Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2008)

Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Nicholas Hooper

Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Ginny Weasley- Bonnie Wright
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Lupin- David Thewlis
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
[newcomers]
Horace Slughorn- Jim Broadbent
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Lavender Brown- Jessie Cave

Write-up:

Opening Comments
Looking over my previous entry, which I wrote about in January... oh man, 2016 needs to end soon... too many great people have died since David Bowie and Alan Rickman... some of old age, so I don't feel nearly as bad about them.
Just please, no one else... Prince was the deepest cut of all, but at least when I listen to him, I can trick my mind into believing he's still alive. His spirit certainly is.

Anyway... onto the movie...

For starters...
By the time the movie came out, I'd only read the book once and it wasn't as fresh in my head. Meaning that I didn't pick the movie apart and say how they skipped a certain scene from the book or reinterpreted some things. If there were any changes, they made sense and the overall story pretty much stayed the same.

If you read my "Order of the Phoenix" post, this might be a bit of a reprieve. Although there are one or two scenes I could nit-pick at. More on that later...

Firstly, there was a mighty big spoiler about this book that has worked its way into pop culture. And by that, I mean it was referenced on "Big Bang Theory." Leonard runs off to Penny's apartment because Sheldon spoiled the main event in the Half-Blood Prince. Then again, Leonard waited until that particular time to start reading the books...

I'm not sure if there's any truth to this rumor, but I heard there was a midnight book release where people were still waiting in line and someone who got their book ahead of them ran down the line and shouted the spoiler.

Seriously, this turn of events was like the major spoiler of Games of Thrones...

By the way, I will be mentioning it further down the line. If not in this entry, then in the 2nd Deathly Hallows post.

The StorySpoilers ahead... read the books!!
The wizarding world has now accepted the fact Voldermort is back from the dead. And it's just a matter of time before the world crumbles apart. The only things keeping things generally stable is that fact Harry Potter and Dumbledore are alive. Because of Harry, there is hope. And because of Dumbledore, Hogwarts is still a safe haven.

We begin our journey with Harry when Dumbledore takes him a trip. His mission: convince a former Hogwarts professor to return. Horace Slughorn is reluctant at first, but because he gravitates towards exceptionally talented students. He even has a shelf of photographs of students he had that later became famous or have connections to famous wizards and witches.
It later becomes clear that Harry is to get close to Slughorn because he has something valuable for Dumbledore's plan to put an end to Voldermort.

On the other side of things, Snape meets with Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy, wife of the now-disgraced Lucius Malfoy and Draco Malfoy's mom.
Draco has been assigned a particular difficult, potentially dangerous task, and Narcisssa asks him to protect him. And he agrees to make this Unbreakable Vow.

While with his friends in Diagon Alley, Harry follows Draco Malfoy to a store in Knockturn Alley called Borgin & Burkes. Based on what he witnesses, he believes that Malfoy has become a Death Eater, one of Voldermort's circle of followers.

Eventually, we get to Hogwarts where a lot is going on. Slughorn is the new potions teacher. Harry is finally doing well in potions class thanks to a used potions book said to be property of "the half-blood Prince" and Snape finally gets his chance to be Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Ron gets a position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and a new girlfriend. Hermione also comes to grips with her own feelings about Ron and Harry is doing the same regarding Ginny Weasley.

At the same time, Harry has regular meetings with Dumbledore where they go into Voldermort's past to learn more about him. And thanks to a memory they recover from Slughorn, they learn about Horcruxes--a object a person uses to hide a piece of their soul, which allows them immortality.

Throughout, we also have a number of incidents where Dumbledore was the intended target, but other students wind up getting hurt instead.
HighlightsFor starters, Jim Broadbent is a great addition to the cast as Slughorn. I didn't remember liking this character quite as much in the book. The whole thing about him "collecting" students as if he could take credit for their achievements because he taught them... seemed a bit egotistical to me. At least in the movie, he can have a good sense of humor about things, but also heart in the times that really mattered.

My favorite scene has to be when Harry takes the Felix Felicius (basically a "liquid luck" potion) to talk to Slughorn and he seems to be high on some odd sort of adrenaline. Lots of great comedic lines. But also when Slughorn finally levels it with Harry, it was a great emotional scene and it harkens back to when Harry's parents were killed. Not just Harry embracing his destiny, but more background information.

