Talking Movies

August 7, 2020

Any Other Business: Part LVII

As the title suggests, so forth.

Ventilation is the new Masks

The Atlantic was months ahead of the government here, and in many other countries listening to the WHO’s idiocy, in recognising the importance of everyone wearing masks in preventing the spread of coronavirus. So I have a sinking feeling when they publish two articles one after the other on the importance of ventilation, which nobody wants to address. The coronavirus is an airborne disease and yet it took forever to wear masks here as a step against it, instead there was an obsessive focus on hand-washing and surface-cleansing, despite the fact that fomite transmission of the coroanvirus is negligible; the super-spreading events globally all involve people unmasked indoors spraying each other with their vocal stylings – singing, speaking, coughing, or just breathing.

Venue, ventilation, vocalisation: These are the three Vs to look out for, and all of them spell doom for the winter.

Pubs cannot open here because it’s too dangerous to have a lot of people indoors for a short space of time, but it’s a priority for the government to open schools here because it’s not too dangerous to have a lot of people indoors for a long space of time. So tell me, how exactly will schools operate in the winter months here without any consideration for ventilation? How can a serious plan not flag providing HEPA filters for crowded confined spaces?

Well, Mrs Peel, I think we deserve to listen to some good music after all that running around, don’t you?

Spotify these 60 songs for a 60s mood

John Barry – The Ipcress File // The Lovin’ Spoonful – Summer in the City // The Beatles – Drive My Car // Bob Dylan – Most Likely You Go Way And I’ll Go Mine // Led Zeppelin – Ramble On // Maurice Jarre – Lara’s Theme // Quincy Jones – Killer Joe // Donovan – Mellow Yellow // The Kingsmen – Louie Louie // The Turtles – Happy Together // The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset // The Beach Boys – God Only Knows // The Rolling Stones – Under My Thumb // The Doors – Moonlight Drive // Elmer Bernstein – The Magnificent Seven // Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze // The Kinks – Sunny Afternoon // The Chordettes – Mr Sandman // Donovan – Sunshine Superman // The Who – I Can See For Miles // Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced? // Led Zeppelin – What Is and What Should Never Be // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Run Through the Jungle // Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit // John Barry – Capsule in Space // The Rolling Stones – Gimmer Shelter // Cream – White Room // Donovan – Hurdy Gurdy Man // Led Zeppelin – Bron-y-aur Stomp // Dave Brubeck – Unsquare Dance // The Kinks – Dedicated Follower of Fashion // The Byrds – Turn Turn Turn // The Rolling Stones – Ruby Tuesday // Petula Clark – Downtown // Quincy Jones – Soul Bossa Nova // Betty Everett – The Shoop Shoop Song // The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations // Ennio Morricone – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly // The Who – Pinball Wizard // Bob Dylan – I Want You // Simon and Garfunkel – Mrs Robinson // The Beatles – Help // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Fortunate Son // Bob Dylan – Highway 61 Revisited // The Beatles – Paperback Writer // The Beach Boys – Wouldn’t It Be Nice // The Mamas and the Papas – California Dreamin’ // The Beatles – Here Comes the Sun // Miles Davis – It Never Entered My Mind // Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Chile // The Who – Baba O’Riley // Simon and Garfunkel – America // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary // The Doors – Light My Fire // Herbie Hancock – Cantaloupe Island // Tom Jones – Delilah // Quincy Jones – The Self-Preservation Society // John Barry – Goldfinger March // The Doors – When the Music’s Over // Simon and Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence

March 20, 2020

Any Other Business: Part XLVI

As the title suggests, so forth.

Just in the nick of time!

I almost didn’t notice it but the Horror Channel are re-running The Time Tunnel from the very beginning in their Sci-Fi Zone. I for one shall be tuning in at 12pm tomorrow for a triple bill. Irwin Allen’s 1960s shows were re-run in the late 1980s and early 1990s on Channel 4 and Sky One and I have very fond memories of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, and The Time Tunnel. Having been highly impressed in the last few years by re-runs of The AvengersThe Man From UNCLE, and The Invaders I’ll be interested to see how this stands up. In particular when I was originally watching the show I was totally unaware that Lee Meriwether, who played scientist Dr Ann MacGregor, was Catwoman in the 1966 Batman movie. And if you think a triple-bill on a Saturday afternoon is overdoing it then I merely say you can’t excuse yourself on the basis that you possibly have anything else to do at this particular moment in time.

