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Fantastic Mr. Fox Review

August 29, 2017 by JD Hansel

It takes a special kind of director to get a very unconventional film with a lot of creative ideas and an original approach or style produced and distributed by Hollywood. Fortunately, Wes Anderson has somehow – and don’t ask me how – found a way to get his bizarre art projects out there time and time again, but Hollywood still has its concerns about how audiences may be alienated by an Anderson-level of creativity. I shared the same concerns when I put this movie up on the big screen in my family’s house and let whoever wanted to see it join me. It was hard for me to tell how they would react – and even how I would react – since the combination of elements this film has is so bizarre.

The first thing to note is that this is, in the end, and animated children’s film, and the movie’s trailers delight in reminding the viewer of that. Many of the jokes have the feeling of those in kids’ films, as do the messages about family and accepting one’s own differences and the collective coming together to save their way of life and such. The film uses famous pop music, like most kids’ movies, but this one features “Heroes & Villains.” The film has a cast of celebrities, like most kids’ movies, but this features Meryl Streep, George Clooney, and Michael Gambon. Oddly, the actors’ talents are almost wasted on a film with such dry performances – the tone of most of the humor is sort of awkwardly colorless (not in a bad way) which is perhaps best compared to the old “Peanuts” specials. What’s most strange, of course, is that this lifeless tone is part of the visual style too: Anderson’s trademarked mix of warm colors with cold, mechanical form.

Interestingly, my 17-year-old brother loved it, and considers it one of his favorite movies, but I still didn’t know what a child would think. Then my little sister walked in about halfway through, and she also loved it (particularly for the fun song about the villains, but also because she’s a Dahl fan). Of course, what I’m most happy about is that I liked it. I can’t get into everything about Wes Anderson’s style – he and I have different tastes in terms of desired affects – but by and large, this movie is for me. It’s such a funny, charming, unique, and creative spin on the genre of animated children’s films that I can’t help but appreciate it.

Coraline Review

July 8, 2017 by JD Hansel

I know everyone who likes Tim Burton and cares about Christmas and animation is supposed to love Nightmare Before Christmas, but I’ve honestly never been a huge fan. It has positive elements and is very creative, but I find it slow and boring. I also don’t love the visual style as much as I’d like to – something about it feels lacking to me. The music irritates me too – that “This Is Halloween” song is pretty good, but the rest of the soundtrack is difficult for me to sit through. I guess I ought to watch it again sometime soon and see if my tastes have changed now, but I remember not liking it as much as I wanted to. James and the Giant Peach is another film by the same director, Henry Selick, but I’ve never felt like watching it because what parts of it I did see as a child were really off-putting for me then, so I still think negatively of it now (even if I don’t have very good reasons). Coraline, however, has intrigued me on some level ever since I saw the trailer when I was much younger, and I’ve been in the mood to watch more stop-motion lately, so I decided to try this one on for size.

By gosh, what a beauty.

We see in Coraline an excellent experiment in taking all of a child’s fears, dreams, anxieties, hopes, annoyances, and pleasures and rolling them up into one nightmarish package. On the one hand, it addresses fairly normal frustrations for children to deal with – moving away, meeting new, strange neighbors, finding vermin in the house, running out of things to do outside, and dealing with parents who don’t usually show how much they love their children (at least not in the usual ways). This makes the movie not only relatable, but approachable. Then there’s the flip side – the part of the film that plays with the viewer’s psychology, almost like a surrealist artist might. Selick plays with impostor anxieties, false paradise anxieties, deoculation anxieties, “living toy” anxieties, insect anxieties, and more, all while retaining a charming children’s book feel. It never feels like it’s trying too hard to be a horror movie – it’s just creepy and uncanny without apologies, and it’s entirely fun, whimsical, and brilliantly creative along the way. While I have some tiny gripes with it and I suspect some parents would find parts of it inappropriate for their children, I consider this film a masterpiece, for both its mouth-watering visuals and its wonderful storytelling.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Review

September 10, 2014 by JD Hansel

(SPOILERS)

I think a better name for this film would have been Harry Potter and the Half As Much Snogging As There Should Have Been, because frankly, it’s all about the characters and their relationships. The characters’ relationships are what have me anxiously watching the film and enjoying it. Harry and Ginny keep one glued to the screen, and Hermione and Ron even more so. The scene with Ron as he unconsciously mutters Hermione’s name is absolutely brilliant. I would have written something like that myself if I could have thought to do it that way. What makes that scene even more delightful is Snape standing there, presumably trying not to vomit. I think this film makes the main characters, especially Hermione, finally get the attention they should have had in the third and fourth films.

Oh, and there’s also a plot in this movie somewhere, but it’s not very strong. In the end, we learn that the task that Harry must complete in the climax of the film (if you can call it that) really doesn’t do much good. All of the efforts made by the characters in this film seem somehow futile, aside from giving them an idea of what they need to accomplish in the next film. It feels empty, and all of the focus on the Half-Blood Prince does not help. It might have meant something had it been revealed in the end that Snape was evil rather than at the beginning of the film, but because of the way this was set up, the big reveal does not feel very big at all. The Half-Blood Prince could have been just about anyone and it wouldn’t have made a difference: Lucius Malfoy, Hagrid, Dobby, Hedwig, or H. R. Pufnstuf.

The ending with the death of Dumbledore does emotionally impact the audience, and it is rather well done, but because this is pretty much the note we end on, the movie just doesn’t feel complete. It seems like this whole year was just setting up for the events of the year to come, which it kind of was, but a movie should not feel like it as one watches it. It’s like when I order an expensive meal at a restaurant, eat it all, and I’m surprised to find it was not filling at all and I’m still hungry. Still, even if making the movie was just an excuse to show the scene with unconscious Ron mumbling about Hermione, I’d be totally okay with that and I could forgive many other aspects of the film. Also, my rating of this film is right on the border between 3.5 stars and 4 stars, and this was a very, very difficult decision. Sadly, because its story is weak, I do not think it would be fair to give it the same rating as I gave movies 2 and 5.