By Matt Brunson

FANTASTIC MR. FOX
***
DIRECTED BY Wes Anderson
STARS George Clooney, Meryl Streep

Whatever is in the water out in Los Angeles is forcing today’s most acclaimed young filmmakers to bring beloved children’s books to the big screen. First it was Spike Jonze directing an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and now it’s Wes Anderson helming a motion picture version of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. At this rate, can we soon expect Darren Aronofsky to tackle Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop and Paul Thomas Anderson to serve up Arlene Mosel’s Tikki Tikki Tembo?

As for Anderson’s stop-motion-animated opus, it’s an improvement over Jonze’s recent live-action effort, even if it falls short of being the new family classic dictated by the advance buzz. The mistake would be in categorizing it as a children’s film, as it largely leaves out the sort of oversized humor found in movies made for the small fry. Instead, its pleasures, including Anderson’s painterly compositions and the A-list vocal cast, seem more likely to win over viewers of voting age and above.

George Clooney brings his usual mix of leading-man swagger and character-actor eccentricity to his interpretation of the title character, a newspaper columnist who once promised his wife (a largely wasted Meryl Streep) that he would leave behind his life of danger (i.e. stealing chickens) but instead finds himself being lured back by the prospect of sticking it to a trio of wicked farmers (the leader being voiced by Dumbledore himself, Michael Gambon).

Moving to its own laid-back rhythms (an approach sure to cause seat-shuffling from those not on its wavelength), this likable lark functions as a reprieve from the plasticity of most modern ‘toon flicks. It may not be fantastic, but it’s good enough.

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Ninja Assassin

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day – Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery

Fantastic Mr. Fox – Animated; voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep

Gentlemen Broncos – Michael Angarano, Jennifer Coolidge

Ninja Assassin – Rain, Naomie Harris

Old Dogs – Robin Williams, John Travolta

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By Matt Brunson

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON
**1/2
DIRECTED BY Chris Weitz
STARS Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

Hollywood’s second foray into the Twilight zone features enough fantasy and romance to satisfy most hardcore devotees of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga, but just as many viewers will notice that this is too often a case of the emperor — or, more specifically, buff teenage boys — wearing no clothes.

A step down from last year’s box office hit Twilight, New Moon has retained the same screenwriter (Melissa Rosenberg) but opted to switch out directors (The Golden Compass‘ Chris Weitz in for Thirteen’s Catherine Hardwicke). Perhaps it’s this changing of the guard that prevents this latest picture from ever maintaining a steady rhythm. After all, Twilight might have been occasionally ripe, but that worked for the material, as Hardwicke instinctively fed into the oversized angst that all too often defines the lives of teenagers wrapped up in their daily melodramas. By comparison, Weitz keeps the proceedings on a low simmer, an emotional oasis only punctuated every once in a while by Bella’s howls as she pines for her one true bloodsucking love.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In New Moon, vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) has decided that it’s too dangerous for his human girlfriend Bella (Kristen Stewart) to be around his kind, so he and his family pack up and leave their Forks, Wash., home, ostensibly for good. Missing her soulmate, Bella shuts down completely, and is only slowly drawn out of her shell by her friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) — and by the discovery that Edward appears in ethereal form whenever she’s in danger. Bella repeatedly puts herself at risk — riding motorcycles at daredevil speeds, diving off impossibly high cliffs, gorging on fast-food combos every day for a full month (OK, kidding on that last one) — but soon discovers that an even deadlier option materializes with the return of some vampiric foes. And what’s with those gigantic werewolves stomping through the Pacific Northwest woods?

As before, the whole enterprise is primarily held together by Stewart’s performance, a believable mix of adoration for her man and attitude toward the rest of the world. The plot structure limits Pattinson’s screen time, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing: Less effective than he was in Twilight, here the actor seems bored by the franchise, as if he’s already anxious to try his hand at more mature roles. As Jacob, Lautner projects a wholesome earnestness, even if he’s victim to most of the film’s most risible moments — I especially chuckled during the scene in which he tends to a cut on Bella’s forehead not by tearing off a swatch of his shirt but by whipping off the entire garment, thus allowing audiences to appreciate his bulging biceps-upon-biceps.

