In Contention

Tag: Fantastic Mr Fox

  • ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ set to open AFI

    Fantastic Mr. FoxAFI Fest kicks off on October 30 and runs for about a week.  Generally it’s catch-up time for me as a number of the festival circuit flicks make it a requisite Fall stop, but the opening and closing Galas tend to be first-looks for the most part.

    Last year “The Soloist” ultimately bowed out of the closing night slot when the film’s release date was suddenly shifted into 2009.  Scott Rudin and company came to the festival’s aid with a digitally projected, slightly unfinished “Doubt,” which was ultimately a bigger get than the previously scheduled film.

    This year it looks like Rudin is back in the AFI mix with Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” which has been chosen as the opening night Gala.  I’ll be covering AFI Fest next month, but Guy will likely have an initial take on the film from the London fest a week or so prior.

  • London fest adds awards, goes heavy on Clooney

    George Clooney in Up in the AirWhile still ensconced in Venice, I must admit that the thought of diving into another festival makes me slightly dizzy — but the London Film Festival doesn’t care about that. LFF artistic director Sandra Hebron unveiled a strong lineup this morning, but the real news is that they have added a bevy of awards to their trophy cabinet.

    In addition to their existing honors, including the Sutherland Trophy for best debut feature and the Grierson Award for best documentary, the festival will, for the first time, hand out an overall Best Film award, as well as an honor for Best British Newcomer. Meanwhile, the British Film Institute will award writing and directing fellowships. Compounding these changes, the festival will, for the first time, hold a formal awards ceremony on the final day.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals, foxes and funny people

    Adam Sandler in Funny People• In the week’s most dramatic news, Universal rather cleared its awards slate by bumping both “The Wolf Man” and Paul Greengrass’s “Green Zone” to 2010.

    • Against expectations, we were won over by Meryl Streep’s latest bid for that elusive third Oscar, “Julie & Julia.”

    • The Venice Film Festival unveiled a typically well-planned lineup, with “The Road” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” leading the American charge.

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  • Lennon biopic ‘Nowhere Boy’ to close London fest

    Aaron Johnson as John Lennon in Nowhere Boy

    UPDATE: “Nowhere Boy” producer, Kevin Loader, addresses Jeff Wells’s concerns about the film’s non-appearance at earlier autumn festivals quite reasonably. He explains that the post-production schedule means the film simply won’t be complete in time for Venice or Toronto. I thought as much.

    This is an interesting development. Lately, the London Film Festival has chosen to wrap up with big-name films, many of them already powered by previous festival hype — “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Babel” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” have all been given the closing night slot in recent years.

    By comparison, the news of this year’s closing film, Sam Taylor-Wood’s debut feature “Nowhere Boy,” comes slightly out of left field. I’ve been eagerly anticipating Taylor-Wood’s portrait of the young John Lennon, which is being shepherded by The Weinstein Company, for a while now. For many others, however, I suspect it hasn’t really been on the radar.

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  • ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ trailer

    Gee, they weren’t kidding when they said this is a Wes Anderson film in every respect apart from the lack of human beings. As for Anderson’s recent claim that this is “a British film … set in the UK” … well, perhaps it’s just set in the tourist district, but it looks American as apple pie to me. (By the way, surely Roald Dahl is enough of a legend to be advertised by name, rather than as “the author of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’”)

    On a more serious note, something about the visuals on display here doesn’t gel for me … am I the only one who thinks the stop-motion looks a tad rushed and plasticky? I want to be excited for this — not least because I’ll be about for its world premiere at the London fest — but I find myself, to put it gently, concerned.

  • Anderson’s ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ to open London Film Festival

    Fantastic Mr. FoxAs the London Film Festival grows in scale and stature by the year, its opening film becomes an ever bigger deal. Last year, they scored a massive coup by kicking off with the world premiere of “Frost/Nixon,” and I’m pleased to report that they’ve maintained that standard by landing Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” to open this year’s fest.

    The eagerly awaited animated pic will have its world premiere on 14 October, just over a week ahead of its UK release (and a full month before its Stateside bow). Its selection continues a happy friendship between Anderson and the LFF — just two years ago, “The Darjeeling Limited” closed the festival. (Here’s hoping this is a slightly more well-received selection.)

    In the press release, Anderson explains why this is the appropriate place to unveil what is, after all, a decidedly British production:

    Fantastic Mr. Fox is a British film – based on a Roald Dahl book, set in the UK, produced in the UK – and so I am especially pleased to have been invited to be the opening night movie of this year’s London Film Festival. We had a wonderful experience at the LFF with my previous film, and I am eagerly looking forward to introducing Fantastic Mr. Fox to the world in this wonderful venue.

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  • A flash of ‘Fox’

    Thanks to the combined efforts of Lars von Trier and Wes Anderson, 2009 should hold a unique place in cinematic history as the year that brought us not one, but two screen depictions of talking foxes.

    The films they appear in couldn’t be any more different, though after looking at these two new stills (courtesy of Filmsactu) from Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I find the woodland critter who pops up halfway through “Antichrist” to reassure us that “chaos reigns” less unsettling than these zombified-looking stop-motion creations.

    Fantastic Mr. Fox

    (More thoughts, and a second still, after the cut.)

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  • 5/5 Web Round-up

    Robert Duvall• VIDEO: “Star Trek” writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman on how to be a sci-fi screenwriter. [Time]

    • Robert E. Lee descendant (and, of course, Academy Award winner) Robert Duvall squares off against Wall-Mart in Virginia. [Associated Press]

    • Noah Forrest calls Steven Soderbergh’s “The Girlfriend Experience” the year’s best film so far. [Movie City News]

    • Nathaniel Rogers posts a test screening reaction to Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” [The Film Experience]

    • Jeffrey Wells expresses some trepidation over the upcoming “Angels & Demons.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Christopher Campbell cranks out a list of 10 mutants who need an “X-Men Origins” movie. [Spout Blog]

    • Hugh Jackman, meanwhile, is full-speed-ahead developing a “Wolverine” sequel. [Variety]

  • Sheer cool overload

    Sorry for another music-related post, but this is surely too awesome to actually be true. Word is out that Jarvis Cocker is writing music for Wes Anderson’s upcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr Fox.”

    The former Pulp frontman, responsible for pretty much the greatest, wittiest, most perceptive and socially on-the-button song of the 90’s, has written “three, four songs and some that might become bits of the score” for the film.

    Cocker has good form with soundtracks, having worked on “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and Alfonso Cuaron’s underrated “Great Expectations.” (Remember the gorgeous Pulp-Patrick Doyle collaboration “Like a Friend,” anyone?) What could be cooler?

    (Answer: maybe everything about Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” which has the equally tantalising musical possibility of Karen O involved. Who wouldn’t want to see those two duelling it out for Best Original Song at the Oscars? Not that that would ever happen – not least because it seems we may never see Jonze’s much-discussed fantasia at all. So much for my most anticipated title of 2009.)

    But I digress. With Cocker joining a team that already includes George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Bill Murray lending their vocal talents to the project, Noah Baumbach on the screenplay, and Alex McDowell, no less, on production design duty, “Fantastic Mr Fox” seems to have everything going for it. This could well be the first Wes Anderson film that I actually love.

    2009’s Best Animated Feature race is starting to look a lot more fun than this year’s.