Draco Malfoy gets a lot of great character development. It seems in the beginning that he was just a pompous bully from a rich family. But he gets more dimension and Tom Felton does a great job bringing that out of him.
Harry, while he was right to be suspicious, you have to admit he goes too far at one point. And I can't help but wonder (as I'm sure a lot of people have)- how the hell did he not get expelled for what he did to Malfoy? Especially since Snape catches him afterwards...The chemistry between the young actors and actresses really shined here. They've gotten so close after spending years working together, you'd think this was just another normal day. The Ron and Hermione relationship really gets tested here, particularly how Hermione feels about Ron.

To his credit, though, Rupert Grint does have a few great comedic moments in the movie. First, I believe, was a scene added for the movie. Harry and Ron were goofing off during a free period where they would have had Potions. Professor McGonagall, in her own dry humor way, breaks up the party. At the end, she adds "take Mr. Weasley with you, he looks far too happy over there."
Then later Ron is crippled by a love potion originally intended for Harry. The sheer goofiness is worth all the laughs. But this being a Harry Potter film, things do have to get serious.

While the climax isn't as substantial as it was in the book, the tension brought in by the 3rd act.... it's catastrophic. The bad guys get the upper hand in the situation and everyone can feel the devastation of it.

The build-up of Harry and Dumbledore's "lessons" on defeating Voldemort leads up to finding a Horcrux. and it's easily one of the most troubling, scariest scenes in all of the movies. Neither of the two goes completely unscathed.

On a final positive note, it's great to see Quidditch back in the Harry Potter movies. We got short-changed at the Quidditch cup and absolutely no Quidditch in the 5th movie (where Harry, Fred and George get banned for beating up Malfoy... at least I think they beat him up, it's been a while since I read the book).
Ron finally gets his time to shine and it happens thanks to a little white lie from Harry.

Lowlights 
While there aren't a lot of lowlights in this movie, considering it's based on a great book, there's always going to be nitpicks.

First of all, Harry's first scene makes no sense. He meets a waitress at a restaurant, she's into him and Dumbledore shows up to whisk Harry away for their mission.
In the book, there are a great scene where Dumbledore finally tells off the Dursleys for their mistreatment of Harry. All this movie scene does is kill time and set up the fact Harry is a teenage interested in girls.
I also never really got Harry and Ginny becoming an item. It just felt so random to me... about as random as how Harry and Cho were broken up in the last movie. I would have been fine if Harry never wound up with anybody. At least Ron and Hermione made sense.

Also: Snape finally gets to become Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and we don't see him teach a single class? Talk about a rip-off. All that build-up through the course of the films for nothing. I can't even remember in the book if we had a scene with him teaching.

I could nitpick on Luna finding Harry on the train after Malfoy cursed him... in the book, it was Tonks, who was there to help guard the castle after the last attacks from Death Eaters. She and Lupin become an item in this book, something that was barely touched on in the movie. But for me that was another random coupling... just didn't make sense.

I could live without the "Battle of Hogwarts" scene that led to a couple deaths and Bill Weasley (Ron's oldest brother) becoming a werewolf.
But I can't understand the scene where The Burrow is attacked. It wasn't in the book and really served no purpose other than for Harry and Ginny to have a good battle scene together. The result was the Weasley house being cast into flames... yet the house was perfectly fine in the next movie. To me, it just felt like they decided they needed an extra action scene. And the explanation I found of them needing to bring the fight to Harry to make it more real... sorry, don't buy it.The Elephant in the Room...

BIG SPOILER ahead

 

Snape killing Dumbledore... that was maybe the biggest blow in the entire series. I wasn't upset about Sirius because I didn't really get to know him until the movies. But this was a guy you thought was invincible. The only wizard Voldemort ever feared. It was one of those things that didn't make sense because you thought he'd always be around. But if we wanted things to get REALLY real for Harry, that was the one thing that made the most sense.

As for Snape being the one doing it... my reaction was "I KNEW IT"... all this time, Snape was meant to be the bad guy. Everyone said how Dumbledore trusted him and therefore we should, but there's just that feeling there where all the pieces only added up one way. Between that scene and the earlier one where he makes the Unbreakable Vow and explains (in the book anyway... I'm sure in the movie if they had the time, they could have done that whole chapter through flashbacks) all the moments he could have killed Harry and why he didn't.

