Rhapsodies

This week I decided to give myself a nice break and sat down to enjoy some films from one of my favorite animation studios…  Aardman Animation. I’ve been a fan of Aardman since Creature Comforts, and have been enjoying their work eversince. Along with admiring their meticulous craftsmanship of clay stop motion animation I’ve always liked their simultaneously dry and slapstick sense of humor a la monty python along with their essential britishness which doesn’t pander to the common Hollywood denominator.

The first for this week was a long time, Chicken Run. Featuring a wonderful cast of character actors (and Mel Gibson) Chicken Run parodies POW camp films in general and the Great Escape in particular dealing with a flock of chickens trying to escape from a Yorkshire Chicken farm before they are made into chicken pie’s.

In the process we have life in the camp… er farm meticulously created with a great ensemble cast (I especially like Jane Horrocks as Babs) and one hilarious gag after another. Despite e all of this it stays entertainingly grounded.

Our second takes to a golden age of Piracy that never happens with The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (or as it’s called over here, The Pirates! Band of Misfits.)

Once again we have an all star cast with Hugh Grant as the Pirate Captain, Martin Freeman as his first mate with David Tennant as  Charles Darwin. It’s all about an incompetent  band of Pirates led by the Pirate captain who is desperatly trying to win the Pirate of the Year award. He gets a chance when they capture Charles Darwin who see’s that the ship parrot, Polly is actually a Dodo and convinces them to go to London with him to enter Polly in the Scientist of the Year competition from there things get a little silly, with Darwin’s chimpanzee butler, Mr. Bobo, and an ax-crazy  Queen Victoria played by Imelda Staunton.

THis is all a fantastic roller coaster ride where nothing is too ridiculous or too silly and all great fun.
All in these are two great samples of what Aardman is capable of and I can’t wait to see what they do next.