Moive Madness

I'm always confused by the way international movie releases work.  The first time I studied in England, there were of course a bunch of films that had been out in the US for awhile at that point, or had already left theaters.  But I did see two movies that hadn't been released yet in the States-and indeed didn't come out until a few months after I got back.  I found this to be pretty freaking awesome, as the movies were O Brother, Where Art Thou and Memento, two very cool movies that I got to see before pretty much everybody else (except Erik, of course, because he was there too).

I can report not much has changed in this respect.  Up, which I missed in the States, is still out in theaters here, mostly because it didn't get released until October 9th.  At the same time I've seen two movies I've seen here that haven't come out yet in the US yet, at least not in wide release.  I highly recommend both The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.  Mr. Fox is very well done, with a funky stop-motion animation that fits the style of the film.  It's immediately recognizable as a Wes Anderson flick, and if you've enjoyed his previous films there's a good chance you'll like this one.  I can't remember the Roahl Dahl book all that much, so I didn't have to content with comparing the film to the book, which honestly was kind of nice.  All in all very much the sort of movie I was expecting after seen the trailers and Anderson's previous movies.  Mr. Fox didn't supplant The Royal Tenenbaums as my favorite Wes Anderson movie, but it's nonetheless quite good.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a little less straightforward of a film.  I quite liked it, but I can understand that others might not.  Like most Gilliam movies (who, I found out from IMDB, was born in Minneapolis, MN!) it's quirky and weird, but visually awesome and conceptually quite cool.  It's also Heath Ledger's last movie, which is initially distracting but it goes away faster than you'd think.  His character is replaced during the film by three other actors, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell.  You might think this makes no sense, but honestly, it really does.  In fact, the changes was so seamless plot-wise it felt like the decision to change actors was made based on the script, rather than out of necessity.  

I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say I really enjoyed The I of Dr. P.  It reminded me most of Mirrormask, albeit with a more tangled bunch of characters dealing with more mysterious (and adult) problems.  However, I suggest giving it a try if you get the chance...at Christmas when it actually goes into limited release in the US.  It's already out of the Oxford theaters.  Hmm, maybe I'll get the chance to see it again.