Me and Orson Welles

You needn't know much about Orson Welles to see (or like) this movie. Nor do you need to devour Shakespeare. As an unsophisticated and non-well-read viewer, I found Me & Orson Wellesto be an enjoyable and unpretentious period piece, by Richard Linklater, the director of the also enjoyable, unpretentious, but more comically oriented The School Of Rock. But now, instead of the manic Jack Black, Linklater has cast Zac Efron in the lead, a controversial decision considering many non-twelve-year-old girls consider him a pretty boy unfit for anything past High School Musical. But don't worry, the guy doesn't seem limited to teenybopper franchises, and he does fine here, in a film he rather self-importantly deemed the first of his roles he was actually interested in.

He is backed up by virtual unknown Christian McKay, Eddie Marsan, and talented but typecast Leo Bill, who is forever willing to play the nerd, misfit, psychotic, or pervert. Efron plays Richard Samuels, an ambitious and slightly naive 'almost eighteen-year-old' living in new York City in 1937, who regularly skips school, much to the chagrin of his disgruntled mother, and gets a part in the Mercury Theater's production of "Julius Caesar" after publicly singing an awful song about cereal. Womanizer Joe Cotten (James Tupper) and womanizer-in-training Norman Lloyd (Leo Bill,) both of which have their minds on only one thing (and it's not theater) show him the ropes as well as Assistant Sonja (Claire Danes,) who Richard promptly develops a crush on.

The show revolves around keeping Orson happy, a self-obsessed terror set on his own talent. Richard won't be being paid. You must not argue. The actors laugh as a knee-jerk reaction at Orson's unfunny jokes. What does he earn for all this? "The chance to be sprayed by Orson's spit." Why does Richard keep the job at all? He has hope he can make it in the acting business. It's better than going to school. Sonja might be a big part of it. Norman and Joe classily comment that 'every man in the show wants to get into her pants,' then make a bet- the first one get five dollars. It is easy to guess that Sonja will be furious and broken-hearted that Richard made the bet, but it doesn't happen, which highlights the unexpected turns the movie takes.

The rest of the movie concentrates on the quirks of the cast and Orson's ego, as well as Richard's realization that whatever turn the show takes,he wants to be a 'part of it all.' This is well done, except for occasional bad line. For instance? "What's it like to be a beautiful woman?" Richard randomly asks Sonja. *Wince* What gutter did they pull that from? The only saving grace is that Sonja receives it as a bad line. Zac Efron starts out rather awkward in the first five minutes, delivering such off-kilter lines as 'you play with real feeling.' The heavily romanticized dialogue just doesn't feel natural, and it's a relief when the lines become smoother and wittier.

Christian McKay plays Orson Welles as perfectionistic, hard-headed, and childish. When he gets in a fight with his actors, he hollars at the top of his lungs, trademark spit spurting out of his mouth, "I am Orson Welles! And every single one of you stands as a adjinct to my vision!" Mm-kay... His unfailingly reasonable agent John Houseman (Eddie Marsan) tries to get through to him, but the bottem line is nothing that Orson Welles doesn't want to do will even be brought to the table. He is great character, and you see something sympathetic in him, then he throws you for a double loop. Me & Orson Welles is a historical film for people who don't have the time and patience for historical films, and establishes Zac Efron as an actor worthy of some respect (Rated PG-13.)

The Men Who Stare at Goats

At the beginning of The Men Who Stare At Goats, a confiding message beforehand says that 'more of this is true than you might think.' Maybe so, maybe not so much, but it's an entertaining black comedy, involving guns, drugs, and goats based on the also apparently true memoir of the same name by John Ronson. The film, given only lukewarm consideration by the critics, takes very near to awkward dives between lightness, very dark humor, and compassionate drama, turns out unscathed, if not exactly on top.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor,) a journalist, is dumbstruck when his wife has a revelation over the fragility of life after the sudden death of a co-worker. Instead of taking an Eat, Pray, Love expedition, leaving her baffled husband to go to India and so on, she dumps him, apparently deciding life is too short to spend time in his company any longer. After a rather childish tantrum where he breaks dishes and yells at her and her one-armed boyfriend, Bob goes to equally childish lengths to impress her.