Who fears to take The Strokes Test?

Back in January Stephen Errity sent me on Evan Rytlewski’s provocative tweet (https://twitter.com/Evanryt/status/1215008355149856768) about what he called The Strokes Test: Would people still care about this band if their best album did not exist?  It is meant to knock out The Strokes but it also gravely endangers Nirvana, because of their tragically truncated discography. Pixies survive the test because if you get into an argument over whether Surfer Rosa or Doolittle should go then you are still left with either Surfer Rosa or Dootlittle to place beside Bossa Nova and Trompe le Monde. Talking Heads survive the test in style because if you get into a spat over Fear of Music, Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, or Little Creatures as their best album you are still left with three great albums and several more to boot. A similar embarrassment of riches occurs for the Beatles, the Doors, Led Zeppelin, U2 and REM. But, and here’s a nagging thought, what about the Beach Boys? Absent Pet Sounds from their discography and what remains? And once you dwell on that you realise you could say the same for Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Kinks and the Who. Any band with a number of great songs that never truly perfected the art of making essential albums is imperilled by the test.

And normal service has been resumed…

We are a week into the social distancing shuttering of the country and yet the government won’t admit what we all know – a more perfect lockdown is coming. The universities have abandoned the 2019/20 academic year; it’s over, classes, exams, something something online, don’t bother coming back to campus, have a good summer, see you in the autumn, maybe. The schools patently will be told to stay out until the Easter holidays begin, and then, sure why not take off all of April, and well, you know, May is kind of freewheeling into the end of the year anyway so who really needs it. Yet officially everything is still just on the mother of all pauses until March 29th. Are we supposed to take that seriously? Are we meant to believe all pubs and cinemas, cafes and theatres will re-open on that day and we all breathe a sigh of relief that we shut down that pesky coronavirus good? How does it help to keep the citizens of the country engaged in an idiotic guessing game? When will the actual status red lockdown begin? March 30th? April 1st? What is the point of Leo Varadkar embarrassing himself and us by going on national television on St Patrick’s Day to plagiarise Winston Churchill? You do not become a statesman for our time by appropriating a resonant phrase from a statesman from another state at another time anymore than I would become Dan Rather by ending all these posts with the single word – Courage. Yet Varadkar decided to tell us what we already knew about the coronavirus, fail to elaborate on economic aids for people thrown out of work, and did not announce a lockdown – which one would have thought the only reason for such a state of the nation address. Instead he told us the Emergency was ‘likely’ to continue past March 29th. Good to know.

Courage!

June 30, 2019

Notes on Yesterday

Richard Curtis’ Beatles rom-com Yesterday was the film of the week much earlier today on Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle.

Danny Boyle may be the director but this is a Richard Curtis film, and it would be much better if it weren’t. A world in which The Beatles have been erased from existence save for the memory of one struggling musician is a high concept comedy, but Curtis insists on making it a ho-hum rom-com. Kevin Willmott’s CSA showed that you have to rein in the butterfly effect for alternate history because everything would become unfamiliar. Would the Beach Boys be as important without Pet Sounds, their riposte to the Beatles? Curtis displays no such interest, save an Oasis joke, in exploring the butterfly effect of his own bloody high concept. Kate McKinnon is the most reliably comic element of this film, and she is lip-smackingly playing a caricature record executive – Hunter S Thompson’s famous jibe mixed with notes of her SNL Hillary Clinton. But then all the characters in this film are caricatures. This poses a problem when Curtis wants you to care about the romance as if it involved characters with some humanity.

