Today's Latest Headlines
-
MUSIC
Does Katy Perry get Disturbed on the Billboard 200? -
TV
'Rubicon' - 'The Truth Will Out': Along came poly -
MOVIES
Telluride: Natalie Portman triumphs in Darren Aronofsky's riveting 'Black Swan' -
MOVIES
Box Office: George Clooney tops Danny Trejo as 'The American' wins the weekend -
TV
Take Me to the Pilots '10: ABC's 'Detroit 187' -
TV
'Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam' becomes 2010's top cable movie -
MOVIES
Telluride: Danny Boyle's '127 Hours' is a visceral and uplifting experience -
MUSIC
Kanye West has written a song for Taylor Swift and says his ego is 'overdone'
Inside Movies & DVD with Drew McWeeny
'Fantastic Mr. Fox' trailer debuts to decidedly mixed buzz
Published on Monday, Aug 3, 2009 4:00 AM Drew McWeeny
Wes Anderson's 'The Fantastic Mr. Fox' looks like a throwback to classic stop-motion animation from the '60s
Credit: Fox Searchlight
During the entire production of "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," images have been on lockdown to such a degree that we didn't even have a basic idea of what the style of the film might be. When you say "stop-motion animation," that doesn't really have anything to do with the look of the film... it's just a technique.
The last two weeks have been sort of an avalanche of material about the film, though, including the debut of the first trailer, and the reaction has been diverse, to say the least.
If you haven't seen it, you should start with USA Today's photo gallery, which contains a fair bit of excellent reportage about who's playing what and how the film's been built.
I've heard from many friends who find the trailer almost unspeakably ugly, who hate the animation, and who think the movie stars overwhelm the piece. When my wife was pregnant, both times, I did a lot of reading to the tummy, and I particularly enjoyed reading Roald Dahl. There's something particularly juicy about the way he plays with words that makes those books fun to read aloud, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox was one of the books that we read more than once.
Yahoo! Movies got the trailer premiere, and now Fox Searchlight's released it through their YouTube channel as well:
[more, including trailer, after the jump]
You can mark me down in the "really liked what I saw" camp on this one. I love Clooney's voice for Mr. Fox, I love the wry sense of humor, I love the very low-tech look of the animation... it pushes the right buttons for me. It's the opposite of the slick studio animation we're used to seeing, and that's what I like about it.
It's just a quick glimpse, true. The finished film is still a big fat question mark. But for now, color me curious based on this first glimpse, and confused by the intense negative reactions of so many of my peers.
Can't get enough of Motion/Captured? Don't miss a post with daily HitFix Blog Alerts. Sign up now.
Don't miss out. Add Motion/Captured to your iGoogle, My Yahoo or My MSN experience by clicking here.
Not part of the HitFix Nation yet? Take 90 seconds and sign up today.
You Might Also Like
Upcoming Events
Sorry, there are currently no upcoming events
Checkout the Event Forecast to find events you might be interested in or enter your city/state or zipcode below to do a search.
- Next Post TMR: 'Iron Man' in 3D, 'Rapunzel' art, and Corliss hates Netflix
- Previous Post Steven Spielberg sees invisible rabbits, signs to direct 'Harvey' next
movie Reviews
Star Trek View Reviews
The Twilight Saga View Reviews
Batman View Reviews
Iron Man View Reviews
The Hobbit View Reviews
Inception View Reviews
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World View Reviews
Avatar View Reviews
Follow Motion/Captured
About Motion/Captured
- Los Angeles has changed since 1990, and Drew McWeeny, all-around Chauncey Gardner of movie fandom, has seen it all as an industry insider and screenwriter who wrote for 12 years as "Moriarty" for Ain't It Cool News.
Latest Posts
-
The studio offers up a look at the film that almost wasFriday, Sep 3, 2010
-
Robert Rodriguez and his conspirators keep the 'Grindhouse' franchise afloatFriday, Sep 3, 2010
-
Film's brash, frank voice distinguishes it from romantic comedy packThursday, Sep 2, 2010
-
Does the studio prefer James McAvoy for the part?Thursday, Sep 2, 2010
- Up
- Page Down
Comments
Option 1
Comment instantly as a guest GuestOption 2
Option 3
Login or create a HitFix account Login SignupDonnieDarko I couldn't agree more, Ben.
August 3, 2009 at 8:03AM EST Reply to CommentI think this looks awful, and I was really expecting good things too. I thought the source material would be treated with respect (a la Peter Jackson and LOTR), with the humans representing a real source of menace and terror; and the foxes having integrity and warmth.
Instead, we get poor animation, ridiculous dialogue, stupid music, awful pratfalls, needless modernisation and a completely inappropriate tone.
I am very disappointed.
DonnieDarko I meant I couldn't agree less, Drew!!
August 3, 2009 at 8:05AM EST Reply to CommentMark I love how Anderson has kept his key visual look and compositions, very impressive.
August 3, 2009 at 8:18AM EST Reply to CommentMr. Dark Wow. A 90-minute Robot Chicken episode featuring George Clooney. Yeah, um, not going to pay $10 to see that.
August 3, 2009 at 11:59AM EST Reply to CommentJoeK I'm a bit nonplussed....though I don't think that trailer does whatever effort was put into the movie much justice. I think of the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are in comparison for some reason though I don't necessarily draw a line between the two movies. I guess this trailer just feels like it came from the generic kid-targeted movie trailer blender...it panders where WTWTA doesn't but still hits everyone in the right spot. I'm going to pin this on whoever cut that together and selected that music and wait until the movie proves me wrong or not.
August 3, 2009 at 2:34PM EST Reply to Comment
August 3, 2009 at 5:30PM EST Reply to CommentJoeK This is very true and there is no way to predict which time/type people outside of a predetermined audience will be accepting. As much as people bray about the same old thing coming at them over and over again they can be pretty closed minded whenever presented with something different.
August 4, 2009 at 1:01PM ESTkamikaze Wes Anderson's been making precious little dollhouse movies since the beginning. He must be relieved to jettison the cumbersome actor element and switch to stop-motion characters.
August 4, 2009 at 5:21PM EST Reply to Comment