"I'm in Iraq, covering war stories," he says in a comfortable American hotel. "I've seen things you shouldn't. "Bang-bang-bang!" He kicks the head of the bed and exclaims, "I've got to go." He then decides that it would be best if he actually did some research there, forgetting just walking into a war-torn country with a camera is not worth it to win back a girl who's clearly gotten over him.

Then he meets Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney,) who's unlike anyone he's ever met- impulsive, smart, and completely convinced the minority he follows is in the right. Sound like somebody you know...? And he says he's a psychic spy, trained by the millitary to read thoughts, drive blind folded, and dissapate clouds with the power of his mind. Hmm.

This takes Bob back to meeting Gus Lacey (Stephen Root,) a member of the same group Lyn joined that he interviewed for a piece in the paper. Gus lives with his who-knows-how-old mother, who serves him drinks, and speaks of his military job in the New Earth Army whimsically. "We were trained to kill animals," he says. "With our minds, that is correct." Bob is shocked. He is serious, in that deadpan way Stephen Root is good at. Gus then shows Bob a video, to prove it, of himself telekinetically killing his pet hamster. What Bob sees is... the hamster acting wonky, yes, but hardly dying.

Lyn takes Bob on a sort of adventure (if you can call it that,) thanks in part to random fate and in part to Lyn's total belief in his psychic powers. Finally they find the New Earth Army base and meet stoned out Bill Jango (Jeff Bridges,) who ran the place for some time, and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey,) who took over. Interspersed with the journey are flashbacks so you have met the characters before you actually met them.

In the end, The Men Who Stare at Goats (with it's abundance of deliberate quirky-isms) is not an epic achievement, but it is funny and witty, and though a streak of oh-so-dark humor pervades, admirably entertaining. In this day and age, I think we kind of need New Earth Warriors, who strive to 'fight without killing,' minus those poor goats. You'll see what I mean (Rated R.)

In the Bedroom

One of the most interesting things about Todd Field's In The Bedroom is the way it slowly unravels, not discharges with a bang, a downward spiral of grief and hopelessness. It is so easy to portray life as a utopia before tragedy strikes- in this, the said event reveals hidden repressions and resentments, and tears the lives of the victim's families apart. It is based on the short story The Killings by Andre Dubus, a former captain of the marine corps who eventually wrote about gun-related tragedies and the double sided nature of revenge. This film permeates vengeance- each time, some body gets hurt (or killed) and not a single person wins.

I see In The Bedroom tagged as 'melodrama' on Imdb. According to my film-based book 'melodrama' is 'bold and passionate drama, with distinct lines between good and evil' (not a direct quote.) Although the film is made up of victims, perpetrators, and passive bystanders, with a victim inevitable turning the tables on the perpetrator, it's anything but simple, armed with a certain ambiguity that sets it apart from the others. No one is selfless, and the dimwitted, impulsive killer, though not with much going for him, is not the typical unkillable Halloween psycho.

The film follows two families, the Fowlers and the Strouts, living in contemporary Maine, whose lives are going in very different directions.Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson) is a doctor, and is concerned about a job for his son Frank (Nick Stahl) that reaches his full potential. Frank is an affable young man whose ambiguous attitude towards his future are causing Matt and his wife Ruth (Sissy Spacek) some headaches. He is gifted at architecture, with elaborate drawn structures all over his walls, but he includes working on a boat catching lobsters

This is partially because he is unsure if he wants to be what his parents want him to be, partially because of Natalie Strout (Marisa Tomei,) an older woman and well-intentioned mother of two boys, who he has fallen for. Natalie has just suffered a violent break-up with Richard (William Mapother.) The is an implication that Richard has physically abused at least one of their two sons, Jason and Duncan, and Natalie wants out of that relationship.

