Fantastic Mr. Fox

        This one is full of firsts for me. For one thing, this is the first Wes Anderson film that I’ve seen in its entirety, the first stop-motion animated movie that I’ll be talking about. Wes Anderson films are an acquired taste, and I’ll explain what I mean in a moment. I picked this one to wrap up my look into Roald Dahl’s works because of how unique it is as an animated movie. While it’s rated PG, the main movie is mostly for adults. Just typing this is strange, but let’s get to it. 

1. Wes Anderson

        This is now the third time I talked about a director hailing from the Lone Star State. Three years ago, I talked about Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. This year I dedicated a month of Robert Rodriguez and now to Wes Anderson. Both him and Rodriguez hailed from UT Austin’s Film School. To describe his work is something like this. When you watch any of his films post 2004, it has that flatness to it. 

        Just looking at any stills of this movie is indicative of how most of his movies look like. For one thing, it reminds me of looking at a play since the stage is flat and just seeing it in a projected screen feels intentional. Quirky is the one word that is probably the most associated when any discussion is about him. It’s unorthodox since we’re so used to having dialogue being shoulder to shoulder and how the characters use the set instead of being planted in the middle of it with the camera pointing directly at them. 

        This is also his first stop motion film. I’m surprised that then 20th Century Fox was more than willing to be the main distributor. Honestly, it belongs in the big-indie Fox Searchlight Pictures line more than anything since they’re more director driven. Aside from that, Anderson has made a name for his style that has its dedicated fan base. It’s extremely niche but he manages to make movies that are greatly well received. 

2. Mr. Fox’s Midlife Crisis

        As I mentioned before, this is the most adult-oriented PG movie that I’ve seen so far. We follow Mr. Fox and his family living in their home. Mr. Fox wants to relive his exploits of being a thief. He does so by stealing neighboring human farmers animals and cider. Unbeknownst to him, the trio are aware of his exploits and plotting to get rid of all the animals. 

        Mr. Fox is an interesting character, among all the main characters that I talked about this month. He’s a fox but acts like a domesticated person. We see in his perspective that he wants to help his family advance by finding a new home but go through the means of acting like a scavenger to provide food. It’s that kind of problem that represents what the film is about. 

        Survival is the main theme I believe for the whole movie. Mr. Fox does things that he never thinks for a moment will blow back in his community. He does steal things to fulfill his life he thinks is missing. When really, it’s his own family that is the thing that’s filling the gap. It’s the balance between doing something logically and doing something that is within his nature that is affecting him.

        One scene in particular drive that point home. We see Fox talk about a wolf and how he’s afraid of him. After completing the final hurdle to get back against the farmer, Fox and his family see the Wolf in the countryside. Fox tries to communicate with it, but only raising a fist as the Wolf repeats what he did. This scene is indicative of how Mr. Fox is able to understand his wild side which makes him act like he has a crisis in his life. It puts things into perspective where both animals are indeed wild and only acting by means of survival. 

3. Overall

        Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of those unorthodox, animated films that any adult can gravitate to. It uses animation’s trope of talking animals in a profound way that is enjoyable. 

Matilda (1996) Review

        This one is personal to me. While a lot of people can say that Willy Wonka was their first exposure of Roald Dahl cinematically speaking. Matilda was my first when I was in elementary school. It’s often considered the best of Roald Dahl’s adaptations. The movie is about as sweet as you can imagine. So let’s talk about it. 

1. Matilda 

        The way it starts sort of unsettled me when we see solid colors transition from one to another. We see the young girl after birth and the shot with Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman looking disgusted is just hilarious. From there, Matilda isn’t like her family since she loves to read books. Her Dad enrolls her in a school that’s unlike any other with the evil Trunchbull running it. 

        Mara Wilson does a good job with portraying the protagonist. She got her big shot with Robin Williams in the film Mrs. Doubtfire, but many consider this movie to be the best one she’s in. The fact that the character is self-sufficient without any adult supervision is utterly crazy. It just goes to show you that the adults in her world are just careless and clueless. 

