Word: dahle
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...feels slightly ill at ease. By any standard other than its source material, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is not a kids’ movie. The dialogue is packed with ironic jokes and self-referential winks that sail over children of the appropriate age to read Dahl, and while its narrative rarely stagnates (at barely an hour and a half, it can’t afford to), most of the film’s action operates a shade below that of an average episode of “Wallace and Grommit...
...more specialized fare, Wes Anderson's stop-motion-animation delight Fantastic Mr. Fox, with George Clooney contributing his voice to the Roald Dahl children's classic, purloined a so-so $7 million in its first weekend of wide release; it earned about the same per-screen average as the much feebler animated feature Planet 51. The Road, with Viggo Mortensen enduring many a hardship in the film version of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, took in a sturdy $1.5 million at 111 theaters, to finish a mere $10,000 behind Clooney's 10th-place The Men Who Stare...
...enjoy making movies too, since he's in three that will be crowding the multiplexes in late 2009. He plays a "psychic soldier" in the fact-based comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats. He lends his voice to the title character in the animated version of Roald Dahl's children's tale Fantastic Mr. Fox. And opening this weekend, he's a solo frequent flyer and corporate axman in Up in the Air--the apex of this Clooney trifecta and one of the year's most rewarding films...
...Dahl's Mr. Fox is cocky and clever, although maybe not as clever as he makes himself out to be. Anderson's Mr. Fox is the same, but more so. He's like a mid-career tribute to Clooney: bold, charming but naughty, dependent on his smile, but well aware of that. And because of his urges - "I'm a wild animal," he reminds Mrs. Fox - he's not altogether trustworthy, which seems like a nod to a reputation that Clooney happily feeds every time he parades a fresh piece of arm candy about the red carpet. Seven-year-olds...
...longer just a neighbor, but a lawyer who gives advice on mortgages. Mrs. Fox, so sweetly supportive of her partner in the book - it is she who dubs him "fantastic" - is now a dubious sort who limits all praise and wields a sharp claw. Mother to four in Dahl's story, here she has only one kit, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), who is petulant, undersized, uncoordinated and insecure. "You're supposed to be my lab partner," he says to a comely young fox named Agnes, who is distracted in their biology class by the Foxes' glamorous houseguest, Ash's cousin Kristofferson...