One day Frank is beaten, and he comes home with black eye. He doesn't want to call the police, says Frank. It will just scare Natalie's boys. The next time Frank encounters Richard, the Fowler parents are thrown into a guilt-ridden nightmare that will strain, bend, and perhaps break them. Matt halfheartedly continues to participate in life, whereas Ruth sits quietly, almost comatose, smoking cigarettes on the chair. Ruth mistakenly confuses Matt's attempts to reacquaint himself with life with not grieving, and the event unearths discontentment and suspicions.

There are only a few faulty scenes One involves claustrophobic close-ups and buzzing sound effects seem to have come straight out of Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, which served it's purpose of slightly surreal humor in the latter. Here it is odd and uncomfortable in a not remotely riveting way. The acting, on the other hand, is very good. The commendable performences and realistic rappor t between family members make one care about the characters and where the plot is going, which you know, thanks in part to me, is nowhere good (rated R)

Michael Clayton

It seems passivity is the enemy here, and there's enough of it to spare in Michael Clayton, a law thriller that uncoils gradually, and reveals suddenly. Everyone has the 'whoops' factor tied around their little finger, where nothing said or done has any connection to them. This includes the eponymous lead, played by George Clooney, who is loyal to his friends and practically useless to anyone else.

Michael is what is called a 'fixer,' which is a dodgy job description if I ever heard one, and of questionable legality. When someone messes up, their lawyer sends him in to manipulate, tweak, and shift the story in their favor. For instance, an upper class married man 'thinks' he hit someone with his car. Instead of coming to see the victim is okay, the driver (Mr. Greer) drives home and contacts his lawyer, who contacts Michael.

"What do they do if the car is stolen?" Mr. Greer reasons. "Happens all the time." Michael senses that he is in tpo deep then, so leaves the man to solve it for himself. He has more personal matters to attend to. The body (?) is never recovered, or maybe it's just a miffed drunk staggering home. It seems for these people, this is more plot point than climax.

In this case, Michael Clayton tries to find what Mr. Greer hit, but he is violently interrupted. Then the film is taken back four days, in a tangle of a story that seems like it will never be explained, but is. In the time before that incident, Michael is living his ordinary life of 'fixing' and pawning of his personal belongings, trying evade bankruptcy.

Then he gets a phone call, and is told that his friend and legendary fellow lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson,) has left his manic-depressive medication and gone bonkers. To be more specific, he stripped down during a law hearing and proclaimed his love for the plaintiff, the much younger Anna Kysersun, then chasing her and her company through the streets with inexplicable motivations.

Apparently that's not the worst part. While Arthur was shedding his attire in a fit of mania, he also had a moment of clarity- that he had the power to stop the evil that is been taken place, and as people probably suspected, that the cancer Anna and her family have been plagued by (which has already taken the life of her mother and brother) is in fact a direct result of U-North, a 'very safe' weed killer Clayton, Edens and others have been supporting.

U-North's weed killer, which is accompanied by green, reassuring advertisements, was used by Anna and many others on family farms, and got into their water streams. Worse for the corporation, Arthur doesn't only know what's going on, he has proof for it (a piece of paper showing that U-North knew, too) and has reached a quasi-midlife crisis where he's started questioning the morality of the stuff he's been doing for years.

Kenner, Back, & Ledeen (the law firm they work for) has funded U-North and they stand to lose a lot of money if the corporation comes crashing down. As good friends as Michael and Arthur are, Michael is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and can't afford to lose more, and his reaction is less 'it's not true' than 'we promised we wouldn't talk about it.'

Arthur, off his meds and with a perhaps not perennial sense of purpose, abandons Michael as a lost cause and enlists Anna's help to expose all the people who have been hurt with the pesticide (Anna is a real sport about Arthur's infatuation and clothes-shedding incident, though I couldn't tell if she really liked him or sensed she shouldn't be on his bad side.)