 

Meanwhile, my mom reads it and still believes that it's way too easy to assume Snape is the bad guy and there has to be an explanation.

I'll go into this more in the final entry on this film series... but by the end of it, obviously, only one of us is going to be right about him.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Director: Alfonso Cuaron (OSCAR-winning director of "Gravity"- making this the only Harry Potter movie to have an Oscar-winning director, albeit several years after the fact)

Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: John Williams (his final "Harry Potter" film)


Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermonine Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
[newcomers]
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Professor Lupin- David Thewlis
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Peter Pettigrew- Timothy Spall
Professor Trelawney- Emma Thompson
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
"Aunt" Marge- Pam Ferris

Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Original Score- John Williams [lost to "Finding Neverland"]
OSCAR- Best Visual Effects [lost to "Spider-Man 2"]
Grammy- Best Score Soundtrack album- John Williams
[side-note: somehow I get the feeling Harry Potter got NO love from the Academy despite being nominated loads of times]
Write-up:

Opening Remarks

I still have a vague recollection of what it was like when this movie came out. We went to the mall and got there kinda early and were waiting around at the food court. It was the one Harry Potter movie that was released in June rather than its usual November "time slot." And it was the largest gap in film releases- Chamber of Secrets coming out November 2002 and Prisoner in June 2004.
Not surprisingly, this meant that the actors will have aged considerably between the two films and [despite our 3 year age difference] I developed a crush on Daniel Radcliffe that lasted a couple weeks after seeing the movie :P Maybe it was the maturity he'd gained in the past months or the fact his hair wasn't long and unruly (as it got in the succeeding film, "Goblet of Fire") or this movie having a particular juicy/personal story arc for Harry. What I knew for sure was that I drafted a bit of fanmail I never finished/sent and I bought a blue hoodie very similar to the one he wears in the latter portion of the film. (Except his didn't have an actual hood).

At the time, I was reading the book and I think I got as far as the scene at the lake where Harry, Hermonine and Sirius were overwhelmed by dementors and saved by a stag Patronus... except I came into the movie still believing Sirius Black was the villain...
I don't know how I could have missed that because I vaguely recollect reading the book a previous time and being lost in the time-turner sequence... or maybe that's my recollection of "The Deadly Hallows" and how they explained the killing curse NOT killing Harry.

Either way, that was the last time I came into a Harry Potter without fully reading the book first :P but it is fun coming across surprises in the movies. I still revel at the shock & awe of the Professor Quirrell revelation- one of the best twists I'd seen in any movie, although knowing about it now takes away from all that.

Of all the movies, it's probably my favorite as far as the storyline. Behind "Order of the Phoenix," it's my favorite of the books. But I admit that I had misgivings throughout this time around. Minor pet peeves here and there. Some of which I'd just made peace with by going into IMDB's FAQ section. Other had me convinced I'd seen one too many episodes of "Cinema Sins" on YouTube.
I can make due with the fact that we didn't see Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup. That was a nit-pick one of my classmates in 12th grade college-prep Calculus had about it.

Story

The Prisoner of Azkaban is Sirius Black and supposedly he'd escaped from the wizard world's equivalent of Alcatraz... but an Alcatraz in the middle of the treacherous North Sea and surrounded by soul-sucking dementors.
Harry Potter endures one of his worst experiences at the Dursleys, being reduced to his uncle's visiting sister's waiter and kept within earshot of her insults towards his deceased parents. The end result is another of his "magical accidents," which makes "Aunt" Marge float away like a balloon, and he runs away from home where he gets picked up by the Knight Bus- a service meant to transport stranded witches and wizards.
Leading up to his latest year at Hogwarts, Harry gets wind of Sirius Black's escape and is warned to be on alert as he is rumored to be the reason he escaped.

Meanwhile at Hogwarts, Harry spends his third year helping Hagrid after his disastrous debut as Care of Magical Creatures teacher, dealing with Grim [death omens] sightings and learning more about his parents and tackling dementors from the newest Defense Against Dark Arts professor- Remus Lupin.

Peeves and Nit-picks
Two nit-picky things that I went to check on: there are two characters randomly thrown into the movie that weren't mentioned in the book.
One of them had two lines of dialogue that delivered very specific information- explaining the Grim in Divination class and trying to catch Sirius Black is like trying to catch smoke. Rumor is that he was the one who won a contest to get cast in this movie.
The other was a random Slytherin crone of Draco Malfoy's. His presence was explained as a way to fill a void left by Goyle- the actor broke his arm and couldn't participate in a few scenes because of it. They did something similar in the Deathly Hallows when the actor who played Crabbe was fired for marijuana possession and his role in the story went to Goyle. But for whatever reason, Draco Malfoy has to have a minimum of two cronies with him at all times.

Other things that were bugging were merely transitions from one scene to the next. I realize the Whomping Willow was integral to the third act, but cutting away to it because you had no better way to transition... I don't know, it felt kinda lazy to me. Not that they don't do this in the other movies, but still...
Then there's the opening scene where Harry casts Lumos Maxima... the only purpose it had was showing us the movie title and giving Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon) a smidge more screen time. Aside from that, Hogwarts students aren't allowed to use magic at home, so that's a major factual error... and no one uses this spell in the entire movie.

Also, considering how Lucius Malfoy (Draco's father) is one of the governors of the school and he's so upset about him getting attacked by that hippogriff in Hagrid's class, why didn't he show up for Buckbeak's execution? [IMDB answered that for me: Jason Isaacs was unavailable to shoot the scene]
Just for the heck of it, I revisited Cinema Sins's YouTube video on this movie...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gWHuiCIGG0

I still don't quite see eye to eye with them on these so-called "errors." Most of what they complain about it is explained in the books. I gotta quote Hermonine from the first movie: "Honestly, don't you two read?"
I will give them the student choir that sings "Something Wicked This Way Comes"... I realize that was the director's idea, but to me it just felt very random. As did the fact Professor Flitwick looked completely different in this movie and its sequels than he did in the original.
And the fact Pavarti changed the boggart from a cobra into an even scarier clown... WTF is up with that?

Additional Commentary
including some spoilers...

I love the moments in these movies (as well as the books) where Harry gets to learn more about his parents. It gives us more back story and Harry gets more of a sense of who he is and what his parents were like.
Remus Lupin wasn't just the best DADA Hogwarts has had so far (although to be fair, we didn't really see Quirrell teach and Gilderoy Lockart was incompetent) where he had a more practical approach with teaching the students magic. He was also a friend of Harry's dad, James, when they were in school. However much time they had together, Lupin was like a father figure to Harry that really looked out for him.

Although it would have been nice if Harry found out in the movie who created the Marauder's Map... clearly Snape and Lupin recognized it, but Harry never got to find out from Lupin that the four "marauders" that created this map of Hogwarts and all its secret passages and tunnels were him, his dad and two other characters we meet later in the story.
I can understand them not including the Quidditch Cup match, but that bit of backstory would have been a cool addition. Just saying...

The antagonism between Snape and Lupin harkens back to their school days. Although Lupin's "secret" has an stigma that has plagued him from a young age and made friendship and relationships difficult for him to maintain. According to Pottermore, J.K. Rowling imagined Lupin's being a werewolf as the magical equivalent to having AIDS. Granted, being a werewolf is more deadly and harder to control.
Also interesting to note from Pottermore was that Lupin disapproved of James's bullying of Snape, but was afraid speaking his mind would cost him their friendship. It was simply part of his character that he never asked for too much, simply wanting to be included when his condition made life very lonely for him.

What wasn't covered as much in the book was additional Care of Magical Creatures classes, although it wouldn't have been as engaging to the audience. Hagrid started so big with the hippogriff, as impressive as it was (the CGI still enamors me), but after the incident with Draco Malfoy (who really did deserve to be attacked by Buckbeak after Hagrid explained how hippogriffs are EASILY OFFENDED and insulting them may be "the last time you ever do"), he lost confidence in himself and resorted to lessons on lesser/boring and/or unpleasant creatures like Blast-ended Skewts. [I believe the level of excitement of that would be dissecting worms with slight chance of small explosions].

My favorite scene is probably the Hogsmeade scene where Harry find out that Sirius Black betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, leading to their murder. One of the few instances where the movie far surpassed the book. In the book, Harry, Ron and Hermonine snuck into one of the pubs and overheard the revelation under the Invisibility Cloak. The chapter ended with Harry just being lost for words. In the movie, he's alone, rushes out of the pub and Ron and Hermonine come after him for answers.
Daniel Radcliffe doesn't often to get enough credit for his acting, but even though we can't see him [with the Cloak], hearing him cry in response to all this really pulled me into this scene. But maybe that's me being a sucker for a guy who's able to show that degree of emotion. The opposite sex is always so safeguarded about that stuff, to see otherwise in film or TV makes me respond to them more. (Ironically, when I'm crying, it's always awkward and when girls cry, it ranges from embarrassing to comical).

And knowing the truth about Sirius Black doesn't diminish this at all... mainly because the emotion is that tangible [okay, I'm done gushing about that :P] but also because Harry's parents were still betrayed... just by a different friend/marauder. (Heck, this book/movie could have been called Harry Potter and The Marauders... except that it might be mistaken for a movie about pirates, lol).
Apparently, the Potters went into hiding when Voldemort marked them as his next target and hiding included the Fidelius Charm. Only one person, the Secret-Keeper is given their location and only out of free will can he reveal it. Sirius Black was known to be this person. But what wasn't known before the events of this book/movie was that he passed the charm onto someone else and that person [who is possibly the world's biggest coward] betrayed them to Voldemort.

What I will say about this big reveal... I had a different reaction than I did with Professor Quirrell [amazing twist! okay, I'll stop]... first it was very confusing how Lupin was embracing him and it was revealed that they were friends so I was afraid Lupin was an additional villain.
Then when all the dust cleared, my reaction was either "Are you serious?!" or "Give me a break! He was GOOD this entire time?!" It was just kinda ridiculous... but maybe I should blame JK Rowling :P for making us believe "the least likely suspect" is the bad guy and the guy you thought was bad was good. But then I spent the entire series thinking Snape was evil and waited to see him reveal himself.... but more on that in future Harry Potter reviews.

It also kinda sucked how we got teased into believing Harry could finally get away from the Dursleys and live with Sirius (who happens to be his godfather) and ultimately all he gets is a signed permission slip to Hogsmeade (no invisibility cloak or Marauder's Map required).

Final Words

Of course I can't finish this without discussing the most obvious topic: the new casting of Dumbledore. [I think it was Robot Chicken that had a sketch with a black Dumbledore joking "I'm played by a different actor in every movie."]
I read the books with Richard Harris in my head as Dumbledore and even today, that remains true. I became more accepting of Michael Gambon through the course of the rest of the movies... but in many instances, I still don't feel that same connection. The whimsical nature of his dialogue remains through much of it, but that goes more to the script than the acting.
It's also kinda astounding Michael Gambon never read the books while filming and neither did the director (who saw neither of the movies). Considering the creep factor this movie has in places, he was definitely the right director for the job and I appreciate he wanted to cast it in his own style. The shrunken heads were a nice touch :P it certainly helped make the Knight Bus sequence funnier. It was also interesting how he had the three actors do an essay on their characters... if only my assignments in school were that cool.

The dementors were definitely scary in this movie... not as bad as the spiders in the previous movie, but they were scary. Even without Harry's specific weakness to them, I probably wouldn't have lasted a minute with them.
My assault on the adaptation of "Order of the Phoenix" will come at a later date, but as a preview, I HATE how they changed the look of the dementors. They were reduced to a cartoonish visual effect that would only give a Syfy Original movie a slight boost of realness.

And last: my second favorite scene is where the Weasley Twins give Harry the Marauder's Map. Other than a few quick witty lines, they had nothing to do in the previous films. Here, they got to work the magic of their chemistry ala twin clichés :P you know, how they finish each other's sentences. Sure, the dialogue reads like you're getting a task in an RPG video game, but I just enjoy it so much.

26. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

{in this exact clip, he actually says the film's title!}

Code-name: Whackbat



Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: (book) Roald Dahl, (screenplay) Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach
Type: book-to-movie adaptation, animated, dramedy

Cast:
Mr. Fox- George Clooney
Felicity Fox- Meryl Streep
Ash- Jason Schwartzman
Kristofferson- Eric Anderson (Wes's brother)
Badger- Bill Murray
Kylie the Possum- Wally Wolodarksy
Coach Skip- Owen Wilson
Agnes- Juman Malouf
Rabbit- Mario Batali
Boggis- Robin Hurlstone
Bunce- Hugo Guinness
Bean- Michael Gambon
Rat- Williem Dafoe
Petey- Jarvis Cocker

Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Animated Film
OSCAR- Best Original Score- Alexandre Desplat (another frequent collaborator of Wes Anderson's)
Golden Globe- Best Animated Film

Write-up:

INTRODUCTION

According to my other blog, I first saw this movie on Cinemax in October of 2010 and these were my first "in-a-nutshell" thoughts.

