Grallace and Womit reviews because what else could you expect?

Hellooooo. During these days, there is really only one thing to do....take Sporcle geography quizzes obsessively. I just took this one just before writing this and reached my personal personal best: 193/197 :) (Seychelles, Maldives, Croatia, and St Vincent-Grenadines always seem to escape me)

Anyway, perhaps it is unsurprising but I have very few updates. I do yoga every morning and have been exercising regularly, which is the closest thing to a "routine" I have going at the moment. I have been reading a lot and watching a lot of television, for better or for worse. And I am 2 films into my Wallace and Gromit retrospective, the subject of this post as you may have guessed.

A Grand Day Out (1979)

The first ever Wallace and Gromit feature! A fantastic film about a man and his best friend who realize they are out of cheese and decide to go to the moon, which everyone knows is made of cheese, where they encounter an abandoned ex-skier robot who attempts to destroy the pair's rocket-ship after becoming overcome with grief at his inability to return home. Almost a tragic tale, but rest assured that everyone finds a certain fulfillment at the end of this film.

It is delightfully herky-jerky in that early stop-motion way that I love.

The Wrong Trousers (1983)

This is the film that introduced the world to the most menacing penguin known to man, Feathers McGraw. Terrifying in his calculated psychopathy and wordless stare, the beady-eyed penguin is a perfect villain.

the man/penguin in question

But the real villain of this film is in fact Wallace himself, who, after pretending to forget Gromit's birthday entirely, gifts him with a spiked dog collar - "You look like somebody owns you now! - and a pair of automated walking robot trousers, which robot trousers of course become instrumental in McGraw's careful scheme to degem the city museum of its prized diamond. As if that cruel gift weren't bad enough, he then goes on to evict Gromit on his birthday, demoting him to a decrepit, half-finished room and allowing the silent McGraw to move in to Gromit's room, where he plays Gromit's records loudly at all hours of the day and night, forcing Gromit to listen to this constant reminder of his betrayal at the hands of Wallace. As if all that weren't bad enough, Wallace falls totally for the "charm" of the penguin tenant, who begins to butter Wallace up by fetching his slippers and paper for him in the morning, prompting Wallace to spit in the face of "man's best friend," raising a toast "to paying guests," while Gromit cries himself to sleep in the doghouse outside.

Anyway, it's an excellent movie (the first W+G feature to win an Oscar), and the two are reconciled in the end, but my blood boiled over for Gromit. Full of lots of fun easter eggs like a newspaper reference to the rising stock of "moon cheese" and plenty of sheep around, foreshadowing Shaun the Sheep, who I believe is formally introduced in the following feature. Also, the train chase scene remains probably the greatest feat of stop-motion animation.

Anyway, these aren't really reviews so much as random thoughts because I'm not quite sure what else to write about. Oh, and speaking of Easter, happy belated Easter folks! Jesus is risen, I hope :-) I celebrated Bunny Day in Animal Crossing and my family played Mario Kart together and then had a cornbeef dinner, but there wasn't too much celebrating in my household, to tell the truth.