This makes him the not most popular person of U-North, and shady action against him by the nervous, twitch-ridden, and chilly Karen Crowder (the always chilly Tilda Swinton, who nevertheless seems mild-mannered enough for one one to think she knows less than she knows.) Michael Clayton does damage control, trying to to call Arthur into his right mind to support a deplorable lie.

The film is sort of brilliant the way it that it creates spontaneous, deliberately awkward dialogue that is usually nit picked and glossed over by the movie. At first, this promises to only be the norm with the Bipolar character, Arthur, but it soon spreads over into universal nervousness. of course, the characters have a lot to be nervous about. never has stumbly screenwriting and unnecessary 'uh's and 'er's impressed me more.

As with just about any film thriller, the script obscures truth from the characters, and their intellect suffers increasingly agitating pitfalls. Of course, the Arthur character has just escaped the numbing effects of his mood stabilizers and is 'feeling' the world for the first time in ages, so a little imprudence can be expected of such big adjustments.

However, the others, stressed as they might be, play aggravatingly dumb and don't provoke sympathy as often as a sharp "Really? Are you that stupid?" The performances are very good- nothing unusual from Tilda Swinton (she's playing her White Witch with a couple quirks.) George Clooney was just fine and doesn't need guff from people who think he just a ladies man with a self-important ego (maybe so, maybe not, but let's not judge, shall we?)

Tom Wilkinson strikes a balance between vulgar and vulnerable, and does well both feigning an American accent (he's British) and conducting his shallow, disorganized, and ridiculously fast speech, which gives the feeling he believes the oxygen is being pulled out of the air. And cliche is sidestepped when Michael's son Henry, a smart alecky and precocious kid, doesn't fall victim to 'child in trouble' script, and is at no point threatened, menaced and ransomed (Rated R.)

Note- This movie uses the fancy writing device of 'mentally ill person talking,' as Arthur carries on long monologues of what someone not playing with the full deck might say to fit the director's pretentious vision. As moviemaking is an art form and a little pretentiousness applies, this is neither a compliment or an insult, just a thought.

Michael Clayton

It seems passivity is the enemy here, and there's enough of it to spare in Michael Clayton, a law thriller that uncoils gradually, and reveals suddenly. Everyone has the 'whoops' factor tied around their little finger, where nothing said or done has any connection to them. This includes the eponymous lead, played by George Clooney, who is loyal to his friends and practically useless to anyone else.

Michael is what is called a 'fixer,' which is a dodgy job description if I ever heard one, and of questionable legality. When someone messes up, their lawyer sends him in to manipulate, tweak, and shift the story in their favor. For instance, an upper class married man 'thinks' he hit someone with his car. Instead of coming to see the victim is okay, the driver (Mr. Greer) drives home and contacts his lawyer, who contacts Michael.

"What do they do if the car is stolen?" Mr. Greer reasons. "Happens all the time." Michael senses that he is in tpo deep then, so leaves the man to solve it for himself. He has more personal matters to attend to. The body (?) is never recovered, or maybe it's just a miffed drunk staggering home. It seems for these people, this is more plot point than climax.

In this case, Michael Clayton tries to find what Mr. Greer hit, but he is violently interrupted. Then the film is taken back four days, in a tangle of a story that seems like it will never be explained, but is. In the time before that incident, Michael is living his ordinary life of 'fixing' and pawning of his personal belongings, trying evade bankruptcy.

Then he gets a phone call, and is told that his friend and legendary fellow lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson,) has left his manic-depressive medication and gone bonkers. To be more specific, he stripped down during a law hearing and proclaimed his love for the plaintiff, the much younger Anna Kysersun, then chasing her and her company through the streets with inexplicable motivations.

Apparently that's not the worst part. While Arthur was shedding his attire in a fit of mania, he also had a moment of clarity- that he had the power to stop the evil that is been taken place, and as people probably suspected, that the cancer Anna and her family have been plagued by (which has already taken the life of her mother and brother) is in fact a direct result of U-North, a 'very safe' weed killer Clayton, Edens and others have been supporting.

