Wallace's many faces

These are Wallace's equivalent of the faces Eleanor Rigby keeps "in a jar by the door". Rather than constantly squooshing his face into different shapes, they usually just swap out the bottom half for a semi-permanent unit that is giving them the right embouchure for that frame.

Images from Cracking Animation by Peter Lord & Brian Sibley, published by Thames & Hudson

Festival of Wise-ass Animals 2 and 3

Today we watched Madagascar. I have had to endure the DVD games that go with it enough times, so I was determined to watch the actual film before it went back. This was much more fun than Happy Feet. Sacha Baron Cohen as Julien, King of the Lemurs, was a hoot. At the end he gave away his crown to the lion (I forget his name) played by Ben Stiller. Lion: "You can't give away your crown!" Julien: "Its OK, I've got another one, its bigger and its got a gecko on it."

Finally (it rained a lot today, OK?) we all sat down to watch Curse of the Were-rabbit. I have always been a big Wallace and Gromit fan. I saw The Wrong Trousers and The Great Day Outin 1995 and I was hooked. C of the W is fabulous and has many side-splitting moments. To solve a nasty lawn infestation, Wallace builds a vacuum cleaner for rabbits. Dozens of surprised but not unhappy rabbits orbiting in the transparent collecting tank was pure plasticine magic. So much is communicated by a tiny eyebrow movement - the finesse of director Nick Park should be a lesson to everyone else having a go at this genre.

I would give Happy Feet one and a half stars, Madagascar three stars and Curse of the Were-rabbit four stars.