Fantastic Mr. Fox review

You haven't watched Fantastic Mr. Fox yet. Maybe you were turned off by the jerky stop-motion animation. Maybe you thought it was a kids' movie. Maybe it just flew under your radar.

I watched the film last night. Kari was sitting next to me, playing Picross 3D or checking Facebook or something, but by halfway through the movie she had abandoned whatever she was doing to watch.

The one-sentence description of why you should watch this movie and love it is that the writing is excellent, the dialogue is fast-paced and witty, and the delivery is completely straight-faced. If you hate deadpan humor, then forget this recommendation. If, however, you want to listen to George Clooney the fox explain to the opossum why, in all seriousness, beagles love blueberries, then this is the movie for you. Kids might not enjoy this movie: it's not cartoony and there aren't really many overt jokes for them to get.

Based off Roald Dahl's book of the same name, the movie follows Mr. Fox, whose wife has forced him to give up farm robbery for a less dangerous occupation and a family. Mr. Fox is a wild animal at heart, though, and like Mr. Incredible, he can't help but go back to what he does best. This attracts the unwanted attention from the legendarily mean farmers, who vow to destroy the Fox family. The movie expands on the book in both directions, both giving Mr. Fox a little more context and continuing the story a little further than the book. The departures from the source add greatly to the movie: Kristofferson, Mrs. Fox's nephew, is introduced in the movie, and his interaction and one-sided rivalry with the Foxes' son Ash makes the latter my favorite character in the movie.

The stop-motion animation is well done and imbues a charm in the movie that's absent in CG. The action is largely portrayed by surprisingly expressive puppets. Of special note is the aforementioned opossum, whose trademark vacant stare is great every time he pops it out.

In short, this was the best thing to come out of our Netflix trial.

Actual conversation

Me: Speaking of distracting, you left a poo in the toilet.
Kari: Does that distract you?
Me: It totally does.
Kari: I left a load in the dryer yesterday...
Me: You pooped in the dryer? That is totally inappropriate!
Kari: It was a dark load and a full load...
Me: That is way too much information.
Kari: I'm too tired for this.
Me: What do you want me to do with your load?
Kari: (laughing) Make sure it's dry.

It's a boy

Incidentally

No, I haven't forgotten or given up on this. I have several half-written stories that I haven't put up here and a few more ideas floating around in my head. It is on my "to do" list.

Stand aside, smelly one

I wrote a Civilization Revolution DS walkthrough shortly after acquiring it. It's the only thing of the sort I've ever attempted; I did it because I loved the game so much.

About a month ago, I got an e-mail from Elizabeth Tobey from 2k Games. I recognized her as the company's representative on the game's official message board -- I'm not registered there, but I was a frequent lurker at one point. She said they wanted to send me a SPECIAL PRIZE for being so nice and helpful. (There's a moral here, kids!) I was thinking it'd probably be a poster or something really cheap, but I was wrong. I was SO wrong.



Hand-painted resin. My wife loves it, too. It's on our mantle now.

Click here for a contextualizing screenshot. (That's not the DS version of the game, of course.)

Coffee Time for Darkside

My eyes scanned the coffee shop. I was looking for an open table, but it was also partly instinct. Playing hero for too long does that to a guy. Place was packed -- crap. Was that Magnus sipping a cappuccino in the corner?

I'd never actually seen him "off the job" -- neither one of us was in his respective outfit, so I wasn't sure it was really him until his eyes met mine. Crap, crap, crap. I didn't want this. He must have recognized the black trenchcoat. He stood up quickly, fight in his eyes. I raised my hands calmly and approached the table. He was drinking alone.

"Darkside!" he hissed. "What you doin' here?"

Magnus was a large man of indeterminate ethnicity: could have easily been black as white or anything in between. His arms bulged muscle when they weren't stuffed into the ridiculous getup that passed for his costume. I'd never seen them before today -- he was wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt that bore the name of a band I'd never heard of -- but I knew the muscles were there after our various run-ins.

"Relax," I said. My hands were still raised. "I'm not here for you, just the coffee."

