Movie event of the year!
by Greg Call
…in my house, anyway. Break out the Wensleydale and the Heath Robinson (or Rube Goldberg, for us Yanks) contraptions, because Wallace and Gromit’s first full-length feature opens this weekend. It’s guaranteed to be crackin’. After countless viewings of Nick Park’s three W&G short form masterpieces — A Close Shave, A Grand Day Out, and (my personal favorite) The Wrong Trousers — our family is giddy in anticipation of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It’s time to put down the Cheese Holiday magazine and support quality filmmaking from across the pond.
Posted on October 5, 2005, in Movies and tagged By Greg Call. Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.
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Ah, well, it’s no use prevaricating about the bush…
Saw it! It was very good. Not as good as A Close Shave but still worthy of a visit to the theatre. My favorite line: Beware of the moon! Very American werewolf in Londonish.
I also saw it over the weekend. My four-year-old was absolutely freaked out by the were-rabbit, which dampened things a bit, but overall it was terrific fun. The big screen makes the claymation all the more impressive, and you can actually see fingerprints on the faces at times. This one had more double entendre than the shorts, but not too much. There’s also another classic chase scene.
In related news, it appears that the studio burned down:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/10/aardman.fire/index.html
I wasn’t planning on seeing it, but some friends wanted to, so I went along. I haven’t seen any of the other W&G movies/shorts/whatever. While I thought it was okay and had its moments, I found it kinda boring (it felt longer than it was). Also, I hate rainbows, puppies, and homemade apple pie.
Yes, Russell, the climactic train scene from Trousers is transcendent. The motorcycle scene (segueing in to the porridge-shooting plane) from A Close Shave is right up there, too.
Allison: That’s my three-year-old’s favorite line. He’ll say it whenever someone steps out to go to the store. I’m partial to “ex-NASA, great for walkies!”
We have already purchased our tickets for this fine event! Everyone has been waiting for months and we’re so excited! I can hardly wait for the penguin short!
Greg, don’t forget the crackers!
I am extremely excited too. This is the one movie I will definitely see in the theaters the weekend it opens.
That would be this weekend Allison! Yay!
Does it open this weekend? Man–there’s probably no chance we’ll get a print at our local rag-tag theater here in Macomb. But we’ll see it eventually. Wallace and Gromit rule all.
Incidentally, Greg, The Wrong Trousers is also my favorite. The moment when Gromit and Feathers McGraw are chasing each other on toy trains around the house, and Gromit is throwing down track immediately in front of his train so it won’t derail, and he slowly, so slowly, but surely catches up with and then passes Feathers, and gives him a look of cool triumph as he does so, is just genius; it takes the whole thing to 11, somewhere outside the bounds of normal funny and into the Elysian Fields of Comedy.