assigned this book in high school (god knows I wouldn’t have read it anyway) but I have the gist of it now enough that I could probably answer a Jeopardy! question about it, and isn’t that what’s most important, after all?

Is it just me, or does this poster kind of give you a headache?  It’s so busy and brash and loud and colorful but something is most definitely missing.  It doesn’t make me think whimsy and magic, it just makes me glad I don’t have a kid to drag me to see this cheesy piece of crap.

Still, I somehow found myself scheduled to see the film’s midnight showing at the ArcLight‘s Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the crew I rolled in with centered around an omega-list celebrity high on his recent (non)mention half-way down the user-submitted sightings page on defamer. He wasn’t so bad, but his entourage (literally) kept shouting “We’re with someone FAMOUS!!!!” to any fellow ArcLight patron that would listen. This farcically Los Angeles bullshit made me decide to abscond before I could be further disappointed by the actual film.

Thus my “The Simpsons Movie” experience was as follows:

We were seated.
Some ArcLight douche came out and performed his best improv of “Howard Dean introduces The Simpsons Movie with too much enthusiasm and ruins his career… BYAAAAH!”
The lights went down, I got up, took a piss, and left.

I give the ArcLight dude an F+, the ArcLight men’s room an A-, and Empire Records a B+ for being somewhat generation defining and fun, but a bit overrated.