An interesting article today from The A.V. Club on the philosophies of some of Bill Murray’s most famous characters, including Herman Blume from Rushmore.
The asceticism of Scrooged and Rushmore As practiced by certain sects of Hinduism, Jainists, and even Christians who reject the ideas of “prosperity theology” (and actually, you know, listen to Jesus), asceticism involves a conscious abstaining from worldly pleasures in favor of focusing on one’s spiritual life. While he doesn’t end up wandering the desert in sackcloth eating only what may fall into his bowl, Murray does arrive at these basic tenets of asceticism in two of his most popular roles: In Scrooged, Murray’s Frank Cross is dedicated to success no matter the cost to his basic humanity, until a night of being tormented by spirits—who are really just manifestations of his own conscience—opens his eyes to the simpler joys of “putting a little love in your heart” and helping your fellow man. In Rushmore, Murray’s Herman Blume is a self-made tycoon with his own multimillion-dollar business and the lifestyle to match, yet he’s crippled by ennui, and despairing over the alienation he feels toward his family. Pursuit of a truer definition of love eventually tears his world apart—and wrecks him both financially and physically—but by movie’s end, Blume has undergone a total spiritual reawakening, and seems to have found happiness at last in his total unburdening.
Last night Wes accepted the Best Animated Film award for Fantastic Mr. Fox from the New York Film Critics Circle, video of George Clooney’s introduction and Wes’ speech below.
If the video goes down, here are two reports on the evening from The New York Times.
The Golden Tomato Awards were announced at Rotten Tomatoes today, and the third best reviewed wide release in the U.S. is none other than Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film is just barely behind the hits Star Trek and Up. Hopefully this will encourage people to see the film. Read the full list of winner at Rotten Tomatoes.
In The New York Times today Los Angeles correspondent Brook Barnes takes a look at how Fantastic Mr. Fox is faring in the end-of-the-year awards cycle, and in her estimation it might just have a shot at the top prize.
Full article after the jump.
LOS ANGELES — Figuring out which film will win the Academy Award for best animated feature is usually the easiest part of filling out a ballot for your Oscar pool. Go down the list of nominees — often only three, because so few make the cut — and find the one produced by Pixar. Circle it.
But this year, unexpectedly, animation is becoming a hotly contested race.
The biggest reason is “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes Anderson’s quirky adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. The film, from 20th Century Fox and the producer Scott Rudin, is soaking up a surprising amount of awards attention.
In an on-going series that takes a look at films from the past twenty-five years that have found their audiences in non-traditional routes, the A.V. Club’s Scott Tobias has taken a look at Wes’ first film, Bottle Rocket.
We did it, though, didn’t we?” —Owen Wilson as Dignan, Bottle Rocket
Back when Fantastic Mr. Fox debuted a few months ago, the following thought occurred to me: “Wes Anderson is forever doomed to make Wes Anderson movies.” Here’s a director who did all he could to step outside his comfort zone, adapting someone else’s work for the first time—in this case, that of Roald Dahl, an author with his own singularity—and using stop-motion animation, a painstaking collaborative process that seems like it should suppress his auteurist instincts. Alas, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a Wes Anderson movie from frame one, because he found a way to square his sensibility with Dahl’s (or, as detractors might put it, “shoehorn it in”) and wrangle a team of animators into bringing his homemade, obsessively detailed Rankin-Bass universe to life. There are two ways to look at it: Anderson is either to be praised for his consistency of vision, or damned for painting himself into a stifling creative corner. This may explain why the maker of such gentle, eccentric, lovingly particular comedies remains one of the more polarizing directors in the business.
Read the full article at the A.V. Club, complete with clips from the film.
As a follow-up to our earlier post about the French dub of Fantastic Mr. Fox, below is the trailer for the film. Nearly identical, the only changes apparent to me are a music cue in the middle and the fact that they only list two names for the dub. It’s funny that they seemed to have done some dubbing especially for the trailer as Amalric still says the “Shall we dance?” line, a recurring thing that Wes ended up cutting from the movie entirely after test screenings. After the jump is the poster (identical to the UK version) that curiously lists George Clooney’s name.
In October 2001, audiences at the New York Film Festival viewed the director’s cut of the film The Royal Tenenbaums, the way it was intended it to be seen and heard. The final cut, shown in theaters and released on DVD, changed several of the songs originally used, for a variety of reasons. The two soundtracks released also omit much of the film’s music, including eight tracks of Mark Mothersbaugh’s wonderful score.
Join KZSU Stanford University at 5:00pm PST this Wednesday, 30th December 2009 for a special broadcast of the complete chronological soundtrack music from The Royal Tenenbaums. You will also hear excerpted commentary and interviews with Anderson and music supervisor Randall Poster, as they explain the difficulties in obtaining and replacing certain songs.
Listeners in the San Francisco bay area can tune in at 90.1 FM. Anyone may stream online at http://kzsulive.stanford.edu.
