Fantastic Mr. Fox - B+

Priest's original review is here. All 3 of us seem to be in rare agreement.

Wes Anderson's last 2 outings (The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited) were beautiful to look at but kept you at arm's length with unrealistic characters and meandering, unfocused stories. Anderson came off as too clever for his own good and had too many inside jokes that the audience wasn't in on. He needed a change of pace and found the perfect antidote with Roald Dahl's popular children's book. Anderson's offbeat sense of humor is used wisely as Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney) tries to save his friends and family from some aggressive capitalists. The music by Alexandre Desplat is excellent and the stop-motion animation is interesting as the fur on the characters changes from shot to shot. The pay-off (w/r/t Fox's son) is probably the best in Anderson's oeuvre. B+

Click below for last fall's other famous children's book adaptation.

Where the Wild Things Are

The one thing I dislike more than whiny kids is juvenile dialogue and Spike Jonze's latest has way too much of both of them in his only feature film in 7 years. I'm not sure why Max is such an unhappy kid. He's obviously lonely, but that hardly excuses such terrible behavior. The big portion of the film with the large creatures is interesting to watch and technically proficient, but doesn't add up to much. The music, cinematography, editing, and settings are all superb. But the shaky camera thing is distracting - I get it, the kid's troubled and unsettled. Catherine Keener is very touching in the last scene, but Jonze is sorely missing screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. And an accessible central performance. I'll be giving this another chance, but I'm not looking forward to it. C

Priest liked it a little better.