The World of Wes Anderson
“Recording the Voices,” a new featurette:
TV spots:
Sounding Fantastic. If the trailers for Wes Anderson‘s stop-motion-animation adaptation of the Roald Dahl children’s book Fantastic Mr. Fox aren’t enough to suggest great stuff ahead (the film opens Nov. 20), the sound track should clinch the deal. An integral component of the writer/director’s movies thus far (think John Lennon‘s “Oh Yoko!” in Rushmore, Nick Drake‘s “Fly” in The Royal Tenenbaums), the collection of songs and tunes for Fantastic Mr. Fox includes such furry numbers as “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” from the Wellingtons, two from the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones‘ “Street Fighting Man,” and a handful of Burl Ives incantations – yes, Burl Ives! – guaranteed to spark a Burl revival. Throw in some Art Tatum, Jarvis Cocker, and Bobby Fuller Four, plus beautiful instrumental sketches from French composer Alexandre Desplat, and you have one of the loveliest, most eccentric sound tracks to come along since – well, since Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited. (Philadelphia Inquirer, October 25, 2009)
LIVE from the NYPL: Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach
Monday, 9 November 2009
7:00 p.m.
Celeste Bartos Forum
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
$25 general admission
LIVE from the NYPL presents an evening with director WES ANDERSON (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums) in conversation with screenplay co-writer NOAH BAUMBACH (The Squid and the Whale) about Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s first animated film. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson utilizes classic handmade stop-motion techniques to tell the story of the classic children’s book by ROALD DAHL. Mr. and Mrs. Fox (George Clooney and Meryl Streep) live an idyllic home life with their son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) and visiting young nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson). But after twelve years of quiet domesticity, the bucolic existence proves too much for Mr. Fox’s wild animal instincts. Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in doing so, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community… The film is produced by Allison Abbate, Scott Rudin, Wes Anderson and Jeremy Dawson.
Happy Halloween! Remember to document your Halloween costume for the Third Annual Rushmore Academy Halloween Costume Contest (details). We are giving away three fantastic Fantastic Mr. Fox prize packages and great new music from Noah and the Whale. Remember that your costume must be inspired by the films of Wes Anderson or Wes Anderson himself.
From previous years:
From tomorrow’s New York Times (article | slideshow):
FROM a young age Wes Anderson has felt proprietary about Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel “Fantastic Mr. Fox.” “It was the first book at our household that was considered to be mine,” he said. “I was obsessed with anything involving hidden passageways or underground tunnels.”
Mr. Anderson’s live-action films have always existed in parallel realities — elaborately storyboarded, art-directed parallel realities, no less — and so it is not too great a leap for him to be conjuring a world from scratch for his stop-motion animated version of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (opening Nov. 13).
Controversy flared recently when some crew members grumbled to The Los Angeles Times about Mr. Anderson’s absence from the film’s London set during the shoot. He has acknowledged that he did much of his work from Paris, where he has an apartment, sending detailed instructions, photos and videos to the animators. In any case, the finished film, which he wrote with the filmmaker Noah Baumbach, suggests that Mr. Anderson was anything but hands-off. This may be his first animated film, but his fingerprints are everywhere, from the dollhouse cross sections to the funny-sad family dynamics to the belief that production design is intimately linked with character.
From Inside Searchlight:
Borders Northridge (For Kids)
Saturday November 7, 2009 @ 11AM
From the movie: Jason Schwartzman9301 Tampa Ave.
Northridge, CA 91324o Clips from film will be shown.
o Jason will talk about his character, Ash. (See Ash in the production still above; he is the character on the right.)
o Reading from ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ (movie) original book – Chapter 11: “A Surprise for Mrs. Fox”
o Audience Q&A
o SigningApple Santa Monica (For Kids)
Saturday November 7, 2009 @ 4PM
From the movie: Jason Schwartzman1248 Third Street Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401o The trailer and clips from the film will be shown.
o Jason will talk about voicing the role of Ash in the film.
o Reading from ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ (movie) original book – Chapter 11: “A Surprise for Mrs. Fox”
o Audience Q&A92Y Tribeca (Sold Out!)
Tuesday November 10, 2009 @ 8PM
From the movie: Director Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman200 Hudson St
New York, NY 10013o The trailer and clips from the film will be shown.
o Moderated discussion
o Audience Q&AApple Soho Store (NYC)
November 11, 2009 @ 7PM
From the movie: Director Wes Anderson, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzmano The trailer will be shown.
o Moderated discussion
o Audience Q&A
Fantastic Mr. Fox came in third at the UK box office this weekend. It made £1,517,312 on 481 screens, losing out to Up and Saw VI. A little disappointing, no doubt, but a good start.
Michael Chabon has been making the rounds for his new book Manhood for Amateurs. He read a piece, “The Amateur Family,” at the Union Square (N.Y.C.) Barnes and Noble:
Perhaps there is no perfect word for the kind of people I have raised my children to be: a word that encompasses obsessive scholarship, passionate curiosity, curatorial tenderness, and an irrepressible desire to join in the game, to inhabit in some manner—through writing, drawing, dressing up, or endless conversational riffing and Talmudic debate—the world of the endlessly inviting, endlessly inhabitable work of popular art. The closest I have ever come for myself is amateur, in all the best senses of the word: a lover; a devotee; a person driven by passion and obsession to do it—to explore the imaginary world—oneself. And if we must accept the inevitable connotation of hopeless ineptitude that amateur carries, then at least let us stipulate that we shall be hopeless and inept like Max Fischer, the hero of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore: in the most passionate, heedless, and whole-hearted way.
Remember to send us your Fantastic Mr. Fox photos from opening weekend! Document your local cinema’s marquee or you and your friends being fantastically foxy before or after the show. edwardappleby@yankeeracers.org or tweet @rushmoreacademy
Opening weekend links: