Film Review: WALLACE & GROMIT IN THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT

This Academy Award winner (Best Animated Feature Film - 2006) stars the immensely popular British animated characters, Wallace and Gromit - Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis), a typical Brit villager with an unusually strong penchant for cheese, and his more-than-devoted dog Gromit. Here, the dynamic duo own and operate "Anti-Pesto" - a humane pest control service that rids the local villagers of rabbit infestations that threaten their belovd vegetable gardens.

Never more so are their services needed, as the biggest event of the season - the annual giant vegetable growing competition - is coming up fast, and the last thing the village resdients need are their gardens destroyed! Further, the services of Anti-Pesto guarantee the no harm comes to the animals; indeed, the basement of Wallace & Gromit's flat rather resembles a rabbit sanctuary. Wallace even finds time for a little romantic ambition on the side, as he and Gromit help the beautiful Lady Tottington (a delicate Helena Bonham Carter) rid her rather large estate's grounds of a major herd of rabbits - much to the chagrin of the money-hungry Victor Quartermaine (voiced with just enough brilliance by Ralph Fiennes), who himself hopes to marry both Lady Tottington and her money.

But Victor is the last of Wallace & Gromit's worries when a giant, crazed, vegetable-devouring beast - a giant rabbit - suddenly appears on the scene, and not only threatens the giant vegetable competition ... but also Wallace's romance. Because Lady Tottington has commissioned Wallace & Gromit to rid the village of the beast - even as Victor Quartermaine grabs up his rifle to do the very same, in a bid to win back Lady Tottington's heart (and money).

I truly loved this movie. It's been years since I've seen Wallace & Gromit in anything, and catching this film was a weclomed return to their world. I only WISH I had a dog as devoted as Gromit, for sure - so will you, after seeing what that poor animal goes through to protect Wallace and the village (but mostly Wallace). This film truly deserved its Oscar - it's funny, engaging, well-written and beautifully-voice, with a good storyline that will appeal to both adults and kids alike. The ending is a wild rollercoaster of action that ties up everything well. Brilliant film.

Film Review: CHILDREN OF MEN

I have struggled and struggled with how to write this review - let alone begin it. I seriously cannot remember the last time a film affected me as much as Children of Men. Director Alfonso Cuaron, after rising to such fame with Y Tu Mama Tambien that he was given Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to helm, here has created a film that is heartbreaking, soul-stirring, and - most importantly - life-affirming. THIS kind of film is what moviemaking was born to be - real art. I just hope I can do it justice in a short review.

The film is based on a novel by P.D. James, the story set in 2027 - in a world ravaged by disease, terrorism, and nuclear fallout (yep, very grim stuff). Humanity has become infertile, the last baby - Baby Diego - born in 2009 ... and in fact the film opens with Baby Diego's murder - the youngest person on earth now gone, as Britain mourns the loss of any potential for humanity's future. Britain, in fact, has become a wasteland of violence and oppression - immigration practically a crime to the point where refugees (or "Fugees", as they're called here) are rounded up and put into concentration camps, any insubordinance dealt with via a beating or bullet to the head.

Clive Owen is brilliant as Theo Faron, a former activist now working within the system who is contacted by his ex, Julian (Julianne Moore) - leader of the resistance group known as "The Fishes" - to help with getting papers for a young fugee woman to escape Britain for a sanctuary-at-sea known as The Human Project ... a group trying to find a cure for humanity's infertility so that the human race can go on. Julian knows Theo's cousin can arrange a passport and papers, and Theo indeed does so, for a price (and also out of the love he still has for Julian; the couple had a son, together, Dylan, who died from the plague that initially wiped out most of humanity - and created the infertility, most likely - back in 2008). The only hitch - the papers require that Theo travel with the girl, named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), at least to the border, and before he knows it, Theo finds himself embroiled in a twisted plot where he no longer knows who the good guys or the bad guys really are ... as he fights like hell, through the destruction that is now Britain, to escort Kee to safety.

For he has no choice, because Kee is eight months pregnant - the first woman in nearly 19 years to conceive - and she alone, with Theo's help, may hold mankind's future in her belly.

I could write forever about this film. Cuaron and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have created a world of grim despair for humanity, a world at war with itself - a war it seemingly cannot win. Combat and action scenes are shot at close-range, in an in-your-face style that makes you feel you are right there in the middle of it all. Owen and Moore are utterly convincing, and the supporting cast - Ashitey, plus Chiwetel Ejiofor as Julian's second-in-command, Michael Caine as Theo's pothead-hippie best friend, and Pam Ferris as Kee's midwife/companion to the boat that will lead them to safety - all turn in performances so natural, you easily forget these are actors speaking scripted words. I had dinner about twenty minutes after watching this film, and as I sat eating I began to think of the last, say, twenty minutes of the film - and I began to weep; my eyes not just getting watery, but real tears that flowed down my cheeks. I let them come, because behind the tears the film also filled me with a real hope for humanity's potential - of knowing that what we think of every day as so important being, in reality, total crap compared to the real problems of life and living. Children of Men, even in all its grimness and despair, is also perhaps - in its way - the most life-affirming film I have ever seen. I know I will never forget it. This film not only reaches out to (and breaks) your heart - it also wraps itself around your soul.