Then again, you can’t say that Weitz doesn’t have his target audience in sight. In my review for Twilight, I wrote that the movie was “a love story first and a vampire tale second.” Given Pattinson’s ascension to pinup star as well as the pack of shirtless hunks filling out this latest film’s supporting cast, it’s safe to amend that statement to read that New Moon is a love story first and a male-model calendar second. The vampire tale has become almost incidental.

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By Matt Brunson

AN EDUCATION
***1/2
DIRECTED BY Lone Scherfig
STARS Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard

Coming-of-age movies are a dime-a-dozen, but one as exemplary as An Education deserves nothing less than the opportunity to command top dollar on the open market. Sensitively directed by Lone Scherfig and exquisitely penned by Nick Hornby (adapting Lynn Barber’s memoir), this lovely drama set in London during the early 1960s stays true to its title by showing how its teen protagonist learns life lessons as they relate to issues of class, sex, schooling and her country’s own growing pains.

In a tremendous breakout performance, Carey Mulligan stars as Jenny, a 16-year-old whose intelligence and maturity level place her far above everyone else at her high school. Her strict father (Alfred Molina) and comparatively more lenient mother (Cara Seymour) plan for her to attend Oxford upon graduation, but those plans threaten to get derailed once she meets a debonair gentleman (Peter Sarsgaard) twice her age. She’s instantly smitten by this older man who introduces her to a whirlwind life of nightclubs, champagne and fine art, and her decision to possibly toss aside higher education troubles her favorite teacher (Olivia Williams) as well as the school’s principal (Emma Thompson).

Morals may be gently suggested by the story but no easy answers are ever provided, marking An Education as that rare film which acknowledges that regrettable situations don’t always destroy lives but can sometimes be used to positively shape long-term outlooks. Hornby and Scherfig set up a number of believable conflicts for Jenny to navigate, and the acting is uniformly splendid. An Education is clearly one year-end award contender that passes with high honors.

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By Matt Brunson

PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
***
DIRECTED BY Lee Daniels
STARS Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique

“Kitchen sink realism” was the term invented to describe a specific type of artistic movement that took place in England in the 1950s and 1960s, and here comes Precious to borrow that expression for a more modern, decidedly Americanized look at life among the lower classes. Adding to the appropriateness of subletting that term is that fact that a good part of this harrowing drama is set in and around the kitchen, as a frying pan to the head and hairy pigs feet to the arteries both take a toll on the well-being of the story’s heroine, 16-year-old Claireece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe).

Living with her hateful mother (Mo’Nique), a woman who abuses her in every way imaginable, Precious has to contend not only with a disastrous home life but also with the fact that she’s pregnant with her second child, both kids the result of being raped by her own long-gone father. Grossly overweight and largely illiterate, Precious nevertheless harbors a poetic side and can only hope that her life will take a turn for the better. She finally finds some allies in a patient teacher (Paula Patton) and a no-nonsense social worker (Mariah Carey, surprisingly effective), but their encouragement repeatedly gets negated by her mother’s assertions that she’s ugly, unloved and unwanted.

The 2009 release least likely to be mistaken for the “feel-good movie of the year,” Precious is for most of its running time so pessimistic that it threatens to hammer viewers into a fetal position from which they may never emerge. Yet it’s this hard-edged honesty — a far cry from the chipper, meaningless platitudes on view in many other works — that earns this film its stripes. Yet its key ingredient is Sidibe, whose excellent performance crucially transforms Precious from a character to be pitied into a person to be admired.

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By Matt Brunson

THE BLIND SIDE
**1/2
DIRECTED BY John Lee Hancock
STARS Sandra Bullock, Quentin Aaron

Precious is different in that it allows an African-American character to tell her own story, never ceding the camera to anyone else and remaining the focal point throughout. The Blind Side is more typical of the sort of racially aware films Hollywood foists upon middle America, purportedly focusing on a black protagonist but really serving as an example of the goodness of white folks. The only reason this young black boy exists, it seems to hint, is so that a Caucasian woman can feel good about herself.

