While Watching "Greenberg"...

...it was sad to realize how little use Hollywood makes of Ben Stiller's actual talent. As funny as he is in the Fockers' movies and such, he's much better at evoking a melancholic asshole-ness that pisses you off and makes you go "aww", like he does in this movie.
It helps that Noah Baumbach is a great writer (although some bits were too "look at how indie I am") but the show does belong to Stiller.
He's less Margot and more what Frank Berkman (from The Squid and the Whale) would've grown up to be like.

Fantastic Mr. Fox ***1/2

Director: Wes Anderson

Few working directors have such a recognizable visual style as Wes Anderson (if that is good or bad is another matter). In "Fantastic Mr. Fox" his first foray into animation (if you don't count the strange sea creatures from "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") he transports his unique aesthetics to a world populated by furry, anthropomorphic puppets.
Particularly Mr. Fox (George Clooney playing Danny Ocean) a former chicken thief who chose the right path and became a newspaperman after his wife Mrs. Felicity Fox (a sly Meryl Streep) became pregnant.
When his son Ash (a brilliant Jason Schwartzman) is twelve fox years old, Mr. Fox decides he's had enough of his quiet domestic life and sets to pull off one last heist.
He recruits Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky) the superintendent opossum, and Felicity's athletic nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderon) to rob the farms of Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon).
The job goes as planned but the angry farmers retaliate and plan to get rid of Mr. Fox, his family and all the neighboring animals.
This forces the charming hero to make things right and solve the sort of existential -crises-hiding-behind-entertaining-facades that Anderson has become known for.
But "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is more than "The Royal Tenenbaums" in stop motion, based on Roald Dahl's novel, the movie actually digs deeper than Anderson ever reaches with live action.
It's as if this micro world was invented just for him as he populates it with an assortment of characters, quirks and details that are a pleasure to behold.
The puppets' little coats and accessories have textures that we could stare at for hours and the stilted way of some of their movements is a shocking contrast to the relentless need of CGI to imitate real life.
Watching this movie we're supposed to know we're watching something unreal, perhaps Anderson's actual intention was to have us wonder throughout the film "how did they do that?". This is an interesting proposition because it immediately forces us to experience the wonders of childhood where even thunder was a mystery (it might be no coincidence again that Mrs. Fox is obsessed with painting thunderstorms).
The film's surrealistic nature serves Anderson because he is finally able to explore the absurdities of his characters without the selfconsciousness of actors.
He's at such balance with the animation technique that we recognize several visual keys (like Kylie's insanely funny blank eyes) from his live action films, but if he went and gave the real Bill Murray (who voices a real estate Badger here) a furry coat, the result might be just weird.
Anderson's detachment from keeping an equilibrium between what we see and how we respond gives him the chance to create one of his greatest characters in the shape of Ash; a son trying to live up to what he thinks his father expects from him.
The droll characterization of Ash-who wears a weird cape and underwear that makes his father think he's "different"-offers enough fantasy and truthfulness to make us laugh while blushing because at some level we might recognize ourselves in him.
Forget about the zany dialogues (although Anderson and Noah Baumbach made a witty adaptation), the Jarvis Cocker cameo or the intricate production design, the real wonder in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is that when we see a puppet shed a tear we too might be getting misty eyed.

Margot at the Wedding ***

Director: Noah Baumbach

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Jack Black, Ciaran Hinds, John Turturro, Zane Pais, Flora Cross

What would a family reunion be without that relative nobody can stand? Since times immemorial, families engage in longtime feuds, in the old ages they killed each other or started new countries, nowadays they move far away and don't phone or email you.

Such a case is Margot (Kidman) a short story writer whose ironic sense of humor, extremely honest remarks and snobbery make her terrifying to everyone she knows.

When the film begins she is on a train with her son Claude (Pais) heading to her sister Pauline's (Jason Leigh) wedding.

She has an agenda that includes making Pauline see what a mistake she's making and also go to a book signing she was asked to do; when her son innocently asks what's wrong with the wedding, she replies "would you marry someone you'd known for a year?".

When Margot meets Malcolm (Black), the groom, a part of her might've been extremely pleased to find that he is all she feared, and expected.

He has no paying job and uses his extreme intelligence to write letters to magazines he likes. Margot describes him as "not ugly" but very "unattractive" and it's perhaps a very good thing that the film lets us know so much what exactly its title character is thinking, so that we can compare it to how the people she describes actually act.

After the painfully honest "The Squid and the While" writer/director Maumbach returns with another incisive look at the dynamics of a family.

Baumbach relinquishes so much of his ideas to the creation of his characters that most of them escape tags. This makes them real and in the case of Margot as uncomfortable as her existing counterpart might be.

The film has a small debate on how much autobiography can you squeeze into artistic creations without losing all privacy and Margot encounters an obstacle when someone asks her about this. While it may or may not be a selfobservation about Baumbach himself, his keen eye for capturing little awkward details about the characters and the actors might serve as a key to know where Margot came from.

Very few performers would be willing to climb trees (both literallt and metaphorically) to the levels where Kidman takes Margot. She is ugly and cold in a sense that she seems as if she has stopped feeling altogether. The thing with Kidman is that while she could've made this obvious and given us cues about the moments where we should react to her ugliness, she chooses the road less travelled.

Margot says things without thinking them, before they leave her mouth and much worse afterwards. Kidman's ease at playing the part has us only later analyzing what a mess this woman is, because truth be told her offensive nature results entertaining, as long as she keeps away from us.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is a perfect compliment to this, she encourages Margo's behavior by continue to treat her in the same way we assume she always has. When she becomes victim to the brutal comments her sister emits, she doesn't remain indifferent, but it's possible that to her, even this destructive relationship is better than to have nothing at all.

Leigh's organic beauty makes a beautiful contrast to Kidman's more classic features, cause in a way both Margot and Pauline are complete opposites of each other, yet they try their best to look past this and only concentrate on their blood links.

Most films with lead characters like Margo work towards a catharsis of sorts that will inspire the change that utlimately will steer said character towards good and empathic behavior.

By the time this film ends, we haven't gotten even close to that. Then again why would we expect that from a film that never even told us why Margot and Pauline had become estranged in the first place.

Something in their behavior tells us that perhaps they're not even so sure of it anymore and have chosen to revel in the roles they've had since they were young. Too scared to aim for something different and too hurt to just forgive, it's no wonder that the sweetest moments in the film are when the sisters share secret stories that nobody else knows and then laugh and fall into each other's laps.

It is the one thing not even they can take away from each other.