The Witches (1990)

The Witches is a movie I'd all but forgotten about, and I'm glad that I was recently reminded of it. Based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, it tells the tale of a boy and his superstitious grandmother who unintentionally encounter a frightening group of witches. The movie alternates between being darkly funny and downright chilling, and features some fabulous puppet work. It's the last film that Jim Henson ever worked on personally, and it makes me long to see what else he might have brought the world. Anjelica Huston gives a masterful performance, and while the child stars aren't incredible actors, they avoid being annoying, which is a feat in of itself. The ending is drastically different than the one in the book, and a lot less effective overall, but the original ending hurt my heart a bit, so I can let it slide.

3.5 unorthodox weight loss methods out of 5.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

A thrill-seeking fox not content with family life can’t resist one last raid on the local farms, but his thieving antics don’t go unnoticed.
I love stop-motion. It may be a dying art. but in FMF it’s alive and well. With not one second wasted on pointless exposition or boring exploding robots it’s a joy to watch. My face felt like it was on LSD I was grinning so hard. Voice work is perfect. The titular fox is given life by George Clooney; throw in Bill Murray, Michael Gambon and Willem Dafoe and the magic is sustained.
The musical score is also fantastic. See here for a review.

4 Are you cussing with me? out of 5