The fact that The Blind Side is based on a true story dispels much of this criticism, although it still would have been nice if writer-director John Lee Hancock had thought to include the character of Michael Oher (Quentin Aaron) into more of his game plan. Instead, he’s a saintly, one-dimensional figure — although he (like everyone else in the film) seems like the spawn of Satan when compared to Leigh Ann Tuohy (Sandra Bullock), the feisty Southern belle who decides to feed, shelter and eventually adopt this homeless lad after spotting him one dark and stormy night.

Bullock’s a lot of fun to watch in this role, and the movie itself contains enough humor and heartbreak (though next to no dramatic tension) to make it an engaging if undemanding experience. But its true intentions are revealed in its ample self-congratulatory dialogue. “Leigh Anne, you are changing that boy’s life.” “No. [insert dramatic, Oscar-friendly pause here] He’s changing mine.” You can almost see the filmmakers patting themselves on the backs before heading home to their maximum-security Beverly Hills mansions.

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The Blind Side

The Blind Side – Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron

An Education – Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard

Planet 51 – Animated; voices of Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Biel

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire – Gabourey Sidibe, Mo’Nique

The Twilight Saga: New Moon – Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

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Following is a list of some major DVD releases debuting today. For a complete list, go to www.amazon.com.

Bruno – Sacha Baron Cohen, Paula Abdul

Downhill Racer – Robert Redford, Gene Hackman

Gone with the Wind 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition – Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh

How to Be – Robert Pattinson, Rebecca Pidgeon

Is Anybody There? – Michael Caine, Bill Milner

My Sister’s Keeper – Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin

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That Evening Sun

SUNDAY, NOV. 15 – The Good Book may have designated the seventh day as a period of rest, but then again, it’s obvious that back in Biblical times, there wasn’t an Asheville Film Festival that needed constant attention.

Still, there’s no denying that the final day of the event has always been less chaotic than the ones that preceded it. Instead of having to oversee dozens of screenings taking place throughout the afternoons and evenings at numerous downtown venues, the festival staff is able to tighten the reins by orchestrating only a half-dozen or so showings in two different venues.

The afternoon is mainly an opportunity for filmgoers to play catch-up, by checking out the films the took home either the top award or the runner-up prize in the five competitive categories: Features, Documentary, Short Fiction, Student and Animation. (To see the complete list of winners, go to the bottom of this page.)

In addition to the final shout-outs to the winners, today also saw three special presentations. Local director Michael Knox was behind Tearing Down the Tent, a documentary about the country’s biggest traveling tent circus, The Cole Brothers Circus.

Later in the afternoon, the festival presented That Evening Sun, a picture whose year-end awards buzz almost exclusively centers around the excellent lead performance by Hal Holbrook as an elderly man who flees the nursing home and journeys back to his own farmland property – only to discover that his son (Walt Goggins) has leased it to a vicious redneck (Raymond McKinnon) and his family.

Precious

And for the closing night film, a prestigious spot that last year went to the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, the festival folks settled on Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, an unflinching drama about an overweight African-American teenager (Gabourey Sidibe) trying to overcome a lifetime of emotional and physical abuse. The selection of Precious was so popular that tickets sold out even before the festival had begun last Thursday night, leading the festival staff to decide to add a second screening to accommodate high demand. (Precious is scheduled to open in Charlotte next Friday; there is no set date yet for That Evening Sun. But look for upcoming reviews of both films in print and on our Web site.)

And that wraps up this four-day report from the Asheville Film Festival. And now we return to our regularly scheduled CL film coverage!

(To read the previous days’ recaps, go here and here and here.)

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Photo credit: Don Fairbanks

SATURDAY, NOV. 14 – When it comes to this annual celluloid event, it’s clear that the times they are a-changin’ – and that was more evident on Saturday than on the fest’s previous two days.

In past years, a lifetime achievement award would be given to established talents not usually recognized at more pompous festivals – the AFF’s last three winners were Oscar nominees Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Tess Harper (Crimes of the Heart) and Jennifer Tilly (Bullets Over Broadway) – and the actual trophy would be handed out at a swanky affair held on Saturday night. That soiree would also mark the first time that all the winning films in the festival were announced.

