A film this year that meets up to the hype is certainly Wes Anderson's new creation, The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
What I love about this film, is that it's no different than any of his other films; one that is meant not so much to be watched as it is consumed. With the small exception, of course, only in that his cast is voiced-over an incredibly animated stop-motion world.
Which, as it turns out, is really perfect for films of his own particular brand of self-created genre. This is only a snippet one of the many featurettes that are out there online:
And having watched the HBO First Look, which appears to have been the most extensive, Anderson had no idea how to make an animated film, which really seems to have been better for the whole project. He layered voice-overs that were recorded on location at a farm with a script that was written at Roald Dahl's home in the British countryside, and provided a film he shot starring himself in all the blocking he wanted the animatronic puppets to follow to the animators, who then storyboarded and acted the film out in painstaking detail.
Truth be told, I've never actually read the Dahl story; but as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter. Even the late author's wife, after watching the film, was quoted in the making-of featurette as stating he would have loved it.
As with all of his films, it's chock fulla counter-culture geekdoms; not the least of which is the guest appearance by Jarvis Cocker.
So I guess the real question is this: who's up for a game of Whack Bat?