"Likely story! I know how this stuff works, man! You say that now and then we get outside and it's all cops." My eyes wandered down to his clenched fists. I could tell I'd need to talk fast to avoid a mouthful of one of those.

"Look. You wanna know the truth? Nobody's looking for you right now. Price on your head's too low."

His lip curled. "No way! After the Reimann job? There gotta be an easy hundred grand on me."

I shook my head. "Sorry. Last I checked, you're under ten thou. Right now, I'm not on the job. I'm not even packing. You're not worth that kind of trouble." Using my head to gesture towards an open chair, I said, "Mind if I sit? Place is packed today."

He bared his teeth at me, then paused to consider. "...Fine. But you try anything and it's your neck, man. Your friggin' neck." He wrung two large hands together in apt illustration. I grinned back at him, lowered my hands slowly and took my seat.

"Look, I know we've had our differences, but I'm sure we can sit down for a coffee like two civilized guys." A waitress passed by. "Tall café mocha, please."

"I got nothin' to say to you."

"Hey, that's fine! I'm just sitting here, you know."

There was an awkward pause. Magnus swilled his cappuccino. The mug looked small against his large hands.

"I didn't think you were the cappuccino type."

"Look, I said I don't wanna talk to you."

"You don't have to," I said. "...You come here often?"

"No," he grunted.

"That's a shame. This place is fantastic. When it's not so crowded, I mean."

He glared at me between sips.

I decided to try another avenue. "Did you hear about The Lizard?"

"Dude had it comin' to him!" he barked, in spite of himself.

"You think? I thought you two worked together."

"Naw, man. We crossed paths but that's all. Everyone knew not to go near Doc Chaos, Lizard included. He knew better."

"Yeah, that's what I hear. Now you wanna talk big bounties, Chaos..." I whistled. The waitress returned with my drink. "Thanks."

"Whoever takes Chaos deserves every penny. There's guys like me, then there's guys like him."

"No doubt, no doubt."

"I'd pitch in if I could. Ain't no one's safe with Chaos running loose."

"You mean that? You ever consider going legit?"

He curled his lip at me again. "Hey, man. Don't start with that."

"Hey now. Think of it this way. What if you and me took down Chaos? Split the reward fifty-fifty?"

"I don't want my atoms scrambled, man. You know what's good for you, you steer clear of him too." Finishing his cappuccino, he gave his mouth a good wipe with his arm.

"I've never known what's good for me. You think I'd be in this business if I did?"

"'Sides, I don't work with your kind," Magnus growled, fishing for some cash and tossing it onto the table.

"Yeah, well, it was worth a try."

I watched him stand up. He pushed in his chair and started walking.

"Hey, Magnus?"

"Yeah."

"You're a decent guy when you're not committing crimes."

"You ain't so bad neither when you're not tryin' to bring me in."

I took a long, slow sip of my mocha. Best mocha in town.

Money-making Game

The fox lighted onto a nearby tree stump -- pretty smoothly, the owl thought. "You've heard of the term 'con man,' right?" the fox asked. The owl nodded in affirmation. "It's short for 'confidence man,'" continued the fox. "I learned that recently in a book I read. The confidence man gets the other party's confidence and then betrays it. Wham! Just like that."

Something was wrong here, the owl ascertained. Foxes can't read. The owl hadn't heard that anywhere, but the owl thought it stood to reason, and the owl knew that owls were wise, so he trusted his own judgment. The owl also knew that foxes were sly, so the owl was on his highest alert.

The fox relaxed her hind legs and sat up straight on the tree stump with perfect fox posture. (Fox posture is different from human posture on account of their reliance on four legs. You'd get a backache if you practiced good fox posture.) "Out of curiosity," the fox said, "do you trust me?"

"Yes," lied the owl. Is it wise to lie to one's friends? the owl inquired to himself, but determined that since he had done it and he was wise, it was necessarily and consequently the wisest thing to do. After all, the fox -- who was sly -- was probably lying as well, and to catch her in her web (metaphorically, obviously!), he had to spin his own. Fight fire with fire (again, all metaphorical).

"Good," exclaimed the fox, then paused and raised a thoughtful paw to her chin. There was a long pause, followed by another exclamation, "Let's play a game!"