U-North's weed killer, which is accompanied by green, reassuring advertisements, was used by Anna and many others on family farms, and got into their water streams. Worse for the corporation, Arthur doesn't only know what's going on, he has proof for it (a piece of paper showing that U-North knew, too) and has reached a quasi-midlife crisis where he's started questioning the morality of the stuff he's been doing for years.

Kenner, Back, & Ledeen (the law firm they work for) has funded U-North and they stand to lose a lot of money if the corporation comes crashing down. As good friends as Michael and Arthur are, Michael is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and can't afford to lose more, and his reaction is less 'it's not true' than 'we promised we wouldn't talk about it.'

Arthur, off his meds and with a perhaps not perennial sense of purpose, abandons Michael as a lost cause and enlists Anna's help to expose all the people who have been hurt with the pesticide (Anna is a real sport about Arthur's infatuation and clothes-shedding incident, though I couldn't tell if she really liked him or sensed she shouldn't be on his bad side.)

This makes him the not most popular person of U-North, and shady action against him by the nervous, twitch-ridden, and chilly Karen Crowder (the always chilly Tilda Swinton, who nevertheless seems mild-mannered enough for one one to think she knows less than she knows.) Michael Clayton does damage control, trying to to call Arthur into his right mind to support a deplorable lie.

The film is sort of brilliant the way it that it creates spontaneous, deliberately awkward dialogue that is usually nit picked and glossed over by the movie. At first, this promises to only be the norm with the Bipolar character, Arthur, but it soon spreads over into universal nervousness. of course, the characters have a lot to be nervous about. never has stumbly screenwriting and unnecessary 'uh's and 'er's impressed me more.

As with just about any film thriller, the script obscures truth from the characters, and their intellect suffers increasingly agitating pitfalls. Of course, the Arthur character has just escaped the numbing effects of his mood stabilizers and is 'feeling' the world for the first time in ages, so a little imprudence can be expected of such big adjustments.

However, the others, stressed as they might be, play aggravatingly dumb and don't provoke sympathy as often as a sharp "Really? Are you that stupid?" The performances are very good- nothing unusual from Tilda Swinton (she's playing her White Witch with a couple quirks.) George Clooney was just fine and doesn't need guff from people who think he just a ladies man with a self-important ego (maybe so, maybe not, but let's not judge, shall we?)

Tom Wilkinson strikes a balance between vulgar and vulnerable, and does well both feigning an American accent (he's British) and conducting his shallow, disorganized, and ridiculously fast speech, which gives the feeling he believes the oxygen is being pulled out of the air. And cliche is sidestepped when Michael's son Henry, a smart alecky and precocious kid, doesn't fall victim to 'child in trouble' script, and is at no point threatened, menaced and ransomed (Rated R.)

The Visitor

The Visitor is a abashed statement movie, like Hans-Christian Schmid's Requiem or Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, that really needs an open mind to operate (the latter didn't really work for me, because science reasons that pregnancy involves a infant and not a fetus-shaped problem.) Although in many ways the themes are universal, the film has a very liberal center, and the viewer needs to come in who can think, not reaffirm.

The film opens with middle-aged Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins,) who stares almost desperately out the window for his piano teacher to come. As soon as they dully carry out their lessons, he informs her he is going to give up the class. It was really more his wife's, who has died, thing anyway. This reflects the whole movie, he wants interaction with people, than quickly rejects them.

Walter divides his time between Connecticut, where he halfheartedly teaches college courses with young adults who have probably long since given up hope of surprise or freshness, and New York, where he pretends to be writing a book that has been put indefinitely on hold. His subject of teaching is global economics- an odd choice, considering it's been a long time since he was involved with (not to say 'cared about') anyone, including himself. He's kind of like an agoraphobic who drones on about the joys of the outdoors.

