Nomen Est Omen

S Faolan Goes To The Movies-2

I finally finished up the "Yes, Minister" "Yes, Prime Minister" series and found two more titles in my mail box today so it's time to share my thoughts. So welcome ladies and gentlemen to another round of Movie Review.

The first DVD I want to talk about is "The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit". I've already seen these before but I enjoy them so much and it's been so long that I had to rent it again. For those unaware, Wallace and Gromit is a claymation, (or as I like to call it, Playdohmation), about an Englishman and his dog. Wallace, (the human), spends a lot of his time inventing things to make life easier for him and Gromit. Gromit, (the dog), is an extremely bright and gifted little pooch who quite often shakes his head in disbelief at his master but the two are quite fond of each other as comes apparent in the many mishaps they try to get each other out of.

The first of the three episodes is titled, "A Grand Day Out" where Wallace is trying to decide where to go for vacation, (or holiday), and during this decision sets out to make a spot of tea. He realizes that he is out of cheese, (you must realize how very, very important cheese is to Wallace), and the next thing you know, Wallace and Gromit are busy building a rocket ship to get them to the moon because "everybody knows the moon is made of cheese".

The second episode is titled, "The Wrong Trousers". Here Wallace has once again invented something electronic to make his life easier and he presents these trousers as a gift to Gromit on his birthday along with a collar and leash, much to Gromit's chagrin. The mechanical trousers are able to take Gromit out for his "walkies" but because Gromit is so smart, he figures his way around this. Wallace finds himself in debt and puts an ad out for a flat mate to make some money and this is where we meet Penguin. Penguin takes over Wallace's and Gromit's lives and uses the mechanical trousers to committ crime. As always, Wallace and Gromit perservere and the story ends happily...even for the trousers.

Finally, "A Close Shave" shows us once again just how much Wallace and Gromit care for each other as they find themselves rescuing a flock of sheep from a killer robot dog owned by a cowardly shop owner. During their heroics, the two find their own lives in grave danger of becoming dog food.

The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit is not just for kids. I have to say my favorite is "The Wrong Trousers" simply for the chase scene towards the end of the episode where Penguin, Gromit and Wallace find themselves aboard the toy train that races around Wallace's house while they get into crazy situations not only trying to catch Penguin but save their own lives. I highly, highly recommend this DVD. If you liked how "Chicken Run" was created, you will really love these two.

The next movie I watched was "Alice's Restaurant". The only reason I even rented it is because I've never seen it and since people talk about it here and there or make reference to it every once in awhile, I thought I'd better take a look.

Ugh! I couldn't stand this movie. It was so bad I couldn't even finish my bag of Cheetos. First of all, I really dislike hippies. Seriously, I can't stand them. Hippies, hillbillies and ghetto trash are actually very similar. It's just dirty and chaotic and it really does make me feel sick. However, I tried to push that aside and watch the movie with an open mind but I found I couldn't even care about any of the characters. They did just about everything humans do that irritate me and I really wanted them to suffer. I wanted Arlo to get drafted, I didn't care if one of the hippy kids died, I delighted in their arguments. If I were going to care about anyone it would have been Alice as she basically opened her doors to all the hippy, using riff raff that came by and she was really the only responsible one there. A person can only do this for so long before they get very upset and Alice got upset. Still, it's her fault for continually doing this and her husband, Ray, wanted more land so that more "kids" could live near him and they could share the land to farm and feed and forever party...basically start a commune. God I wanted to hurl. I couldn't wait for this movie to be over with. There was one good line, two actually, that stood out to me nonetheless as it's something anyone on this planet can say to themselves while dealing with other people. It came just after one hippy's funeral and Alice and Ray were sitting in Alice's Restaurant talking.

Alice: "I guess maybe our beauty wasn't comin' through to him."

Ray: "Maybe we haven't been so beautiful lately."

Other than that, the entire movie totally sucked for me. I suppose if you like hippies or are a hippy you would like this movie but for the rest of us who don't like being sponged off of, who respect the law, who respect other people and think getting high all the time is totally stupid, you're probably not going to like it. I will tell you though, if you are one of the latter, there is a scene at the beginning where Arlo, (total fricken hippy), gets the crap beat out of him and thrown out a picture window so, it's not all bad. I won't lie, I love it when hippies get their ass kicked.

This concludes this installment of Movie Review. Next on the plate:

The God's Must Be Crazy
The God's Must Be Crazy 2
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967 version)

I saw The God's Must Be Crazy movies when I was a teen and I remember laughing my ass off so it will be interesting to see if I still enjoy them today. Till then, don't put too much butter on that popcorn and remember to turn those cellphones off in the theatre.

Posted by S. Faolan Wolf at June 21, 2005 12:32 AM