Chicken Run movie review: rage against the machine
A witty Aardman-brand treat: Chicken Run is a sneaky, cheeky parody of prison and escape movies that nevertheless finds decidedly unsentimental pathos in the predicament of farmyard chickens.
reviews
Stalag 17 (review)
I hadn’t much idea what I was in for with 1953’s Stalag 17. I supposed I imagined something dreary and earnest — I certainly wasn’t prepared for funny. But what else could I have expected, in retrospect, from the film that had to be the inspiration for the TV series Hogan’s Heroes.
Wallace and Gromit Trilogy (review)
Wallace and Gromit are the creations of British animator Nick Park, who has turned his hapless claymation characters into figures of cult adoration, seemingly without much effort on his own part. Clever yet unassuming, simple enough for kids to enjoy but steeped in a deep, rich knowledge and love of classic film that tickles adults, the three films starring Wallace and Gromit are among the finest and most fun animated shorts ever made.
Deep Blue Sea (review)
Deep Blue Sea is not Jurassic Park. Of course it isn’t. This one is about sharks, not dinosaurs. Any idiot could see the difference.
Shaft (review)
Shaft smells like a franchise from the moment the lights go down, with a credits sequence ready-made for recycling and a theme song you can already sing along with. Cool vibes undulate off the screen, and you think: This is it. This is the new Bond. We are going to drown in cool every other summer for the next decade. Sam Jackson rocks!
Jesus’ Son (review)
Fuckhead (Billy Crudup: Waking the Dead) more than shows he deserves this disparaging nickname in Alison Maclean’s joyless and empty Jesus’ Son. An unemployed drifter moping around Iowa City in the early 1970s, FH keeps company with friends he hates and a new girlfriend, Michelle (Samantha Morton), who gets a kick out of living in … more…
Butterfly (review)
Music, sex, nature, romance! Oh, the sweet mysteries of life young Moncho (Manuel Lozano) will find himself awakening to in the summer of 1936. A sweet-faced little boy with a shy smile, so delicate and sensitive his mother calls him her “sparrow,” Moncho is taken under the wing of his gentle and wise schoolteacher, Don … more…
Gone in 60 Seconds (review)
In the cinematic ranking of cool criminals, those who boost classic, collectible cars come in somewhere between jewel thieves and gentleman cat burglars — pretty high up, in other words. The lure of the outlaw, the glamour and sex appeal of nonviolent criminals… does GONE IN 60 SECONDS exude any of this? Nope. Not an ounce. And I thought Mission: Impossible 2 was boring.
Repo Man (review)
Kinda cheap-looking and with a quasi-indie, ‘who gives a shit if we ever make any money’ attitude that Miramax and The Blair Witch Project have all but wiped from the face of studio filmmaking, 1984’s Repo Man reminds us that once, not so long ago, weird-ass movies were not verboten in Hollywood. Deadpan humor, throwaway visual jokes, and oblique political and social satire may have doomed this way-cool flick to the neverland of sci-fi cultdom, but it has good company there, like its similarly themed contemporaries The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the TV series Max Headroom.
Love’s Labour’s Lost (review)
But I should have known to trust Branagh, for whom Shakespeare’s works have always been alive and real and relevant: his recent Hamlet is the best filmed version of that oft-produced play, and I’ve rarely seen a movie of any stripe as joyous as his Much Ado About Nothing. And now, I could just kiss him for giving us the exuberant, inspired Love’s Labour’s Lost. This is a wonderful film, an absolute delight.
