FRESH AIR Director Wes Anderson has many credits to his name — The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Bottle Rocket and Fantastic Mr. Fox among them — but Moonrise Kingdom is his first film to open the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Bruce Willis and Edward Norton, the quirky independent picture tells the story of a 12-year-old girl and boy who fall in love and then make a pact to run off into the woods together. Anderson tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that the movie, set on a remote (and fictional) island off the coast of New England, is what he calls “a memory of a fantasy.” “I […]
CINEMA: The Magnificent Anderson
THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009, directed by Wes Anderson, 87 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC One hates to agree with such braggadocios bluster but yes, that Mr. Fox is quite fantastic. Director Wes Anderson (known for creating painstakingly mounted neurotic whimsy like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited) takes an unexpected artistic left turn into perhaps his most satisfying film to date. One thing even Anderson’s critics concede is that he has a knack for quaintly-detailed set design, so setting him loose in the hand-crafted world of old-fashioned figure animation is truly a match made in Heaven. […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[Artwork by ALEX FINE] FRESH AIR Director Wes Anderson has worked on a lot of film projects, but with his latest picture, Fantastic Mr. Fox, he ventured into new territory. It’s the first time Anderson has made an animated feature. Based on the Roald Dahl children’s book of the same name, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the story of a slick, well-bred fellow (voiced by George Clooney) who swears off stealing from three rich farmers after becoming a parent — but who can’t entirely control his sticky fingers. Anderson created the film in stop-motion, in which the objects in front of […]