Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
The ubiquitous George Clooney gives just the right voice to the charming rogue at the heart of Roald Dahl's book and, now, Wes Anderson's delightful stop-motion movie. Dahl's story occupies the middle, but Anderson wrote a new beginning and end, and hovered over every element of production. He even videotaped himself acting out all the parts to guide the animators. The extras make it clear how time-consuming this frame-by-frame model manipulation is. Preparation is all; there's no second take.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
Chris Weitz, who replaced Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke on this second instalment of the swoony vampire saga, said half of him was "overjoyed" at landing the gig, and the other half feared being "hunted down and killed by a pack of teenage girls in about a year's time." The girls will be lining up at midnight tonight when the DVD goes on sale. In the extras, Weitz says he opened with a lengthy shot of the moon because he felt that in theatres "there'd be nothing but screaming" for the film's first 30 seconds.