Each August for the past several years, the church where I’m a member – First UMC Shelbyville – has hosted a weekly family movie night on Wednesdays. Because of my mother’s illness and passing, tonight was the first movie I’ve gotten to attend this August.

The movies are intended to be family-friendly, and that usually translates into “young-kid-friendly.” Last week, however, they ran “The Blind Side” in the fellowship hall and offered “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in the youth room as an alternative for tots uninterested in college football or Sandra Bullock family drama.

This week, everyone was back in the fellowship hall, for … “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” in glorious old-fashioned stop-motion, based on a book by Roald Dahl (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “James and the Giant Peach”) and directed by Wes Anderson (“Rushmore,” “The Royal Tennenbaums,” “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou”).

I’ve certainly enjoyed Anderson’s movies for grown-ups, but I assumed that a family movie – even one based on a book by Roald Dahl – would only have room for the occasional sly Wes Anderson touch.

I assumed wrong. “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is saturated with Wes Anderson. It has his rhythm and it has more of his little touches and trademarks than I can easily count. The voice cast would be right at home in a live action Wes Anderson movie: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman (of course), Bill Murray (of course),  Owen Wilson (of course), Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe (!!). I had two reactions:

• I loved it, loved it, loved it, and can’t wait to see it again.
• I can’t believe we showed it in church, especially without dwarves in the youth room.

It’s not that there was anything all that offensive; it’s just that the powers that be have usually bent over backwards to avoid anything that anyone in the church could even conceivably, remotely find offensive. There was some violence that parents of very young kids might in theory be offended by. There was also the word “cuss,” used frequently in place of a variety of curse words, and sometimes in sentence constructions that made it perfectly clear which Very Strong curse word was being replaced.

But everyone seemed to be in a good mood when it was all over, so maybe I’m reading too much into things.