Midnight Film House

What would you give up, to relive the glory days? This is the question posed by Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I felt inspired to re-watch after reviewing Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl Netflix shorts . I believe Fantastic Mr. Fox is a better adaptation. It builds atop the original instead of just reading from the page. The film follows Fantastic Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) a renowned chicken thief, now middle aged and stuck living the family life as a newspaper columnist. Fox is suffering a mid-life crisis. He wishes to return to his true purpose: stealing birds. This leads him to steal from the three biggest and meanest farmers around: Bogus, Bunce, and Bean, starting a war that leads to the destruction of his forest home. The theme of animalistic inhibitions is key to Fox’s character, he does these self-destructive things because he believes it’s his purpose as a fox. This is contrasted by the anthropomorphic nature of the animals: they wear suits, they have jobs, they own possessio...

  I recently watched Wes Anderson’s collection of 4 short films based on the works of Roald Dahl. They are: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. The collection includes a star-studded cast featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Ayoade, Dev Patel, Rupert Friend, Ben Kingsley, and featuring Ralph Fiennes as Roald Dahl who acts as a connecting point between the films often breaking the fourth wall to add context to the stories. This collection features many of the staples associated with Wes Anderson’s directing. The character acting is quick-witted and dry. Most of the films are shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio giving it a classic movie feel. Adding to this is Anderson’s insistence on using traditional visual effects such as models and stop motion. As a stylistic choice the sets are incredibly low budget by film standards, resembling the sets of a live stage performance. The film calls metacontextual reference to this by having the actors act as s...