The romance is already scuppered by Jack (Himesh Patel) and Elly (Lily James) patently having the chemistry of hopeless dreamer and dutiful girlfriend in the opening scenes, until it’s bafflingly revealed they’re just friends. They do not hold themselves as fast platonic friends like Holmes and Watson in Elementary. When she complains she always wanted more, and Curtis writes improbable scenes doggedly making this fetch happen he, like Nick Hornby in Juliet, Naked, defies the felt experience of human nature. But this aggravating drive to the grand romantic gesture reaches a new low for Curtis. GK Chesterton once quipped that art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. I draw the line at Curtis; in the vein of his Doctor Who episode in which he shamefully zipped Van Gogh to the future to hear Bill Nighy valorise him then returned him to the past to kill himself to general hand-wringing; resurrecting the murdered John Lennon as septuagenarian sage giving Jack a pep talk to make the finale’s grand romantic gesture. No… No. No. No!

Listen here:

February 1, 2018

Wes Anderson @ the Lighthouse

Wes Anderson has a new movie arriving soon, so the Lighthouse will spend the month of March presenting a full retrospective, finishing with a massive Wes Anderson party on opening night of Isle of Dogs on 30th March.

Tickets : https://lighthousecinema.ie/EVENTS/fantastic-mr-anderson

Bottle Rocket

March 5th 3pm & 8.45pm

Based on his short black & white film of the same name, Bottle Rocket was the world’s first introduction to the colourful world of Wes Anderson and his frequent collaborators the Brothers Wilson. Bottle Rocket is a crime caper and a road movie about three friends who embark on a (mis)adventure in the world of crime, with James Caan playing what we would now recognise as the Bill Murray role.

 

Rushmore

March 9th 10.45pm

March 10th 3pm

The film that got Wes Anderson noticed internationally, Rushmore follows Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), a student obsessed with his school, Rushmore Academy, but less for its academia than for extracurricular events. Rushmore features the first of many superb supporting performance for Anderson from Bill Murray. Here he is a wealthy industrialist who becomes a friend and love rival to Max for the affections of teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). Anderson’s aesthetic started to develop its mature style in this icon of 90s indie cinema.

 

The Royal Tenenbaums 35mm

March 13th 3pm & 8.30pm

March 16th 10.45pm

March 18th 3pm

Arguably Anderson’s masterpiece, The Royal Tenenbaums is an elegantly told story about a family of child geniuses who grow up to be, in their own ways, disappointing. It earned Anderson the first of his three Oscar nominations for best original screenplay, although more than a few reviewers thought JD Salinger’s stories of the Family Glass were an inspiration. Anderson’s trademark camerawork; all whip-pans and tracking shots; stylised production design, and autumnal colour palette do not swamp the deeply flawed characters brought to life by an ensemble cast led by a combative Gene Hackman.

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The Darjeeling Limited 35mm

March 14th 3pm & 8.30pm

March 17th 3pm

Anderson made a notable comeback after The Life Aquatic‘s treading water with The Darjeeling Limited. The film follows three American brothers (Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody) as they try to reconnect with each other on an epic train journey through India. Darjeeling is a gorgeous film, making use of an extensive colour palette based on the Indian setting, and where could Anderson’s propensity for elaborate tracking shots find a better home than the carriages of a train. More impressive was the emotional maturity in tackling weighty themes of grief, abandonment, and romantic and filial resentment.

 

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

March 21st 3pm & 8.30pm

March 23rd 10.45pm

4 films in and Wes Anderson experienced the cinematic equivalent of difficult 2nd album syndrome. Expectations were high for the adventures of a rag-tag bunch of seafarers led by Bill Murray. But, despite a soundtrack that uses Bowie innovatively, and some wonderful comedy from Willem Dafoe, this ramshackle Moby Dick; Zissou aims to track down and exact revenge upon a mythical shark who killed Zissou’s partner; is to Wes Anderson’s oeuvre as Dune is to David Lynch.

 

Moonrise Kingdom

March 24th 3.30pm

March 28th 3pm & 8.45pm

Anderson’s films have all had a certain nostalgia for a past that never actually happened outside the pages of the New Yorker. And Bob Balaban’s fantastical narrator here brings us a tale of young love set to the music of Benjamin Britten on a New England island in 1969 just before a major storm is about to hit, the least of the forces of law and order’s worries as they attempt to apprehend two runaway underage teenagers with amorous intent. Moonrise Kingdom features a wonderful turn by Ed Norton and a devastating existential riddle on the goodness of dogs.