"What game?" chirped the owl, who loved games.

"I just thought of this game. It is excellent. It starts by you giving me a penny--"

"What! I dislike this game already," balked the owl, who had gone off-guard at the mention of a game, but now became distrustful once more.

"Fine," the fox interjected, then paused as she appeared to count numbers on her paws. "Fine," she repeated. "Then the game starts by me giving you a penny."

"Delightful!"

"Isn't it? Next, you give me two pennies."

The owl grunted, then held up and examined two of his feathers. "I don't know about this game, either."

"Hold on! You'll surely like the next bit. Once I receive your two pennies, I give you three."

"Oh!" the owl cried, with a joyful hop. The machinery started turning in the owl's upstairs, who then gasped and covered his mouth with feathers in suspicion: "But then I suppose I have to give you four pennies!"

"Yes, but--"

"But then you give me five!" The owl bounced about with delight. This did sound like a fun game. And since the fox had to give up a penny first -- "Let us start playing this game immediately."

"Very well," said the fox, reaching into her pouch and depositing a single penny into the owl's outstretched wing. But as paw touched feather, the owl dimly recalled arriving at the conclusion that the fox was up to some trickery. His train of thought was interrupted by a curt "Your turn."

"Oh! Of course." Without thinking, the owl pulled a penny from his own pouch and gave the two pennies to the fox. Oh! That was it. The fox was surely going to try to escape with his money. What nerve!

"Ahem."

"I beg your pardon!" The owl took the three pennies from the fox and returned four. Back came five before the owl had a chance to think further on it, and the owl was so flustered that he accidentally added two coins to the pile.

"This is seven coins. You can't fool me."

"I'm terribly sorry! I've never played this game before."

"It's all right. Here, I'll add two more coins of my own."

The owl thought this quite generous. Not to be outdone, he added three more coins from his pouch.

"Now what are you doing!" growled the fox. The owl, embarrassed by his mistake, dropped all the coins on the ground.

"Oh, but I!" stammered the owl. "It's just, I -- could we possibly play a different game? I'm awful at this one."

"Oh very well," grunted the fox.

Shocked back to reality, the owl analyzed his whereabouts and recalled something about the fox and the money. "Wait! But what of the coins?" He was on guard, ready for anything. Although he couldn't quite remember how many coins he'd dropped or how many of those were his, he was ready to challenge the fox if she tried anything.

"Here, let me help you put them back into your pouch."

"All of them?"

The fox shrugged. "Why not? It was just a dumb game."

"I'm sorry," said the owl, shoulders drooping. "I ruined it."

"Not at all. Your pouch, if you will?"

The fox helped the owl pick up all of the coins and put them into his pouch. As the owl picked up one coin at a time, the fox sloppily scooped up piles of coin, dirt, and rock, until the pouch was fat and would hardly close. The owl leaned to his left from the weight of the pouch and was quite pleased with himself.

The fox interrupted his thoughts once again. "What shall we play now? How about a game of hide and seek?"

The owl loved hide and seek very much, and especially when played with flightless creatures. "But I have to hide first," the fox stipulated. This was generally disagreeable to the owl, who would have refused, but then he remembered his bulging pouch and the fox's generosity and gave his consent after all. He fluttered to a nearby tree, covered his eyes with his wings, and started counting.

"One..." He heard some rustling. This was going to be so easy! The fox was a complete amateur.

"Two..." The rustling grew faint, but the owl could still determine that it was coming from behind.

"Three..." The rustling stopped.

"Four..." Silence. The owl paused to listen before remembering to proceed to five.

"Five..." Perhaps he had underestimated his opponent?

"Six..." A quick patter from somewhere behind him. What was that?

"Sev--" Seven was interrupted by the weight of a fox on the owl's back. His face slammed against the tree in front of it, only barely cushioned by his wings.

Betrayal! The owl felt the sting of teeth on his shoulder as he made as if to fly off. He braced himself against the tree and pushed with all his might, which succeeded in pushing back his oppressor and giving his wings enough room to flap. The owl flapped his wings with all strength and began to fly away.

But that was all. He gently floated down to earth, only a little behind the tree and to its left.

