As I said last week, this was one we were looking forward to this year, even though I had a sneaky feeling that it wouldn’t be great. It wasn’t great.

But it was good. And good + Michael Cera is good enough for me.

The movie is by Miguel Arteta, whose past work of The Good Girl and The Office “Diwali” episode, had me expecting more. (Though the success of the Diwali episode probably had more to do with the fact that it was written by Mindy Kaling (Kelly Kapoor).)

Youth in Revolt about a teenager, unfortunately named Nick Twisp, who almost literally moves mountains to be with the girl he loves. He is a meek boy with esoteric interests, and so, obviously, he needs to invent a persona (named Francois) that is everything he is not. And everything that he believes the girl of his dreams desires.

There is a hint of Me, Myself and Irene in that plot, except that Francois is a conscious creation of Nick. The movie doesn’t as far as it promises to with comedy or anti-social behavior. The end is tame and although “just be yourself” is a great message, it doesn’t naturally lend itself to a dramatic climax. Especially when the “self” in being “yourself” is a tame and docile fellow.

In that respect, Nick Twisp is like Barry Egan in PTA’s awesome Punch-Drunk Love. Life happens to him, until he decides to take matters in to his own hands, spurred on by the love of his life. But where Egan succeeds because he turns in to the master of his own fortune, Nick actually fails. Nick, it turns out, is better off letting life happen to him.

Which makes for a tame climax.

But I like Michael Cera, and the movie is liberally garnished with laugh out loud funny moments– the touching and odd-ball kind you would expect to find in a small comedy released among Oscar leftovers in January.

By the age of 30, Orson Welles was a titan of the stage, of radio and had created what is recognized as one of the greatest films of all time: Citizen Kane.

The movie Me and Orson Welles is set in 1937. It starts a week before his Mercury Theater is to open Caesar set in fascist Italy. Welles is only 22 years old and already a towering figure of theater and radio. A 17-year old kid Richard, played by Zac Efron, finds himself swept up in to the production. The film, through Richard, shows us Orson Welles the only way he was known to everyone. As a many you hated, despised, but simultaneously sought approval and ultimately respected. Christopher McKay is a revelation as Welles, impersonating the man and his myth.

The movie, with its ’30s New York sets, young love, stage backdrop and choice of background music feels a lot like a Woody Allen movie starring Orson Welles. Think of Bullets over Broadway or The Purple Rose of Cairo, with less comedy and more megalomaniac Orson.

The movie is by Richard Linklater, who in his close-to-20 year career has barely taken a wrong step. If you’re unfamiliar with his oeuvre, go see Dazed and Confused or Before Sunrise or Tape or Waking Life. Or all of them, and then follow it up with School of Rock and A Scanner Darkly. The guy is a genius, and once again, does not disappoint.

In the year of Avatar, Fantastic Mr. Fox comes close as the most visually unique film I have seen. If Avatar is St. Peter’s Basillica, this one is the cathedral in Siena- more personal, intimate and on a human scale. (Yes, I went to Italy recently. Why do you ask?)

In any case, why am I talking about Avatar? Because in the year of Avatar, you just have to.

So back to Mr. Fox. The film is directed by Wes Anderson, who has always had a distinct visual and narrative style, even if the story didn’t demand one. You can tell a Wes Anderson movie from its color palettes, its ensemble cast of quirky misfits, its extraordinary soundtracks and picturebook visual style. And the usual members of his traveling circus- Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Owen-Luke-other Wilson, Wolodarsky (either as actor or character), Kumar (and sometimes Dipak) Pallana.

Fantastic Mr. Fox has all those distinctive Wes Anderson elements, but it also has George Clooney, Meryl Streep and, for the first time for Anderson since The Royal Tennenbaums, it leads somewhere satisfying.

George Clooney as Mr. Fox steals the show with his voice. The rest of the cast is also wonderful, especially Michael Gambon as the disgusting farmer Bean and a surprisingly young sounding Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox.

The story is about the former chicken thief, the fantastic Mr. Fox (Clooney), who is now trying to go straight as a journalist. He has a column in the local paper, a loving wife (Meryl Streep) and a son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) who yearns to be fantastic like his father, but always seems to fall short. An overachieving karate-champ gymnast cousin Kristofferson arrives, which only makes matters worse for young Ash.

Then Mr. Fox, bored with his straight and easy life, returns to stealing chickens. And turkey. And cider. From the three meanest farmers the world has ever known.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is based on a Roald Dahl book that my sister and I used to read many times twenty years ago, along with our other Dahl favorites like Charlie and the (Chocolate Factory|Great Glass Elevator), George’s Marvellous Medicine, Danny the Champion of the World and BFG. Most of his books had hideous older people with disgusting personal habits– Charlie’s grandparents, George’s grandmother, the Big not-so-Friendly Giants in BFG. Fantastic Mr. Fox had the three meanest farmers known to fox, Boggis, Bunce and Bean.

Boggis and Bunce and Bean
One fat, one short, one lean
These horrible crooks
So different in looks
Were none the less equally mean.

Sure there is a plot in this movie, one that sets the fantastic Mr. Fox as a protector of all the local critters against the menace of Franklin Bean. But that’s not what you’ll go see this movie for.

You’ll go for the most inventive and gorgeous stop-motion visuals. And you’ll go for a quirky story that never takes itself so seriously that it forgets what it is– a movie about an animated fox starring Clooney and Meryl Streep.

I’ll leave you with what Ebert said:

Like the hero of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” also based on one of his books, the creatures of Dahl’s valley seem to know more than they’re letting on; perhaps even secrets we don’t much want to know. Children, especially, will find things they don’t understand, and things that scare them. Excellent. A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them. Six is a little early for a movie to suggest to kids that the case is closed. Oh, what if the kids start crying about words they don’t know? — Mommy, Mommy! What’s creme brulee?” Show them, for goodness sake. They’ll thank you for it. Take my word on this.

Precisely.