As for “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” George Clooney does not disappoint. The movie was not necessarily my cup of tea, but the edginess of it, including the animation won me over. It fascinates and captivates at the same time. The humor derives from some new jokes that haven’t been overclichéd and there are some old jokes in there that have been heard in other movies. In a word, I say its charming.

Charming and incredibly quirky.

I've come into other Wes Anderson movies expecting the same thing. So far, only "The Grand Budapest Hotel" delivered on that. As I might have stated previously, if there was any humor in "The Royal Tenenbaums," it was lost on me... and "Moonrise Kingdom" could have been better if it wasn't taken so seriously with the "Romeo & Juliet"-esque storyline.

Is it silly to expect the same thing in every movie an actor or director does?
Yes, but that's just how I roll.

When I first became aware of this movie, I didn't know what to think. It seemed so different on the animation alone, but since it got good reviews, I had to check it out.

Anyone who read my reviews for "She's out of my league" and "Easy A" knows how I saw lots of movies in 2010 and my favorites were the ones with the most unique writing.
It might have gotten to a point with me where I'd seen so many movies that I was getting sick of their predictability. Luckily, I came across gems like this one that kept me engaged in this medium.

PLOT

Back in the day, Mr. Fox was all about the danger of being a wild animal, stealing various fowl from farmers. But when he and his wife find themselves in a fox trap, he obeys her wish to give up this life for a less hazardous one.

Fast-forward 2 years (12 fox years) later:
He writes a newspaper column, she paints thunderstorm-laden landscapes for a hobby and their son Ash aspires to be an athlete.

Mr. Fox moves his family to a large oak tree at, in his view, an ideal location. It happens to have easy access to three notorious farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
Just for the heck of it, he and his new partner-in-crime Kylie break into the farms night after night to steal chickens, ducks, geese and squab ("whatever they are"). Ultimately, this gives way to some pretty dramatic consequences for the Foxes and the other animals.

The animals struggle to survive. Mr. Fox's marriage gets rocky. Ash deals with some growing pains including dealing with the arrival of his "perfect" yet humble cousin Kristofferson. And the animals give the farmers their comeuppance.

All the while, despite all the drama, hilarity ensues whenever the cracks allow. Which is pretty often ;)

CHARACTERS and ACTORS

We're talking an all-star cast here. Not surprisingly, Wes Anderson has his favorites. Bill Murray obviously. At least one Wilson brother (Owen Wilson is practically a cameo but it's a great one). Jason Schwartzman, who first worked with Wes Anderson in "Rushmore" (another film I gotta see for him and the writer/director).

Willem Dafoe played the psychotic rat that guards Mr. Bean's alcoholic "tastes like melted gold" cider, making a pretty good secondary villain. But I'm not sure anyone caught onto the fact it was him doing the voice. I certainly didn't and I was thinking during "The Grand Budapest Hotel" that it was his first time working with Wes Anderson. Plays a really good villain in that too ;)

Then there're the big guns of Clooney and Streep and Gambon.

In the right context, I love Meryl Streep. But I'm not the biggest fan when it comes to awards season and when she's cast because moviemakers believe they need a name as big as hers to give their project credibility. (Trust me, when "The Giver" comes out, I will be vocal about casting her... among several other things because it's my favorite book).

Michael Gambon plays "possibly the scariest man currently living" Mr. Bean, which is an interesting contrast to the role I will forever associate him with... Professor Dumbledore.
Sure, on looks alone, Richard Harris will always be the Dumbledore I picture when I re-read the books, but you see one actor play the same role over a decade... that stuff sticks with you :-P

Of course, last but not least is George Clooney.
I could care less that he plays the same character in every movie (particularly ones like this, "Ocean's 11" and "The Monuments Men" where he leads heist operations), he's always so pleasant to watch. He's the only actor I can confidently consider a "movie star" because he's a class act and a really nice guy.

Nobody else could play the incorrigible Mr. Fox as good as him. Not in a million years :-P

THE ATHLETE

All of these characters have their faults. Second only to the Fantastic Mr. Fox himself is his son, Ash.