 

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Prosecco and Patisserie

March 24th 12.00pm event, 1pm film

Andrew Marr quoted a joke that if you put a few Viennese people together for long enough they will do two things: found a University, and start a patisserie. The Lighthouse are thus appropriately hosting a very special “prosecco and patisserie” afternoon screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel on Saturday 24th March. Your ticket will include a glass of prosecco or a Grand Budapest-themed cocktail, along with beautiful patisserie treats inspired by the film, and a ticket to a screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel at 1pm.

 

Fantastic Mr Fox

March 25th 3pm

Behold Anderson’s first foray into the world of stop-motion animation. Based on Roald Dahl’s short novel about a fox whose main thrill in life is baiting three farmers who live nearby, Anderson injects more of himself into the story than one would have thought possible. George Clooney voices Mr Fox, who, despite his love for his wife and teenage son, can’t quite bring himself to move on from his glory days of chicken-killing and settle into domestic life. There is a tremendous tracking shot to the strains of the Beach Boys as well as a peerless critique of songwriting by Michael Gambon’s antagonist.

 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

March 29th 3pm & 8.30pm

Anderson’s most recent film The Grand Budapest Hotel is a curio: it tells the story of an old writer remembering when he was a young writer who met an old man who told him a story about when he was a young man and knew the hero of this film, Ralph Fiennes’s M. Gustave. An uneven tale, Anderson showcases an unexpected flair for sinister suspense, but there is a sourness to the comedy that is unexpected, and not really a showcase as promised for the world of Stefan Zweig.

dogs

Wes Anderson Party + Isle of Dogs

29th March Party – 9pm, Isle of Dogs Screening – 00.00am

The Lighthouse will be hosting a Wes Anderson Fancy Dress Party on 29th March. Don’t miss your chance to share a cocktail with fellow fans and walk amongst a plethora of Tenenbaums, Zissous, Lobby Boys (and girls!), and maybe even some fantastic Mr Foxes, topped off at midnight with the first chance to see his new film, Isle of Dogs, Anderson’s second foray into stop-motion animation with an all-star voice cast on hand to bring to life a boy’s quest to find his lost dog on a polluted Japanese island.

 

***Season artwork at the Lighthouse is by Steve McCarthy is a Dublin based designer and illustrator. His style is bold, colourful, and a mix of practical and digital techniques that he describes as feeling most comfortable somewhere between the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and Dumbo’s pink elephants. In 2016 he won best illustration at the Irish design awards, and in 2017 his second children’s book ‘A Sailor went to sea’ won the Bord Gais children’s book of the year. He also worked as a background designer for the Oscar-nominated animated feature Song of the Sea.

March 21, 2016

Mo Names, Mo Problems

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, Mos Def, 2005, (c) Touchstone

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, Mos Def, 2005, (c) Touchstone

INT. THE FREGOLI HOTEL BALLROOM, LOS ANGELES-NIGHT

 

TITLE: SPRING 2015

 

DANNY McBRIDE, SETH ROGEN, EVAN GOLDBERG, and DAVID GORDON GREEN are sneaking outside, with questionable tobacco products hanging out of their pockets. As they approach the French windows Green veers off to one side to scoop up another glass of champagne from a table. The others continue on. Green then sees an entire tray of cocktail sausages being neglected. As he munches his way through the sausages a man on the far side of the ballroom observes him. MOS DEF, for it is he, stops talking to KANYE, squints at Green, and then roars across the ballroom.

 

MOS DEF: D.G.!

DG GREEN: (choking on cocktail sausage) Mos!!

MOS DEF: (looking annoyed, oblivious to Green’s choking noises) It’s not Mos.

DG GREEN: (coughs up half a sausage into his glass) It’s not?

MOS DEF: No, man, it’s not been Mos for three years and counting.

DG GREEN: Oh!

MOS DEF: DG, man, what exactly do I have to do to get a meeting with you?

DG GREEN: Huh?

MOS DEF: I tried like hell to get Our Brand is Crisis!

DG GREEN: You did?

MOS DEF: Uh, Yeah! I musta called your office a hundred times!

DG GREEN: I don’t remember that.

MOS DEF: Well, then you need a new secretary.

DG GREEN: What?! No way, no way! Janelle’s incredibly efficient. Delaney vouched for her. Well, I mean Delaney’s secretary Janine vouched for her.

