Fox Searchlight invites you to free screenings of Fantastic Mr. Fox nationwide. To reserve your passes, visit Fox Searchlight’s Fantastic Mr. Fox website and click on “Attend a Free Screening” (see below).
Halloween Costume Contest Voting Round
The (Mr.) Foxy cover of Film Comment
The November/December 2009 issue of Film Comment features Mr. Fox on the cover and a great article about the film by Kent Jones on the inside. Pick it up at your local bookseller or buy it directly from the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
The great folks over at Film Comment (Twitter) sent over an excerpt from the article:
ANIMAL PLANET
Fantastic Mr. Fox will undoubtedly provoke a lot of chatter about the inevitability of Wes Anderson turning to animation, as well as a flurry of musings over the distinctions to be made between his new adaptation (from a beloved Roald Dahl children’s novel) and his previous, strictly original films (in the end, the difference is negligible). There’s no doubt in my mind that the words “clever,” “quirky,” “cool,” “twee,” and “arch” will be employed by someone, somewhere, ironically and otherwise. And another Wes Anderson movie will come and go, its surfaces examined down to the minutest detail, its emotional underpinning impatiently and perhaps even proudly overlooked.
Bravo. Can’t wait to read it.
Halloween costume contest entries
That’s it, that’s it! It’s all over! The 2009 Rushmore Academy Halloween Costume Contest has come to its conclusion. You can view all of the entries in the gallery below (please contact me if your photo is not included). The editors will select our finalists over the weekend and post their entries for public voting sometime early next week. Winners will will receive a Fantastic Mr. Fox soundtrack, poster, and tie, along with some other goodies. We also expect to give away some Noah and the Whale CD/DVD sets, courtesy of Sneak Attack media.
Thanks to everyone who participated this year and to Fox Searchlight for sponsoring our contest.
If someone posted your photo without your permission, please contact me: edwardappleby@yankeeracers.org
New behind-the-scenes videos
“Behind Mr. Fox: Bill Murray as Badger”
“Behind Mr. Fox: George Clooney as Mr. Fox”
More after the break… Continue reading “New behind-the-scenes videos”
Win free passes to the L.A. screening of Fantastic Mr. Fox
First announced on our Twitter page, we are giving away 25 passes (1 + 1 guest) to see Fantastic Mr. Fox at the Arclight Hollywood on November 12. The first twenty-five people to e-mail edwardappleby@ yankeeracers.org Subject: LA Screening Passes will win a set. Please include your mailing address. Update: We’re fresh out of passes. Thanks to everyone who entered.
Preview of tomorrow’s post on the November/December issue of Film Comment:
Remember that tomorrow is the deadline for the Halloween Costume Contest!
New videos: Fantastic Mr. Fox
“Recording the Voices,” a new featurette:
TV spots:
Fantastic Mr. Fox soundtrack now available
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)
Remember to enter the Halloween costume contest
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:
NYT: “Animal Wrangling in Miniature”
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.