We went to see Wallace and Grommet: Attack of the Were-Rabbit on Saturday. I enjoyed it. I suppose if it takes you five years to make the clay move, you have plenty of time to think of a story. It wasn’t original, but it was solid with nods to the genre. I felt a little ripped-off that the bunnies (whence the were-rabbit) looked so slapdash, I mean, they had five years to make them. It scared the kids, and there are a couple of funny double entedres that indicate it’s not really for them anyway. The best part is that I now know how to revive Pete should he die.
i thought all it takes to revive pete is to wave a nice, ripe stilton under his nose.
Precisely.
is that really what happens in the film?
by the way, i really like that going by her few entries on the blog someone who doesn’t know nikki might think that she’s a wholesome, maternal type.
She isn’t? I forwarded her name to Laura Bush for the next White House cookie baking contest.
I’m gonna kick Laura’s ass. And not just cuz I bake an addicting chocolate chip oatmeal cookie, either.
I hear that Nikki shares Laura Bush’s controversial stance in favor of reading.
just got done with were-rabbit. very cute indeed. and ralph fiennes impresses me more and more. i don’t know what it means that i guessed how to revive pete without having seen the film. lots of great inspired moments and i like how low-key this film’s pleasures and reach are compared to equally good (or better) fare from pixar. possible thesis here about how american children’s stories try to make us better people whereas brit stuff is more focused on silliness? should we expand it further to comedy in general? all of culture? pete and chris vs. reynolds and bruns?
I have Were-rabbit at home, and eagerly anticipate its pleasures.
Couple quick responses, though:
a) I don’t think the thesis about Brit vs. American children’s stories will hold up to much scrutiny. After a month in Ireland with C-Beebies (the all-day kid’s programming for BBC), you see not just the same sorts of stories, but many of the same stories–Bob the Builder and sundry other that have crossed the pond.
There has certainly been a trend away from pure silliness in America, but we still have Spongebob, and my own in-depth studies of Bugs and Daffy (said scholarship from age 3 to 13) suggests a fine tradition of irresponsible fun here, as well.
b) Oh, man, thank god for Pixar. I watch so much fucking Thomas the Tank Engine I feel like taking heroin and moving to Edinburgh. After hours of obsessive returns to the same crap shows, it’s such a pleasure to be forced to see Toy Story 800 times.
And I am pleased to report that after his first couple viewings, Max took to yelling “What are you looking at, hockey puck?” and to calling people “Uncultured swine!”
I have tried to hook him on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, but so far he just gets a dazed look on his face when it’s on.
I’m not sure I’m qualified to speak on behalf of Brits given that I fled my homeland more than 20 years and four months of British TV last year reminded me that the US is not alone in filling every channel (in this case, five of them) with crap.
I actually didn’t think ‘Were-Rabbit’ held up as well as the earlier ones. The half hour format works much better for Nick Park. ‘Were-Rabbit’ began to drag for me; it’s cuteness palls pretty quickly.
We need to specify which age group we are talking about. Wallace and Gromit is not aimed at the same age group as ‘Toy Story’ and I think it is usually acknowledged that adults like them far more than kids.
Thomas the Tank Engine is the kind of moralistic crap that Lynne Cheney would endorse. It is all about building moral character. Frankly I find the Pixar movies vastly better on both silliness and moral improvement.
But I said long ago, I’m a self-loathing Brit.
What I do love about Thomas–despite the weirdly moral vision, which always seems to equate being “good” with being a good (useful) worker–is how frankly moody all the trains are. They are always grumbling, whining, getting mad, doing horrible things to one another. Sure, they end up properly chastized, but I do like that they’re not “innocents” wandering around guiltlessly.
It is also interesting that in Britain/Ireland, the stationmaster is the Fat Controller, a phrase that surprised us because every American version (book and show) calls him Sir Topham Hatt. I even managed to catch a Brit version of a show I knew, and it was exactly the same except his name was changed to Fat Controller. I can only surmise that Americans are touchy about calling one another fat. Please do not take this as an invitation to call me fat. I know, I know.
My kids never really liked Thomas, the TV show, but they did like collecting the trains. I must have several hundred dollars worth of Brio trains depicting Thomas characters. (I need to figure out eBay so I can get rid of them). The show was shameless in creating new characters to sell more toys. It made ‘Arthur’ seem quaint in its unwillingness to market the living daylights out of a show.
But above all, you hear the English parson’s voice in every line of Thomas. Instead of moving to Edinburgh and taking heroin (or sticking my head down a crap filled toilet), watching Thomas made me turn on Alan Bennett’s wonderful “Take a pew” sketch from Beyond the Fringe.
finally got around to watching wallace and gromit: three amazing adventures. a grand day out merely very good, the other two, particularly, the wrong trousers transcendentally excellent. now to re-watch creature comforts.
i demand more wallace and gromit.
Rented this the other night and stopped watching 20 minutes in when I realized that they’ve had more than enough opportunities to get me to laugh once, or at least smile, but that they had yet to do so.
I do remember liking the shorts quite a lot, years ago.
Still, everyone else seemed to like it, except Richard Roeper. I’m with him on this one.