MOS DEF: Well, if she ain’t telling you Yasiin Bey on the line then she ain’t that efficient.

DG GREEN: Yasiin Bey?

MOS DEF: Yeah, Yasiin Bey. As opposed to Mos Def, which I’ve not been using as a name for three years and counting, like I said earlier.

 

CLOSE ON: David Gordon Green’s pupils dilate.

 

INT. GREEN’S PRODUCTION OFFICE, LOS ANGELES-DAY

 

The camera observes JANELLE at her desk on one side of the split-screen, and on the other half DG GREEN at his desk, scribbling on storyboards, which he throws away in frustration when his phone rings. He punches the button for speakerphone.

 

TITLE: 5 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: A Yasiin Bey is on line 1.

DG GREEN: Don’t know him. (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 4 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again, he really wants to talk about the role of Ben.

DG GREEN: That’s nice. (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 3 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again. He wants to know if you have time for a lunch at The Fregoli, he has some great ideas for the role of Ben he wants to run past you.

DG GREEN: (stunned, then outraged) Who … the hell does this guy think he is?! (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 2 MONTHS BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again, sir. He says he’ll give you a soundtrack song for free if you just give him a chance to audition like anyone else.

DG GREEN: Well now we’re finally getting somewhere! He can have a chance to audition like anyone else because he is anyone else. Does he have an agent? Delaney? (hangs up)

 

TITLE: 1 MONTH BEFORE PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY ON OUR BRAND IS CRISIS

 

JANELLE: Yasiin Bey on line 1 again, sir, and, sir, Janine connected him to me.

DG GREEN: Oh! (reflects for a moment) It’s going to have to wait. I’m meeting Anthony Mackie in a half an hour. I don’t have time for any new people right now. (hangs up)

 

INT. THE FREGOLI HOTEL BALLROOM, LOS ANGELES-NIGHT

MOS DEF: Yo! DG! Anybody in there? You’re doing that thing with your eyes from Fantastic Mr Fox. Some kind of memory bells ringing?

DG GREEN: (stops doing that thing with his eyes) No…

MOS DEF: Well… So much for that.

DG GREEN: Yeah, sorry man. (turns to scoop the soggy half sausage out of his glass and eat it without Mos seeing) … … So, uh, Yasiin Bey?

MOS DEF: Yeah.

DG GREEN: Why?

MOS DEF: What do you mean why?

DG GREEN: Why the change of name? Did you convert to Islam?

MOS DEF: Did I convert to Islam?! Yeah, DG, I did convert to Islam. Twenty-sumpn’ years ago!

DG GREEN: Oh.

MOS DEF: You are unbelievable. Do you ask Snoop that every time he changes his name?

DG GREEN: Well he never changes it very much. If you’re not called Mos Def anymore, how will people know who you are?

MOS DEF: How will… How will people know who I am?! Do you recognise me, standing here in front of you, talking to you? I ain’t changed into a different person! Do you think nobody knew who Muhammad Ali was when he changed his name? All that’s different is I got a name now that reflects who I am now. (several beats) You’re doing that thing with your eyes again, man.

DG GREEN: Sorry I was just thinking about Snoop calling himself something reflecting who he is. Snoop M-Jane. Like a play on the Beach Boys song–

MOS DEF: I got the ‘Sloop John B’ namecheck, thank you, and you got Snoop on the brain.

GREEN: You’re the one who brought him up!

MOS DEF: Look, a man in his forties should not be carrying a moniker like Mos Def around. Can you imagine me hitting 50 and still basically being called ‘Aw Yeah!’?

DG GREEN: LL Cool J seems happy.

MOS DEF: (several Pinter pauses pass by) Do not compare me to LL Cool J. I will drown you in a jeroboam of champagne and sample your death-rattle as a bass track.

 

DG Green gulps audibly, and grabs another glass of champagne from a passing waiter, he then grabs the waiter and pulls him back to grab a second glass. He drinks both, and then nervously smiles at Mos Def.

 

DG GREEN: Look, Mos…

MOS DEF: Don’t … call me Mos! Come on, man! Make the effort.