        While I’ll talk about them in a bit, the one thing that I was not expecting was her secret gift. I love that as the film progresses, we sort of see her slowly get the hang of her powers. I tend to think that in the context of the story is that it’s sort of like her coping mechanism since she’s practically ignored by her parents. Like her powers is sort of like a thing that any kid can picture themselves having. 

        Aside from that, she’s intelligent to an incredible degree. I’m glad that the movie goes out of its way to show that she goes to the local library and just dives into literature. What I like is that before we even get a glimpse or just have a clue that she’s gifted, she mostly uses her intelligence to get back at her parents. More so that she has the guts to tell her own Dad that he’s a crook for selling defective cars. 

2. Adults

        Aside from Matilda, both DeVito and Perlman are hilarious as the Wormwoods. The fact that they don’t care about their two kids is really something. More so, the Dad’s the only breadwinner and the Mom is just a habitual Bingo player. They practically scoff at the idea of getting an education when the teacher Ms. Honey confronts the parents. And in some way, since it’s kind of odd for DeVito to narrate the film and star, I feel that the narration in the film is like a way for him to really grasp how smart his child is. 

        Like, the narration is something of a catharsis since I’m interpreting it as a way for him to basically recount how he practically gave his daughter up for an immediate adoption. Other than that, the Trunchbull is just purely sadistic. I haven’t read the book, but from what I read is that the actress portraying the Trunchbull is near perfect. She just punishes a student for anything, is just cruel. The film shows that her personality stems from her being a former Olympian. Especially in competing in the Munich Olympics. I don’t have to explain everything, but it suits her character. 

        One scene is when she singles out this one boy for eating a piece of cake. She has the school’s cook bake an entire cake for the kid to eat. We see just how much is too much since the kid is stuffed. Just when Matilda rallies her classmates to cheer on the kid, the principle immediately ends it by smashing the plate on the kids head. This is one thing where the film is mostly about the abuse of authority. And how it can be abused in a setting where a kid is supposed to learn instead of just being forced to be taught. 

        The only good adult is Matilda’s teacher Ms. Honey. She’s probably every kids dream of a teacher. Her calm demeaner and overall personality is the only bright spot within the confines of the school. It’s one thing where both her and Matilda are exactly alike, right down to them spending time after school. It’s endearing to see and rewarding since the ending of the film has them be together. 

3. Legacy

        While the movie was greatly received critically, it didn’t do so well in the box office. When it debuted, the film Independence Day practically dominated every theater. Additionally, it has this homely feeling since it feels like something you can watch in home instead of in the theaters. Inevitably, it became a cult-classic with physical media and a darling among my generation. Just last year, there was a musical adaptation based on the theater musical. That one’s enjoyable and it's on par with this one. 

4. Overall

        Matilda is one of the best kid films, and absolutely up there with the best Roald Dahl movies. 

The Witches (1990) Review

        My look into Roald Dahl films continues. Based on his 14th novel of the same name, The Witches is an interesting movie adaptation. There’s tints of child-like horror and innocence in the movie that is vastly different from his last adaptation that we talked about last time. And well, this wasn’t my first exposure to the story. Three years ago, director Robert Zemeckis did his adaptation and well, I’ll talk about it. With that, here’s what I think about the original from 1990.

1. Luke and Helga

        This is the second adaptation where the young kid and their grandparent are central elements in the story. Anyways, we follow Luke and his grandmother Helga in Norway. She tells him a story about witches and how they’re everywhere in the world. It would be one thing where she tells him the tale and just leave it at that. What I like too in those opening moments is how Luke basically wants to know more. And Helga practically knows how the witches operate. 

        We see Luke’s parents for a few, but they don’t come back. Dealing with the grief, both Luke and Helga spend some time in England at a seaside resort. Unbeknownst to them that the same hotel is hosting the Witches. The whole movie has this child-like thing going for it, much like Willy Wonka before. It especially helps when we hear Helga delivering the expositive details about the witches and how she saw them. 

        Just the first victim we see shows just how cruel and malicious they are. More so how what one witch does to a young girl, by trapping her inside a painting. Compounding the cruelty is that the young girl slowly ages and dies inside the painting. In the context of the movie, it’s a good story for Luke since there’s a hint that his grandmother saw it first-hand. Or in this case, she’s missing a finger since she had an encounter. 

