Film is a big-budget industry, but sometimes even multi-million-dollar projects can use a dose of DIY ingenuity. Usually featured in movies where fantasy or dreams play a major role, arts and crafts can introduce surrealism into a narrative and lighten even the darkest of tales through cut-paper sets, felt sculptures, and cardboard cities. While some directors get their craft on through creative characters that fashion homemade treasures of their own, others incorporate it into their production design. Check out some of our favorite films that boast an arts-and-crafts aesthetic, from such auteurs as Michel Gondry, Miranda July, Spike Jonze, and Wes Anderson, after the jump. Read More »
In an interview with Donald Sturrock, Roald Dahl once said, “I go down to my little hut, where it’s tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again.” And that is exactly why we love Dahl — for his ability to get childhood exactly right. It’s a scary world out there, and tall people with bad facial hair and even worse attitudes tend to run the show, which makes life especially frightening to those of us who are less colossal or hirsute. In honor of the English novelist’s recent birthday, we present a group of memorable villains from his children’s stories. We suggest that you take one of the books below and hole away for a few hours, remembering what it’s like to be a kid. For more information about the English author, visit his official website, which is incredibly fun to navigate. Why not send a “glorumptious greeting e-card” to a friend?
If you’re feeling nostalgic for childhood stories, then Jayme McGowan, the creative spirit behind Roadside Projects, is the artist for you! Drawing inspiration from fables, novels and fairy tales, the Sacramento-stationed illustrator creates gorgeous, kaleidoscopic-hued 3D illustrations. For her Paper Dahls series, McGowan tears the magical worlds of Roald Dahl off the page, depicting scenes from Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more. She has also taken on Where The Wild Things Are, dabbled in fairy tales with Little Red Riding Hood, and produced odes to Disney’s Snow White and Alice In Wonderland. Relive your adored childhood book memories after the cut.
Wes Anderson seems to be on a bit of an adaptation streak. His most recent release, a stop-motion remake of Roald Dahl’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox managed to garner $260,000 in its first weekend, despite having only been released to four theaters. We hear there may even be a comic book spin-off in the works. The film is one of 20 submitted for Oscar consideration this year in the category of Best Animated Feature.
Now word comes that Anderson has finished the script for his adaptation of Patrice Leconte’s 2006 French film, Mon Meilleur Ami, or My Best Friend. His version, titled The Rosenthaler Suite, closely follows the original tale of a workaholic art dealer who doesn’t know the meaning of friendship, and much less care about it.
With Wes Anderson’s film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox coming out this weekend, every Zissou-loving, B.F.G.-worshiping and Bill Murray-enthusiast cinema go-er is salivating with anticipation. Anderson, a master of whimsical dark comedy, chose to adapt the beloved children’s story into his first-ever animated feature film.
The medium? Stop motion. A meticulous animation technique that links hundreds of individual photos to create an illusion of movement, stop motion has been around for decades and continues to mesmerize viewers. In the past few years, the music industry has grown hip to this classic technique and has begun employing it in many a music video. Some of our favorites are after the jump.
Fantastic Mr. Fox, a children’s story about an artful poultry-stealing gentleman fox, was written by Roald Dahl in 1970. 39 years later, indie director Wes Anderson brings Mr. Fox and his brethren to the silver screen with minutely detailed stop-motion animation and trademark Anderson quirk.
Jason Schwartzman, the voice of Ash Fox, describes this new venture in storytelling as “familiar, but on some new trip,” and he would know. Though he’s worked with Anderson, his self-professed “best friend,” on two previous movies and one short film, Fantastic Mr. Fox presented new challenges in movie-making: imagine, for example, the core characters gathering on a farm in Connecticut to record dialogue in real time, complete with howling, digging in the dirt, and wind whistling through trees. The result, a surprising and thoroughly delightful romp through a literary English countryside, is a new tableau to which Anderson has applied his singular, curated vision.
We sat down with Schwartzman to talk BFFs, script vetting, and his experience with not getting the girl.
Being Rushmore‘s Max Fischer for Halloween is played out. A Royal Tenenbaum? Too risky. Get with the now — go as a family of foxes from Wes Anderson’s upcoming Fantastic Mr. Fox. Fox Searchlight and Gen Art conducted a competition for the best mini “how to make a Fantastic Mr. Fox costume” tutorial film. The results range from a Wes Anderson-inspired yellow font film to a step by step lesson in the science of rabbit costume making. Which do you like most? Check out the four winning videos after the jump.
We’ve mentioned, but we think Wes Anderson has good taste in music: as colorful as his films, deliberate as his methods, and more poignant than his characters. His past movies have reinvented the pool party with the Kinks, managed to make Elliot Smith just a little bit sadder, and left us wishing that Shark Week was scored by Sigur Ros. Can he keep this touch with Fantastic Mr. Fox, his upcoming foray into animation?
The tracklists for two of the fall’s most anticipated films were both announced today: New Moon (which is already selling out theaters two months ahead of time) and Wes Anderson’s foray into animation, Fantastic Mr. Fox. While we’ve previously reported on Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s unlikely taste in indie rock, we have to admit that we’re impressed by the talent assembled by the film’s music director. On the flip side, we’ve bought every soundtrack for every Anderson film to date. He is the master of the classic rock film cue. Read More »
For Wes Anderson fans, this news is the most exciting thing since Jason Shwartzman hit puberty. Fantastic Mr. Fox is the new movie from cult film director Wes Anderson (Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore). With rumors astir that the film is set to debut at George Clooney’s new “Nobel Peace Prize” cinema in the earthquake-stricken San Demetrio, JoBlo has fittingly revealed the only screenshot from the director’s first animated film (stop-motion, to be exact). Voice acted by George Clooney, Jason Shwartzman, Meryl Streep and Billy Murray, the movie is a Roald Dahl adaptation by the same name, in which a fantastic fox steals from farmers rich with cruelty and gives to the poor woodland creatures.