My memory has faded over the years that've passed, but I'm convinced that I stuck through this movie because I'm very partial to that name. My first love, who first inspired me to write, had that name.

I don't know why I find Ash such a compelling character. Maybe it's all about Jason Schwartzman's voice, how he was so perfect as this character. This was my first encounter with him. I've been known to follow actors around like a lost puppy when I fall in love with their voices (Haley Joel Osment is the biggest example of that for me). Oddly enough, so far the movies I've found him in (Scott Pilgrim, The Grand Budapest Hotel) were purely coincidental 8-)

Either way, yeah, he's rude, but I loved his insistence of his athletic status when all but one final scene showed otherwise. (The final scene was the best pay-off this movie has, at least in my book).

Also love this set of dialogue and how he ends it.

Felicity: we all know what it's like to be... different
Ash: but I'm not different. Am I?
Felicity: we all are. Him especially (points to Mr. Fox) but there's something fantastic about that, isn't there? (leaves)
Ash: hmm, not to me, I prefer to be an athlete

(when the situation calls for it, I always love quoting that final line... yeah, I am a total nerd)

On the other hand, we have Kristofferson. He's staying with the Foxes because his father (Felicity's brother) is suffering from double pneumonia. In a short time, Ash takes a strong disliking to him. Particularly when he unassumingly captures the affections of Agnes, another fox at their school, but most notably when he shows him up in gym class;

WHACK-BAT

This is my favorite scene in this movie.
1) because it stars Owen Wilson as the school coach
2) it has great dialogue ("that's the first time that kid has ever swung a whack bat?")
3) the sport itself

Throughout our trip to Sydney, Australia, which was a couple months after I saw this movie, I couldn't help but think of "whack bat" whenever we were trying to discern the mystery of cricket. One dude we met at a pub tried to explain it to us, but his speech was unintelligible after all the drinks he had.

I still don't get whack-bat, but I find it so intriguing. This is the only dialogue we have to go on:
"Basically, there's three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and a player at Whackbat. Center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine."

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

If it's not random quotes, its entire scenes that make me geek-out when I watch this movie because I find them oddly compelling.
The greatest example is when Mr. Fox is delegating tasks to the other animals, calling them by their Latin names. So many random answers. Like Badger says he's a demolitions' expert. And how he enthusiastically shakes weasel, rattles off his Latin name while he responds "Stop yelling!"

There are a dozen great scenes that are just full of laughs, varying from ha-ha funny to slow-burn laughs you have to think about.

Or just running gags.

Like every now and then, Kylie gets the "psycho" look in his eyes where his pupils are the shape of spirals :-P it's even funnier when Mr. Fox gets it after running away from a beagle suffering from Rabies in one of the latter scenes.
Or the ransom notes (where the letters are cut out from magazines to "hide" identities of the letter writers) where the characters break the fourth wall just to get us to laugh.
Or when Mr. Fox has his trademark click and whistle and Kylie asks about it during the final mission to rescue Kristofferson and get back at the farmers. Then later on tries to establish his own trademark and kinda fails at it, lol
Or how they use the word "cuss" whenever they're spewing profanities because it keeps the movie PG. Every now and then, I will use the word "cuss" in my writing for that reason alone. My favorite "cuss" scene is where Mr. Fox and the Badger go at it after Badger says "the cuss you are" and Mr. Fox responds "The cuss am I?"

One oddly cool moment is where Mr. Fox confronts his phobia of wolves (which he brings up a couple times before hand) when he comes across one. There's no dialogue exchanged (at least not by the wolf), but both of them raise their hands in the air out of respect for one another.

It's all about the quirky details and subtle moments with this movie. The way I see it, you either go crazy for it or you just don't get it. But if you're open to something different, this is definitely a good movie to get into.

COMING SOON

Don't know how many people read my previous entry, but forgetting my place in my countdown, I gave away I had another Downey film coming up.

Not just because this particular movie is great in its own right and not just because he actually won something for it (yep, I just gave it away right there, lol), but because the impact it had on me was pretty substantial.

All the more reason to one day aspire to do a "6 degrees of Downey" entry (take that, Kevin Bacon!) where I go into the amazing people and things that might not have been on my radar had it not been for his involvement.