The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2008)

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I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Wes Anderson. It is mostly love these days as I think he has grown as a filmmaker, but there was a period in the mid-2000s when I worried he was going to become a director who was more style than substance.

The two films that caused this worry were The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited. Upon initial viewings I was unimpressed. They were very clever and stylish, but their stories left something to be desired. Or so I felt back then. I’ve since revisited and reassessed, but at the time I was disappointed with them.

With The Royal Tennenbaums and Rushmore he had become one of my favorite directors and so that disappointment was huge.

Then came The Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was magnificent. It is a stop-motion film based on the Roald Dahl story and both the story and the animation fit Anderson’s sensibilities to a “T.” It is clever and funny, beautiful, and a wee bit touching.

The Criterion Collection put out a magnificent version of it on home video a few years back and you can read my review here.

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