His only passion, in fact, is music, which is quickly fading. His teacher tactlessly asked if she may buy the piano if he gives it up, and makes it clear he doesn't have the raw natural talent of his late wife. Throughout the film, the only time he is relieved of his perpetual slump is when he hears music in the streets, or in recording, or in his head. Even his manner of walking becomes more perked and interested. When he doesn't hear the beat, it gets so bad that I wished for the sake of him and his tortured students that someone could get the guy and Mp3 player.

His wake-up call begins when Walter visits his apartment in New York, and walks into his own bathroom to find Zainab (Danar Gurira) in the tub. She has a boyfriend, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman,) who clearly doesn't take to strange men wandering in when Zainab is bathing. Walter senses trouble about ten seconds before Tarek slams him against the door and nearly beats him to a pulp. After a tense confrontation, they calm down, and Walter gets the chance to shakily say he is not a sex criminal.

Apparently, Tarek and Zainab, two immigrants (the first from Serbia and the latter African) immigrated quite some time ago, and a shady Realtor give them an used apartment. He never managed to mention that there was still an occupant who came every now and then, and expected 'his' home to be untouched. Even though Walter suspects something is up with their entry to America (the first thing Tarek worries about after he assures his wife has not been violated is the police,) he allows them to stay, a favor Zainab takes begrudgingly.

I was never sure if Zainab was worried by the vague threat of sexual violence (something painfully embarrassing he says doesn't help, although it isn't actual interest but just social incompetence,) or if she is humiliated by accepting charity from a slightly pretentious college professor in a suit and tie, but she gives him such hateful looks that I would be quickly throwing up my hands in defeat and searching for a new New York dwelling. Tarek, however, takes a liking to him (it's so much more convenient for the plot if they get along, but Haaz Sleiman genuinely personable performance makes it believable.)

Tarek befriends Walter and makes it his mission to rekindle his participation in the music world. But one day Tarek is violently hauled off by Law Enforcement by passing over the turnstile (it is possible considering the suddenness and harshness of it that it was racially motivated, but this, like a lot of things in this movie, goes unsaid.) they discover he doesn't have a green card, something a smart man like Walter must have suspected, and he is placed without rhyme or reason in a holding facility for illegal immigrants. For obvious reasons, Zainab cannot go there, so Walter serves as a kind of spokesperson between them, and sets out to allow them passage in the United States.

Now the problem with Walter (and quite possibly the main reason he seeked solitude from the human race) is this-he has the unique, unfailing (dis?) ability to skew everything that comes out of his mouth to alienate, aggravate, and discomfort everyone around him. When he wants to be kind, he comes off as pretentious. When he wants to crack a joke, he's comes off as nervy.

Between the lead character and the reflective awkwardness and misunderstanding of the people around him, The Visitor presents decent characters who are to some degree separated by their own hang-ups. The four main characters (I'll get to the fourth in a little bit) are racially very different from each other, but the movie suggests that it is human foible rather than that leaves them, in communication, picking up the pieces and starting again.

The final lead is Mouna (Hiam Abbass, who from her profile on video sites has done a lot for the Middle Eastern movie-making industry,) Tarek's mother, who comes to his home, finds out the situation, and refuses to leave. Walter develops quite the crush on her, which seems reciprocated, and they make tentative steps toward a relationship, which is perhaps appropriately not fully developed but kind and not purely physical. And Walter gets Tarek a lawyer who would hopefully grant him Asylum, and makes his own personal changes. If he can't help the others, he reasons, he can help himself.

So far the director, Tom McCarthy's, films have dealt with prejudice in some form or another. The other one I have seen, The Station Agent, had the talented Peter Dinklage as a independent man suffering from dwarfism (or more fully, people's reactions to it.) He faced the daily degradation of being shamelessly photographed when picking up a gallon of milk. The minorities in The Visitor suffer being observed and judged by strangers who don't know the first thing about them, and that's just the beginning of it.

It is only when Walter gives his impassioned speech about rights that the film lapses into corn, because the movie is yelling at us as well as the characters, and what should have been dealt with a careful hand by the director is instead dealt by jack hammer. But McCarthy's vision is wider than many modern film director ("things go boom" is the total story of many modern films, including your pick of plot rentals,) a farther humanity, and a very good cast (Rated PG-13.)