Left! Oh no! The owl frantically attempted to remove the greedily-stuffed pouch at his side, but the fox interrupted him in this, too.

"I liked this game," the fox said to no one in particular when she had finished her meal and cleaned out the owl's pouch.

Vampires

"Vampires," she affirmed, straightfaced. Then, to add credence to her story, she stood erect and slammed her hands down on my desk.

It's in my job description that I can't mock these kids or even contradict them. I'm supposed to be a listener; the idea is that if they talk enough, eventually they'll say something. Even then, there's precious little I can do, which mostly amounts to referring them to a specialist. Technically, my position is closer to social work than to psychology.

Some days I just feel impotent.

"Vampires?" I asked. She grunted in the affirmative with a slight nod.

I keep a mental logging of the things I'd like to say to them. #1138: Which one of them told you? Was it Mrs. Sandborn? I tell myself that the day I quit is the day I stop logging and start using these lines.

"When did you first suspect that they were vampires?" No matter how much the kid is boring you, you stimulate conversation. Get the kid to talk.

The ribbon her mother undoubtedly planted in her hair bounced lazily as she stood back up and crossed her arms. "I guess I always suspected. You're not one of them, are you?"

"Teachers or vampires?"

"Vampires. I'm not stupid."

"No. Are you?" (That would have been #1139, but sometimes I can't help myself.)

Her hands dropped again, this time to her hips. She made a face: repulsion. "What do you think? No!"

"Good."

"I have to go into the sunlight for gym. That's how you can tell if they're not vampires: if they go into the sun. The gym coach isn't a vampire and that's why they make him teach health, too, since the vampires really don't care about health."

"That makes sense. But how do the teachers get from, say, the 300s building to the teacher's lounge?" I shouldn't challenge the kids like I did here, but this kid was really into her story.

She sat down in the chair and leaned forward intently, eyes gleaming. It was clear that she'd considered this and other implications. "The underground. They probably haven't told you about it."

I shook my head. In fact, I had heard about the storm tunnel that was a popular hideaway for truant smokers until they gated them up a decade or so back, but from what I could tell, that was just straight piping with only two entry points: one on each end.

"They wouldn't tell you if you're not one of them. But you never see them walking in the open air, and you know only the gym coach attends the pep rallies."

In fact, I didn't know that. I didn't attend my own high school's pep rallies and I certainly wasn't going to start now. Admittedly, she was right about never having seen the teachers in the sunlight, but I wasn't exactly chummy with them.

"It sounds like you've got it all figured out. What are you planning to do about it?"

"Nothing. It's still illegal to kill vampires, right? The government doesn't recognize them as undead if they're not legally dead."

I was slightly taken aback. "That's probably true. Are you concerned about your safety, though?"

She grinned triumphantly. "Nope! I'm protected. Here, take this. Vampires can't stand it." She dragged her backpack out from under her chair and unzipped one of the side pouches. Instantly, the room flooded with a nigh-palpable stench. My eyes watered and I gagged as I extended my hand. She proudly palmed me something small and roundish that I slid into a desk drawer.

#1140: They're not the only ones.

"Thanks," I choked. The bell rang, signifying the end of the class period and therefore our session. She zipped the backpack closed and hoisted the straps onto her shoulders. "Careful out there."

"Thanks. You too." She turned and walked out the door. I turned and opened the window. Great. The smell had stained my hand. I looked through the trash can for the plastic bag from lunch and used it to contain the smell. I'd have thrown it away except for two reasons: first, it'd stink up my office, and second, I was sure she'd ask me about it the next time she was here.

I spent the next few minutes looking for a hand wipe and, finding one, was wiping the stink off my hand when the second bell rang. Just then, the handle turned, the door swung open, and in walked another kid accompanied by Mr. Watson (pre-physics). "This is Brandon. He's here to talk to you--"

Mr. Watson crinkled his forehead and looked slightly ill. "That smell -- is that garlic?" Brandon turned and we watched Mr. Watson walk off without further explanation.

I turned my head to look out my window and saw the gym coach leading a group of kids onto the track. Nice weather today -- not a cloud in the sky. Unconsciously, my hand reached for the plastic bag.