Day 9: A Fantastic Film about a Fox

Some movies are good.  Others are bad.  A there are a few that are just so randomly weird and goofy, you just want to watch it again to see what you missed the first time around.

It was getting late on Monday, and I had yet to find the new thing to do.  THen i remembered that in the mail, courtesy of Netflix and my local postman, the film The Fantastic Mr. Fox had arrived.  The film would be shown on Wednesday to my advanced video production students who were going to work on an animation within the coming weeks.  So to toggle their brains a bit, I was going to show them a stop motion film.

Last year we watched “A Town Called Panic,” a brilliant little French stop motion film.  This year, I decided to throw in something new.

In the middle of my classroom, there was a poster for this film.  Yet like many of the movie posters in my classroom, I had yet to see this film.  This would change.

poster

So back to Monday.  I put in the DVD into the Apple Desktop that I am borrowing from work (how could i resist a 27 inch screen to work on videos and lesson plans???).  ANd soon, after the many trailers, the film began.

What followed was about 85 minutes of goofy story telling, clever puns, and whimsically silly stop motion animation.  Aside from indie dramas with dramatic twists, I think goofy and random stop motions are my next favorite film genre.  Yes, I said genre.  Sue me if you don’t find “goofy and random stop motions” as an official genre.

Who cares.

The Main Character, Mr. Fox, voiced by George Clooney, and his wife Fox, voiced by Meryl Streep, as well as the cast of animals and other foxes, with familiar celebrity voices being heard here and there, brought me to a place long forgotten.  I felt as if I was 5, and as If i wasnt really watching a film, but really just listening to someone read a book while the images of the story were being created in my sub conscious.

WHen the film ended, I removed the disk and went to sleep, knowing that the kids would probably like this movie as much as I did.

At least those who would stay awake while we watched it in class.