Movie Review: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

So yes, it's been months since I've done a proper post. Stuff has been going on--and not--and I just haven't had the need or wherewithal to do one. Still haven't found another job since leaving DAAV and started watching Star Trek: TNG through Netflix. That that however you will. I saw "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" yesterday because I needed a pick-me-up. And boy did it work. Such an awesome film!



It's a stop-motion animated movie, so it has that inherent 50s/60s kitschy vibe going for it, which is great since it's a Wes Anderson film and all of his stuff has that kind of vibe in some way or other. The premise, if you don't know what it is, is that Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, used to steal chickens for a living but gave it up when he started a family with his wife, voiced by Meryl Streep. Of course, after a few years he gets the itch again and gets his friends to help him pull of "one last big score", as you do in these things.

Of all the Wes Anderson movies I've seen, this is by far my favorite because all of the things that can kind of grate in one of his live-action movies--meticulously designed set piece upon meticulously designed set piece, populating the cast with quirky and kooky character types just bouncing off each other, a certain out-of-time 60s kitsch by way of current pop culture--works very well here. As I said earlier, just the fact that it's stop-motion animation makes it okay to indulge in all those fab mid-century modern furnishings and fashions because it feels like it fits in this setting. And themes typical of Anderson films--sons seeking approval from their detached fathers in this one especially--feel fresh and new here because they are being explored by foxes and badgers and other woodland creatures instead of the same old humans.

I saw some reviews on blogs complain that George Clooney doesn't do any kind of character at all but rather a more devilish version of himself. I don't know if that's true, and I don't care because I could listen to him read the TV listings and think it was the best, most nuanced reading or the TV listings ever. The crime caper aspect of this feels like "Ocean's Eleven" all over the place, but I loved it and it was kind of unavoidable with George Clooney voicing your main character. The supporting cast is populated with a bevy of Wes Anderson players, including Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Wally Wolodarsky, and Eric Chase Anderson. Anderson himself pops up as Weasel, the realtor who sells the Fox family their prime new house. And in another film I might have complained about seeing the same people in yet another Wes Anderson venture treading the same water. "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", however, makes it all feel genuine and fresh and just plain entertaining.

Also at LJ.

TV Review: Dante's Cove (season 1)

"Oh, this is awful. This is nasty. I've got to brush my teeth after this."
--Toby, Dante's Cove (In The Beginning)

Oh Toby, you have no idea how meta that really is.

I'm in a serious funk at the moment. No job + no immediate prospects that don't involve food service + shitty economy + dwindling savings = me on my couch on Friday afternoon feeling a pity party for 1 coming on.

Read on for my thoughts about the hot mess that is Dante's Cove just as soon as I get some lukewarm beer from the haunted cellar.

So I'm watching Dante's Cove season 1 through Netflix--don't ask, it's a long and boring story that wouldn't interest anyone, including me--and it is bad. Like, mind-bogglingly, cringe-inducingly, eye-gougingly, ear-bleedingy bad. BAD. I get that with these kinds of campy soapy melodramas that plots aren't supposed to makes sense, the acting isn't supposed to be award-worthy--I get that. I have appreciated many shows that are complete and utter shit (90% of SoapNet/LMN programming comes to mind). Dante's Cove, however, elevates shitty TV to a level never before seen on my 32" high-def screen. And I can't get enough of it. Is part of that because of the gratuitous boy!sex? Yes. I can't lie about that. It seems that for most of the running time the plot is merely a series of porny set pieces strung together with insipid dialog delivered by wooden actors in some vague semblance of "story". And there's girl/girl and boy/girl thrown in there too--sex for everybody! Even the recently re-corporealized (explanation further down).

The gist of it is: in ye olden tymes in Dante's Cove this witch lady was engaged to a dude (Ambrosious), but one day she finds him boffing the help--the male help--and curses him (by making him look old! Gasp! The cliche curse of every gay man, according to TV) and locks him in the basement. To break the curse, he has to get a hot young man to kiss him. Fast forward to present day (2005) where we meet Toby and Kevin, two crazy kids just having sex on the beach who go to Dante's Cove where Toby works. Kevin, poor stupid Kevin, goes down to the very same basement where Ambrosious is still locked up, and Ambrosious manages to get Kevin to kiss him. Then apparently he can get his boner serviced by Keivn whenever he wants. Or something. Again, logic and plot are only passing acquaintances here. Toby finds out about the curse and is sad, or what passes for sad on this show. Which is more along the lines of frowning a lot and crackling his voice to convey "distress". Toby: master thespian he is not.

There is only one character in the entire series that acts remotely like a normal person and has an emotional range wider than "horny" and "confused": Van, the friendly local lesbian Wicca enthusiast/craptastic painter. She's pretty fuckin' awesome and comes through to save the day (or does she?! Dun-dun-duuuuun!). The two male leads, Kevin and Toby, well....what's to say that's not a string of expletives peppered in with assorted nouns, articles, and the fact that sex is the only thing they can do even semi-believably. Oh dear. Kevin isn't even really that good of a piece of eye candy; he has a square head, horribly trashy highlights, and the fact that he can't cry believably in a soap opera is one of the cardinal sins of televised melodrama. And he can't act. Toby is prettier, but his hair is like an oil slick, his voice has only two main inflections (moderate annoyance and moderate confusion), and his crying sucks only about 15% less than Kevin's. And he can't act.

And then there's Ambrosious. Where to begin with that hot mess. Perhaps with the accent of a thousand origins--is it English? Welsh? Australian? South African? South Carolinian??? We don't know?!?!?!? His hair is an affront to the visual center of the brain too. Likie, does the dude have stock in Dep, because he must have been single-handedly keeping them in business while filming this. Blech. As with pretty much everyone else, he couldn't believably act his way out of a community theater production of "Our Town"; add to that his face, which is an advertisement for everything that's wrong about plastic surgery (no white man has lips that full without a little help), and you get me itching to fast-forward through every scene he's in. And since the first 15 minutes of it heavily feature him and the cougar-lady-witch bitch, I'm amazed I didn't shut it off and put it in the mailbox without finishing.

Plot holes you could steer the Queen Mary through, wretched student-film level editing (you know it's bad when you can notice the editing), dialog that's only dialog in the sense that the characters say words--not that it means anything or has any punch or zing or moves the plot along at any other speed that glacial, "stormy" special effects that wouldn't be out of place on a Vincent Price-esque Halloween special. It's an epic level of badness that I don't think I've ever seen in all my years of watching TV. Ever.

I already pushed season 2 and 3 to the top of my queue.




Also at LJ