The Lugubrious Mr. Lydon has been away from the Latest Distraction for some time, doing schoolwork and teaching kids how to read, so just ahead of Christmas, I’m back to give you my short review of Wes Anderson’s stop-motion rendering of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox“.

I’ve been a fan of stop-motion animation since I watched Nickelodeon in the 80s. This love was only bolstered by Christmas specials by Rankin and Bass, and old Sinbad movies featuring the work of stop-motion god Ray Harryhausen.  Though the love affair hasn’t been nearly as long, I’ve loved Wes Anderson’s movies since I saw Rushmore… what, ten years ago? So, marrying the twain together was a like a dream come true for me.

Full disclosure: I did fall asleep once during Fantastic Mr. Fox, but that wasn’t because of the story/the film itself. Haven’t been sleeping very well with end-of-term woes, and had only slept like 3 hours the night before. Bygones. What I did see (which was most of the film excepting like 10 minutes) was great! The colors, the character design, the sets, everything wowed me like I haven’t been wowed since Wallace and Gromit’s Curse of the Were-Rabbit! And hey, include George Clooney and Jason Schwartzman, and I’m up for the downstroke.

Not going to get into the story for you; you can read the book or see the movie for  yourself. Be wary, though, if you are not already a fan of Wes Anderson movies, or stop animation, you probably won’t think this is so fantastic. Pacing is very much like Anderson’s other movies, as is the writing. They’re not for everybody, as my friend Bill’s dad still reminds me to this day. I told him to rent The Royal Tenenbaums, and he STILL wants the 3 bucks it cost him to rent the movie.

But, if you’re like me, you’ll love this movie. Also, anybody wanna get a whackbat team together?

HOTBOX!

In a week, some of this mop of hair you see to your right might be going away.  Until then, I can enjoy moments like right now, where in an effort to control the uncontrollable, Angie goes with any hair configuration that works.  I’d say it looks like Chronomancer-era Bishop‘s hairstyle, but no one will get that reference. So I’ll just say that I love my wife, Predator-head and all.

Images courtesy of Mile High Comics and Unreality Magazine.

A few months back, Kevin got us in to see a 15 minute preview of the new James Cameron film Avatar.  The event was similar to the Dark Knight preview we saw a few months before that premiere, but I have to say this was disappointing by comparison.

The problem I had with the preview was that none of the five scenes we were shown were in any way complete.  We saw enough to get the idea: the human military has some interest in a strange alien world, they send in operatives who have uploaded their consciousnesses into the bodies of the indigenous people, mayhem ensues.  The main protagonist appears to be a disabled marine who is made able to walk again in this new body and serves as the viewers’ guide to the alien world.  However, without any real context for the scenes, it was hard for me to get into.  The preview for The Dark Knight gave us the full bank heist scene, and I think anyone who saw it was completely on board for what to expect.

The real showcase for this event was the 3D IMAX technology used to produce the film.  It looks gorgeous when things aren’t really moving around, but the action scenes fell apart.  I struggled a bit having prescription glasses under the 3D goggles, but eventually found a configuration that worked.  Although it was amazing to see the way the scratches and imperfections of my lenses were intensified.

It was kind of interesting to see Sigourney Weaver (Aliens) and Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation) working with James Cameron given his success directing properties that made them sci-fi stars.  This movie may be great, but I wasn’t convinced enough to buy advance tickets for the December 18th opening as we walked out.

You’ve seen this movie before. Over and over again.

You know that movie where the kid finds that thing they really love but their parents won’t approve so they hide it from them and do the thing they love anyway even though it’s definitely going to end badly when their parents find out and someone inevitable gets arrested and then the kid runs away but something bad happens so they go home and the whole family makes nice with each other and the kid goes to do the thing they love again and the parents come along begrudgingly but in the end the parents are proud of the kid and in the middle there is some female bonding and almost a few laughs but not quite and the girl from death proof is in it but just a little.

Yeah. Whip It is like that sentence only longer. There’s some good music in it though. Oh and they gave me a free t-shirt when I went in… so that was nice I guess.

Also there were real roller derby girls at the screening I was at and they were handing out flyers for a roller derby event at the 23rd Street Armory in Philly on Saturday. Doors open at 5 and it’s $25 at the door though there are some sort of VIP tickets available for $30. End of free plug.

Look Bruce Willis has made some of my favorite movies of the past 20 years. No one can really challenge the good movies on his resume… except my brother, but he’s dumb.

Surrogates is a bad movie. It’s boring. It’s humorless. It’s heavy handed in its commentary. It’s just not fun. I want better for Bruce Willis. I’d rather see another Whole 9 Yards sequel than him make another film this uninspired.

The basic premise is that technology that was invented to help people who are confined to wheel chairs or maybe to fight wars without losing American lives has been subverted to allow people to live artificial lives through robots. Fat dudes can control hot chick bodies and have relationships with other dudes and no one can tell the difference. Old people can run around in bodies that look decades younger and they do. People are living through their surrogates nearly 24 hours a day. They NEVER leave the house anymore. It’s like life only better. And if I remember correctly this evolution of human existence is supposed to happen within fifteen years. One of the key results of the emergence of surrogates, however, is that murder no longer exists.

There are small groups of humans who hate the idea of surrogates and live in reservations throughout the country that for some reason the government has no jurisdiction over. They’re led by a dude called the Prophet. Isn’t that a cool name? Too bad he’s in the film like all of three minutes…

Bruce Willis plays an FBI agent who misses having a human relationship with his wife who lives completely through her surrogate. Turns out something bad happened to them in the pre-surrogate era. Willis of course ends up investigating the first homicide in years and then a bunch of dumb stuff happens. Guns are shot. A helicopter crashes. People are betrayed. Nothing is as it seems. It’s all so shocking in its unoriginality.

The ending of the film is inexcusably convenient and undermines the entire conflict of the film.

Credit where credit is due, there is one visually interesting scene near the end of the movie, but of course it was spoiled in the commercials. Though to be honest, I’m not sure other people thought it was as cool looking as I did. There was A LOT of laughter in the theater during the scene and yet… no jokes. At the end of the flick a few people clapped and they were laughed at by the rest of the crowd. So someone somewhere did like it. But they’re probably dumb… like my brother.