“FANTASTIC MR. FOX”

By Jason Guerrasio

Not often does a director with an indie pedigree seamlessly segue into subject matter like… children’s literature.

But in many ways Wes Anderson has been training for the moment to use his hyper-stylized, extremely detailed storytelling to make a film like Fantastic Mr. Fox. Based on the Roald Dohl classic, Anderson (and co-writer, Noah Baumbach) use the book’s premise of a sly fox who outwits his farmer neighbors to steal their food to create a film that dazzles children and adults alike with it’s Andersonesque storytelling and stop-motion animation.

When we meet Fox — voiced by George Clooney with motormouth charm (similar to his character Everett in O, Brother Where Art Thou?) — his life is about to change as he learns he’s going to become a father and swears to his wife (Meryl Streep) that he will give up robbing chickens from coops and other dangerous stunts, though it’s obvious he still has a love for it.

Years pass and Fox — dressed in an Anderson staple: a tweed jacket — is going through a mid-life crisis. Unsatisfied as a columnist for the local paper, he’s obsessed to live in the big tree on a hill and his itch to rob the local farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean is becoming unbearable.

With his loyal friend/superintendent Kyle (Wallace Wolodarsky), an opossum, by his side, the two head out to rob the farmers. While back home, Fox’s son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) has to deal with being less fantastic as his father, and it things get worse when his much more athletically gifted and better looking cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) moves in with them. As Fox continues to have a blast robbing the farmers, things get serious when Boggis, Bunce and Bean set a trap to kill Fox, but are only able to shoot off his tale. Family squabbles are put aside as the Fox’s home gets destroyed by the farmers over the music of the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” and the Fox’s and their friends (including Bill Murry as their attorney Badger) dig to find safety, and plan … Read the rest

JOHN WALTER, “THEATER OF WAR”

By Nick Dawson

MERYL STREEP IN DIRECTOR JOHN WALTER’S DOCUMENTARY THEATER OF WAR. COURTESY WHITE BUFFALO ENTERTAINMENT.

In the field of documentary, John Walter has emerged as the medium’s most eloquent and entertaining cultural historian. The Detroit-born director, who is also an unpublished poet, began his career in the film industry as a boom operator and worked in that capacity on Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II. In the mid 90s, he became an editor, beginning with Norman Reedus’ Messenger (1994), and in 1995 he directed Edison’s Miracle of Light, an episode of PBS’ television series The American Experience. In 2002, Walter made his documentary feature debut with How to Draw a Bunny, a portrait of the Pop Art collage artist and prankster Ray Johnson, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Documentary. He has since directed the small screen doc The First Amendment Project: Some Assembly Required for Court TV and edited a number of projects, including Thom Powers’ Guns & Mothers (2003) and Amir Bar-Lev’s My Kid Could Paint That. He currently lives in New York City’s East Village with his wife, filmmaker Adriane Giebel.

For years, Walter had been looking for an opportunity to make a film about the iconic German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, a literary figure he has been fascinated with for two decades. The opportunity came when he was given permission to film the rehearsal process of the Public Theater’s Central Park production of Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children, adapted by Tony Kushner and starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. Theater of War fortunately does not dwell on the minutiae of the show’s preparation period or capture arguments between cast members, but instead uses the production as a conduit to discuss the play and its author, plus a number of other topics – Marxism, war, politics, art, parenthood – which logically arise in that discussion. Theater of War weaves together interviews with the theater principals (plus outside figures like novelist Jay Cantor and theater professor and … Read the rest

NADINE LABAKI, “CARAMEL”

By Nick Dawson

WRITER-DIRECTOR-STAR NADINE LABAKI IN A SCENE FROM CARAMEL. COURTESY ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS.

As role models, few filmmakers are more inspirational than Nadine Labaki. On top of the inherent difficulty of succeeding as a writer-director, Labaki grew up in Lebanon’s war-ravaged capital, Beirut, in a Middle Eastern culture where women are essentially second-class citizens. However, Labaki’s passion for film drove her to overcome her obstacles, and in 1998 her short film 11 Rue Pasteur (her graduating project at Beirut’s Saint-Joseph University) won the top prize at an Arabian film festival in Paris. Back in Lebanon, Labaki honed her craft as a director by helming numerous pop promos and commercials, winning more prizes and accolades in the process.

A meeting with French producer Anne-Marie Toussaint in 2003 led to Labaki being sponsored by the Cannes Film Festival the following year to write her first feature script. Three years later, she returned to Cannes as the writer, director and star of Caramel, a vibrant depiction of a group of female friends in modern-day Beirut. The action is centered around Si Belle, a ramshackle beauty salon, where owner Layale (Labaki) and her employees and friends discuss and attempt to solve their problematic love lives. As well as being an effervescent celebration of sisterhood, Caramel explodes pre-existing ideas of Beirut, which here has the bustle and color of a European city, and is shot in a glossy, almost Hollywood style.

Filmmaker spoke to Labaki about watching Dallas and Dynasty while the bombs fell, using an entire cast of non-actors, and believing she was Disney’s Snow White.

WRITER-DIRECTOR NADINE LABAKI ON THE SET OF CARAMEL. COURTESY ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS.

Filmmaker: Where did the idea for this project come from?

Labaki: It was something very personal. It started with something I used to feel and am feeling sometimes, this contradiction between [the fact that] I live in a country that is very modern and exposed to Western culture, and at the same time I’m confused between this culture and the weight of tradition, religion, education and there’s always a lot of self-censorship, self-control. … Read the rest