DG GREEN: Oh! Sorry, my bad. Um, yeah, so, look, um. … … … … …

MOS DEF: (sighs) Did you seriously just forget my name in the middle of a conversation about my name?

DG GREEN: No! No. It’s … uh. … … (snaps fingers) Dante.

MOS DEF: No, that’s the name I was born with.

DG GREEN: Wait, of course, it’s, uh, uh, … … Terrell!

MOS DEF: No. That’s the middle name of the name I was born with. I can see why you’re such a good fit for directing stoner comedies…

DG GREEN: Hey! That was uncalled for. I’ve got a mortgage to pay. Look I am sorry about the whole Our Brand is Crisis mix-up, but, uh, look, have you booked a movie since you changed your name?

MOS DEF: Oh what the hell, DG? I’ve been in Life of Crime and Begin Again since I changed my name. People respect those movies, even if nobody saw them.

DG GREEN: Yeah, but had you booked them as Mos Def before you changed name?

MOS DEF: (several Pinter pauses) What are you trying to say?

DG GREEN: Could it be that people don’t know it’s you when you ring?

MOS DEF: Are you saying you remember me ringing you?

DG GREEN: No, no, I was just … running with your example. If people don’t know that, when you ring, maybe you could do like Prince…

MOS DEF: I am not introducing myself as The Actor Formerly Known as Mos Def.

DG GREEN: Maybe just have a symbol to go with Yasiin Bey?

MOS DEF: If I’m going to have conversations like this every time I get a meeting I think I’d just rather retire.

October 22, 2009

Fantastic Mr Fox

Wes Anderson deploys all his cinematic trademarks to bring Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s story to stop-motion animated life and the results are, well, yes, rather fantastic actually…

The film opens with Mr Fox (voiced by George Clooney) and his wife (Meryl Streep) breaking into a farm to steal chickens in a sequence devised as one long tracking shot, scored by the Beach Boys’ Heroes and Villains, and filled with ridiculous acrobatics by the foxes to avoid detection before they fall for the oldest trick in the book. When we fast-forward two human years/twelve fox years Mr Fox is raising a moody cub and is a social columnist for the local newspaper having promised his wife that he is retired from poaching. Yeah, that’ll last. Sure enough Mr Fox has a mid-life crisis and bullies his grouchy attorney Badger (Bill Murray) into securing him a new tree-home with a view – a view of three farms run by the evil farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean.

Clooney’s Fox, not unlike his Danny Ocean, plots an audacious poaching strike on all three farms. Clooney’s always distinctive voice is perfect casting as its mixture of charm and unctuousness captures the arrogance that gets Fox into trouble and the quick-wittedness that gets him out of scrapes. This scrape is though is very tricky as he incurs the wrath of the smartest of the farmers Bean, richly played by Michael Gambon in a vocal performance that occasionally recalls Ben Kingsley’s villain in Sexy Beast, who makes it his mission to kill Fox even if he has to dynamite half the countryside to do so. Indeed requests for dynamite are just one of many requests issued to Bean’s chief henchman Petey, (voiced by Jarvis Cocker who performs a campfire song which is then hilariously critiqued by Bean) the funniest of which involves a plaintive request to fetch a ladder.

Anderson has injected so much of himself into this story that Dahl would probably raise an eyebrow. Some of the greatest comedy moments come from the indie director filming scenes with his too hip whip-pans and artful long takes of deadpan dialogue, then having the be-suited animals suddenly behave like animals, or from adding lines only adults will appreciate like the besieged Fox sighing “Well this is just going to turn out a complete cluster-cuss for all concerned” and filming confrontations in the style of spaghetti westerns. Mostly this Anderson-isation of Dahl works but the lack of explanation of why animals living in 1950s England sound American occasionally grates when we’re given nonsensical moments like Owen Wilson’s cameo as a high-school sports-coach, while Jason Schwartzman’s neurotic shtick as Fox’s moody cub, intensely jealous of the attention his athletic cousin Kristofferson is given by Fox, wears thin very quickly.

Seeing Anderson’s unmistakeable style in stop-motion is endearing but it is the mixing of his studied sensibility with Dahl’s anarchy which raises this far above the rival auto-pilot ‘the moral is always be yourself’ animations of Dreamworks. Recommended viewing.

4/5

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