2. The Witches

        Anjelica Huston has confirmed that the role as the Grand High Witch is her personal favorite. Before we even get the reveal, the witches look like any other woman. Right down to where we see one almost snatch Luke in his treehouse. Subtle clues like whenever we see a witch up close, the pupils in their eyes light up. I think it’s a drastic departure of what people think of a witch. 

        No broomsticks or the obligatory black cauldrons show up in the movie. They don’t look haggish initially, just seemingly normal women that tries to either lure or stalk a child. Luke comes across one in the beginning and tries to offer him a chocolate bar and a snake for some reason. I like that he doesn’t fall for it and remembers what his grandmother told him from the stories. 

        The main highlight in the film is that we see what they really look like. The level of prosthetic that is used for Huston’s character is crazy. That’s when you know she is the Grand High Witch. All the other witches are mostly bald with rash marks on their scalp. Huston is basically one above all among her brood. Right down to killing one witch who questions her plan. The prosthetic took eight hours to set up and remove, her height as well enhances her domineering role.

        This is pretty much on par with having a villain be a child threat, and the main hero being a kid that’s tasked to stop her. There are even camera shots of the witches being too close to the camera, emphasizing the level of uncomfortableness. Even though he’s a mouse, he manages to conquer his fear and attempts to put an end to the villain’s scheme. With Jim Henson’s company working on the puppetry, I’m glad that it gives us an almost realistic looking mouse. 

        Now, it would be one thing where they would have an actual mouse just run around. I will at least give credit to Henson’s company to make the puppet mouse be lively. The attention to detail where we see Luke and his new friend Bruno is also good. Having the sets be larger versions of the actual set so that we can have that illusion when we see the mice puppets. 

3. Legacy

        Just like Willy Wonka before, Dahl hated the movie. And reading the synopsis for the book justifies his reaction. The book ends on a triumphant but gloomy way. Dahl was considering taking his name off the movie, just before Jim Henson persuaded him not to. It’s tough to have the original ending since it contrasted with what the character went through. I can at least say that he saw the film with his ending and the more audience favored ending. Matter of fact, this was the last time both Henson and Dahl had a hand in a movie. They died just after the movie came out. 

        As I mentioned before, the book was adapted once again back in 2020 by Robert Zemeckis. Seeing snippets of that one and the Huston version led me to believe that the new one was inferior. Albeit the new one leaned more heavily towards the source material. I think the problem with the new one was that the witches didn’t look grotesque. Anne Hathaway’s witch appearance resembled more like Pennywise without the makeup. While that’s the least of the film’s problem, it wasn’t received well. 

4. Overall

        The Witches is one of the darkest of Roald Dahl’s adaptations. Darker in a way that only a kid can enjoy. 

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

        After an extended period of time, I’m glad to be back. Since this is the back-to-school phase of the year, it only made sense to talk about the movies that are adapted from beloved author Roald Dahl. Quite a journey he had since he fought during World War 2 and was ranked Wing Commander. From there he transitioned to being an author for both children and adults, with his famous works being remembered by kids. I’ve only read one of his books “The BFG” when I was in elementary. More so, he wrote for Hollywood. One of them being a James Bond film. 

1. Charlie and The Golden Tickets

        One last thing I wanted to bring up about Dahl, he’s one of the few authors to write their adaptation for film. Albeit, the songs were written before an actual script was made. Anyways, we follow Charlie as he’s the lone breadwinner for his mother and his grandparents. Him and everyone else receive news that the elusive Willy Wonka has created a contest by placing Tickets inside a select few chocolate bars. 

        Aside from Gene Wilder who I’ll get into, Charlie Bucket is the main star of the film. We really get a sense of who he is as a character before he steps into the factory. One scene that best represents his situation is when we first see the candy shop. When he looks through the window, it’s like the kids are at a party and he’s not invited. Context wise, they have money but Charlie spends his money just for his family. 

        He really is the selfless one, and he’s determined when he tries to look for the Tickets when he gets the Wonka bars. The only person that sticks up for him is his Grandpa Joe. He’s the only positive one since his relatives and in laws are bed-ridden. Some may think that Charlie’s mom is too realistic, especially when she sings her song about him. I believe that she is just pragmatic by telling her son that he has to be realistic since the chances of him winning are slim. 

