The Aardman Collection

I didn't know it at the time, but as a regular viewer of children's art shows Take Hart (1977–83) and its successor Hartbeat (1984–93) I got my introduction to Aardman Studios through Morph, the show's loveable claymation character (far right in pic above). But it's as creators of the Wallace and Gromit stop-motion animations that the studio is best known - at least in the UK, further afield it may be as makers of Chicken Run (2000). Regardless of which of their creations you think of first, there's no denying that the Bristol based studio is deserving of a Collection post all of their own. I bet even Chas would agree.

Wallace and Gromit:
01. A Grand Day Out (1989)
02. The Wrong Trousers (1993)
03. A Close Shave (1995)
04. Cracking Contraptions (2002) TV Series on Nut Box
04. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
05. A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008)
06. World of Invention (2010)  TV Series on Nut Box

Other Works:
A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman (2015)
Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

Asylum (1972)

In the best of Amicus' anthology films, Robert Powell plays a psychiatrist seeking employment at the Lovecraftian sounding Dunsmoor Asylum. To prove his suitability he must identify a specific inmate by interviewing each one briefly. However, the stories they tell, written by Robert Bloch (adapted from his own works), may themselves be the product of an insane mind. There's a murderous husband who's final insult is his undoing, a struggling tailor who's asked by Peter Cushing to make a suit with "special" material, a deadly alter ego, and a man with some odd ideas about dolls. The frame narrative is better integrated than usual, and the music more memorable, making great use of Mussorgsky's superb Night on Bald Mountain.

3½ occupational hazards out of 5

The Minion (1998)

Maintenance work on NY's subway leads to the discovery of an ancient chamber with an unusual resident, around whose neck is a strange artefact, the discovery of which plunges struggling archaeologist Karen (Françoise Robertson) into the centre of a long-running conflict between good and evil.
The title refers to a body-hopping, growling spirit in service to the Antichrist, who wants to bring on the Apocalypse. Between the minion and his goal stands Dolph, with faith in his heart and a spiked glove on his killing hand.
There's a commendable amount of fictional lore in the story, and the attempt at establishing a common thread between two very different belief systems was interesting, if unsuccessful, but the production, acting and action are weak. It has two different musical scores; my version was the shit US one.

1½ warrior monks out of 5

A Study in Terror (1965)

A story that puts the fictional Sherlock Holmes (John Neville) into a real life historical setting, namely Whitechapel, on the trail of Jack the Ripper.
It must be a difficult thing to make Holmes seem ineffability clever without also being arrogant or smug; Neville manages it some of the time, but his sleuth definitely crosses over into the less likable sphere from time to time.
With the exception of Carry On queen Barbara Windsor, who gets colourful attire and some actual characterisation, the prostitutes are blank tools. The city fares better, with dingy alleyways and rain-soaked cobbles. The sound of night-walking heels on the latter is suitably atmospheric.
The murders are violent for the era, even when they aren't shown directly; the most unsettling of which is surely the lengthy POV scene that puts us into the killer's world while simultaneously masking the perpetrator's identity.

2½ maxims out of 5

Criminal Justice (1990)

A slow-burning TV drama about a father with priors (Forest Whitaker) accused of assaulting a Brooklyn prostitute (Rosie Perez) who was someplace she ought not to have been, doing something that would land her behind bars for the night. The viewer doesn't see the woman's assailant, so it comes down to her world against his, and only one of them puts any value in truth.
The story would hold its own ordinarily, but the passion and believability of both Whitaker and Perez take it to another level. It shows both sides of the argument, as the months roll by. But more than that it examines the justice system itself. Presented as something that isn't just broken, it never functioned to begin with, as anything other than a self-serving entity that prioritises saving time and money over the thing for which it was named.

3½ burdens of proof out of 5

Over the Top (1987)

Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk, a father who's been estranged from his ten-year-old son (David Mendenhall) for the boy's entire life. The kid is a US military school brat, bordering on insufferable when we first meet him. At the behest of the youth's mother, Hawk spends time with the kid, hoping to get to know him during a lengthy truck ride across states. Trouble comes from the boy's overbearing grandfather, who wants trucker Hawk out of the picture.
It's a pretty clichéd story of an absent father who has to fight to knock down the walls of his child's preconceived notions and feelings of abandonment, and the bonding can be disappointingly mawkish at times, but it has the charm of a 1980's VHS rental, and I have a fondness for that kind of thing, When in Vegas it tries to be the Rocky of arm wrestling, and it does a half-decent job at it. I was inwardly (but assuredly) cheering for pops during the finale.

3 shoulder pillows out of 5

A Prayer for the Dying (1987)

Based on a 1973 Jack Higgins novel of the same name that I haven't read, it stars Mickey Rourke as an IRA member named Martin Fallon. When a plan to murder members of the British Army goes wrong, the bomber flees from the North of Ireland to London. He claims to have had enough of killing, but accepts a job to kill once more in order to fully escape. There's probably meant to be a tragic irony in the situation, but asking an audience to sympathise with the likes of Fallon with little justification is asking too much.
Alan Bates does well as a cultured funeral director who's also a gangster, but Bob Hoskins is miscast as a catholic priest who has a past of his own. The film strives for a remorseful moodiness, but achieves mostly unevenness.

2½ changed tunes out of 5

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965)

The first horror anthology from Amicus Productions stars two of the genre's greatest actors, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The former is the titular Doctor, but the House isn't literal - the setting is a night-time train carriage into which he steps. He tells the fortunes of the other passengers, each of whom experience a glimpse into their individual futures.
In no particular order, there's creatures of the night, voodoo happenings, and killer vines, among others, with an occasional just deserts situation, and the frame narrative having a twist of its own. I can't say without going into spoiler territory why I thought the frame ending was detrimental to the whole, but maybe I expected too much from the studio's first attempt. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the various settings and the performances of the lauded cast.

2½ conveyance predictions out of 5

Warning from Space (1956)

We're told that mysterious objects from space have landed in a number of major cities around the globe, but the story takes place in Tokyo. As a lifelong fan of 1950s sci-fi, I've seen some odd creatures onscreen, but the ones in Japan on this occasion are pretty darn unusual. When their first attempt to infiltrate the population is unsuccessful, they try another way, which is good for the budget. And for a while it seems as if the story is laying groundwork for a commentary on atomic power that’s distinct from most films of the era, but it really doesn’t stay on that track. In the end, it’s a sober tale of aliens on Earth and scientists battling impending doom that has a quick-fix ending.

2½ luminous bodies out of 5

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)

A  feature-length episode of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror that's the film equivalent of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. Limited choices appear onscreen; to advance the narrative you must pick one only. It starts simple, such as what music the character will listen to, but it gets increasingly dark as the story goes on. At least, my experience did. I opted for choices that I'd take, not what I thought was best for the character (Fionn Whitehead). Sadly, it led me to what in video game parlance would be the 'bad ending'.
Usually when deciding what score to end my thoughts with it's on a like-for-like scale, but I've not seen a film like Bandersnatch before, which poses a problem. And the story as I experienced it might not be the same as the one that you get, which makes scoring an even more meaningless concept.

␦␦ pathways out of ⑃