This year, however, things were handled a little differently. For various reasons, among them the desire to place the festival’s emphasis squarely on the competing films and to protect against possible celebrity no-shows (as happened last year when Dourif canceled at the last minute because he had landed a role in a film), the lifetime achievement citation was eliminated. And to loosen up the usual Academy-style awards ceremony, the winners were announced beforehand throughout the weekend, as either Festival Director Sandra Travis or one of the judges would take the stage immediately following a winning film’s presentation and announce its victory to the moviegoers in attendance. (Although I judged the Short Fiction and Student categories, I was the one on hand to reveal the Animation Runner-Up and the Features Winner at their respective shows.) This in turn allowed this evening’s “IT’S A WRAP! The Winners Revealed After Party” to be less formal, as a performance by a local comedy troupe was followed by an Asheville radio personality ticking off the winners’ names as the filmmakers (those in attendance, anyway) came up to claim their prizes, shake the judges’ hands, and pose for some photos that will soon be posted on the AFF’s Web site.

Photo credit: Don Fairbanks

Speaking of which, the photos from the Thursday Premiere Night Reception are already up. Don Fairbanks took the shots, such as the one of the logo display at the top of this article, and the one directly above showing yours truly (right) with fellow judge Sam Watson. Check out the whole gallery here.

As for the 37 films screened today, I caught 24 of them. Here are my seven favorites, listed in alphabetical order.

Autogenesis (Student). One of the festival’s most indescribable films is also one of its best, as a native protagonist experiences growth in a manner that takes him through both the passage of time and the circle of life. A great-looking movie with an intriguing hook.

Melting the Snowman (Student). In the 1970s, a conservative columnist for the Los Angeles Times gets fired on the same day that she must attend her no-nonsense father’s birthday party. Lively and funny, this could stand being even longer – one of the ultimate compliments that can be given to a short film.

Sam and Jenny Go to a Play (Short Fiction). Like Melting the Snowman, here’s another fine piece that could have extended its stay. A British comedy with plenty of bite, this finds Sam being dragged by his lover to an experimental play – one so awful that even a couple of pints can’t help ease the pain.

Self-Inflicted (Student). A woman helpfully explains to a detective that her anal-retentive husband’s death-by-multiple-stabbings was a complete accident. A bloody comedy that’s also bloody good.

16 to Life (Features). Brainy Kate is turning 16 today, and she’s never been kissed. She would naturally like to remedy that, but she also has her hands full trying to talk her best friend out of losing her virginity to her lunkhead boyfriend as well as attempting to hook up her cynical boss. Colorful characters and sharp dialogue mark this one as a winner.

Sleeping (Short Fiction). A young girl accepts a babysitting job, only to learn that the parents don’t want her to check on the infant even once. The mystery will fall into place for many viewers well before it’s revealed on screen, but the film works because of its measured pacing and poignant encounters.

Slice of Pie (Short Fiction). A lonely middle-aged man tries to work up the nerve to ask out a friendly waitress in this utterly charming piece that exhibits a real feel for rural America and its people.

Looking ahead, the Sunday slate is far less hectic. There will be repeat showings of all the critics’ picks, as well as screenings of two out-of-competition titles looking to build greater word of mouth as we enter Oscar season: That Evening Sun, starring Hal Holbrook, and Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, executive-produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. For That Evening Sun, executive producers Larsen and Adrian Jay will conduct a Q&A session following the film presentation.

COMPLETE LIST OF FESTIVAL WINNERS:

Features
Winner – 16 to Life
Runner-Up – Deadland
Audience Award – Laid Off

Documentary
Winner – Food Fight
Runner-Up – Bonecrusher
Audience Award – Food Fight

Short Fiction
Winner – Open Your Eyes
Runner-Up – True Beauty This Evening
Audience Award – Sleeping

Student
Winner – Down in Number 5
Runner-Up – Autogenesis
Audience Award – Down in Number 5

Animation
Winner – O Pintor de Ceos (The Painter of Skies)
Runner-Up – The Mouse That Soared
Audience Award – The Magistical

(To read the previous days’ recaps, go here and here.)

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