        This is one of those films where it’s about the reward for the meek and Charlie fits that role. Aside from the kids and their guardians, the movie doesn’t really have any villains. I think that Grandpa Joe is fits the bill, but how I interpret it is that he’s like the devil in Charlie’s shoulder. By telling him to not tell anyone that they veered away from the tour. The young boy is too honest and wholesome that it’s refreshing to see that he’s not just a little turd. 

        Speaking of turds, the other five kids are something else. I think it's everyone's opinion that Veruca Salt is the worst out of all them. She's constantly pestering her father to give her everything that she gleans at. All the other kids are just tokens, with Augustus being gluttonous, Mike being an avid T.V. watcher and Violet being a compulsive gum chewer. This is something that i've noticed, I could be wrong with the assessment. The kids represent the various Deadly Sins and the Factory is in one way Hell. 

2. Willy Wonka

        I find it interesting that the this character practically changed the title of the book whenever people or kids tried to find it. Gene Wilder was an excellent actor, mostly in his comedic work like Young Frankenstein and The Producers. With this one, he’s such an odd and interesting fellow where his quirks and idiosyncrasies don’t get too distracting in the film. He isn’t annoying at all, he’s charming and man I love his personality. For instance, he’s mysterious and has that slight of hand personality. 

        More so that we never really know if he’s telling the truth or not. When people first see him as he exits the factory, he appears to be hobbled and limp. Until he drops the act and does a front roll to show that he’s a showman. He is not one to be honest about himself but sees the tour as more of a game since he always messes with people’s heads and is just sarcastic when kids get their comeuppance. 

        Aside from giving the tour, his best moment is near the end when he accuses both Charlie and Grandpa Joe with stealing a new drink. Just his anger and the duo’s surprise that he’s basically mad beyond belief sell that he failed to find the new heir to his chocolate factory. That was actually the intention of the director since he didn’t want it to feel staged at all. Since he wanted the reaction from both Grandpa and the young boy to be real given the context of the story. 

3. The Chocolate Factory

        I got to talk about the factory, no review of the film can’t continue unless they spew poetics of how freaking cool the factory is. When the opening credits start and we see just how the chocolate are made give it the idea that it’s just a regular factory that’s owned by Hershey’s or something. After the kids go in, the factory is anything but normal. 

        Just like I brought up earlier, the Factory is representative of Hell. How else can you explain the tunnel scene with all the weird images popping up?  Okay, just hear me out. Both kids and adults are going through a test to be humble, yet their own hubris and vice get the better of them as they each become affected by the factory. And we never see the kids exit out the factory. Alright, I think that’s about enough of that. To me, everything inside the factory is so reality warping where it’s weird and hokey. 

        I’m glad that there’s never really an explanation as to how exactly Wonka created or invented the machines or candies. Everything is left up and has that child-centric imagination where the possibilities are endless. One thing that I notice is that the factory is an extension of Wonka, we never know if the whole factory is an act to have the kids be enraptured by the factory. Just like the man where he looks normal, but everything else is abnormal.  

4. Legacy

        The film didn’t do well initially when it came out. More so that it wasn’t publicly received very well. Ironically, Paramount didn’t renew their distribution rights, thus handing it over to Quaker Oats, who handed off to Warner Bros. It was actually during the 80s when the film had multiple viewings in television that it gained a new audience and reached that title of classic. Roald Dahl didn’t even like the movie, and negated a sequel being commissioned based on his sequel book. 

        My very first exposure to Wonka was when they had candies that had the Wonka brand of it. Ultimately, Tim Burton remade the film with Johnny Depp and rightly titled the adaptation. Cinematically speaking, this was my first exposure to the film before the original. In my opinion, it’s just ok. I never really understand the hate towards it since it’s a completely different adaptation, with someone who has that artistic aesthetic like Tim Burton helming it. Sometime this year, an origin movie about the owner is coming out. Why have a movie explain the background to an interesting character? I don’t know.  

5. Overall

        Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is considered one of the best films of Roald Dahl’s work. It’s timeless after 50 years it came out.