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson, universally both loved and hated as the number #1 presenter of indie quirk, is also known for putting his offbeat characters and situations through decidedly grownup live-action. But Fantastic Mr. Fox, his first foray into the family genre, has no hint of unprofessional or slovenly animation, held together awkwardly with his trademark differentness.

This film, although not reaching the emotional heights of Pixar's Up, which it lost to in the 2010 animated Academy Awards (much to fellow reviewer Nick Duval's chagrin,) boasts wonderfully unique animation (whose vivid oranges and browns and lovingly detailed fur is a far cry from the paint-by-numbers visual schemes of Dreamworks,) never overdone 'human' conflicts, and characters more bizarrely three-dimensional than Danny De Vito's take on Roald Dahl, Matilda.

Plotwise, the original, simplistic Fantastic Mr. Fox has more or thown aside, (as in the original Mr. Fox had no neighbors, no family, and no pop culture references,) But Wes Anderson has kept the edgy spirit of Roald Dahl intact, with human beings replacing grown-ups as the oppressing, shamelessly ignorant bad guy.

The staring scene opens with the eponymous (and otherwise unnamed) Mr. Fox, who, despite his good intentions, never quite gains the viewer's sympathy. He's a nice guy with a problem- he always needs to be under the impression that he is outfoxing the man, and getting his way comes as naturally to him as breathing.

When he is reunited with his wife (who has an unexplained stomach flu, fulfilling the rule for unreasonably sick married heroines,) they go on their nightly raid, and are quickly caught due to stupidity on the part of Mr. Fox. Mrs. Fox's secret is revealed, and the film cuts forward two years (twelve fox years.)

Mr. Fox is now living in a safe but inelegant hole habitat that hurts his pride, accompanied by his wife (Voice of Meryl Streep,) and moody adolescent son, Ash (Wes Anderson regular Jason Schwartzmen, who is considerably past adolescence.) Ash is at a stage where he desperately wants to impress his father, and has the famous complex of needing to make his parents proud.

Everyone 'helpfully' implicates that he shouldn't try to measure up to his dad, and Ash stirs up hell trying to get attention, spitting, grunting, and wandering heatedly around the house in an angry huff. The unsteady family balance is upset further by visiting cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, voicing, well, obviously,) who's father is sick with double pneumonia.

Kristofferson is an earnest soul who has the unfortunate ability of doing whatever Ash is unsuccessful at flawlessly. This immediately attracts the resentful attention of Ash, especially when Mr. Fox starts treating him like the son he never had. The situation goes from bad to worse when Mr. Fox, in a sort of midlife crisis, somewhat cruelly strings pleasant but dim-witted opossum Kylie along to steal from a trio of very armed, very dangerous farmers.

Kristofferson is brought along (he turns Ash away, although I highly doubt he gave him the chance to prove his incompetence) and the trio take dozens of chickens from the homes of Nathan Bunce, Walt Boggis, and Franklin Bean (Michael Gambon, no longer channeling his inner Dumbledore) , who don't have a lot of compassion for woodland creatures. They, nearly as frustrated by their own stupidity as the fox's cleverness, attempt to dig the community out.

The rest I will leave you to find out, as the film itself is not long, nor overloaded enough to need a reviewer to preexplain all the plot-lines and pitfalls. The pitfalls of the film are few, save some plot holes (like Ash's inexplicable change of clothes halfway through the film) and dialogue that OD's occasionally on quirkiness and doesn't step in time to the snappy pace the plot has going.

I am disturbed by people's ludicrous complaints about this film, including the gimmick where they say 'cuss' instead of the specific word (a lot of children's movies don't bother) and that they talk about *gasp* existentialism. Adult themes in an animated movie won't anyone, and it's nice that someone realized putting references beyond the age group can involve old songs and eccentric happenings, not pee-pees and wee-wees that everyone takes for granted (Rated PG.)