WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL

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Director/co-writer Nick Park and his brilliant team of animators deliver the most delightful children's comedy you could ever imagine.

Aardman Animations has been a household name for decades. Their painstaking approach to stop-motion claymation kids' movies sits head-and-shoulders above, well, every other animation studio.

Ingenious.

Neither Studio Ghibli nor Disney has anything on Aardman Animations.

The love is on the screen.

Everything you see is an actual miniature model being filmed frame by frame.

Painstaking work.

Respect.

With a distinctly British sense of humor, this outing for inventor Wallace and his assistant dog Gro mit finds Wallace creating a gardening assistant gnome robot.

Gromit has good reason to be suspicious of the all-too-efficient robot that looks like a crazed elf.

Wallace gains a lot of public enemies when he rents out his elfin creation to do landscaping for his neighbors.

The action shifts into high gear when the robot gnome creates a troupe of clones under the command of a diamond thief penguin.

Gnome clones! Oh no!

Every frame of "Wallace & Gromit; Vengeance Most Fowl" is a thing of artistic perfection.

Normal filmmakers never have to the lengths that Nick Park and crew do in making a story that works at every millisecond of screentime.

The chase scenes are amazing, and every little joke and nudge hits your funny-bone just right.

At its heart is the friendship between Wallace and Gromit, our two classic comic characters from way back.

Here is a super fun kids' movie that has just as much entertainment punch for its adult audiences.

It could be a great Thanksgiving or Christmas movie tradition.

What joy springs from this delightful movie.

I'd watch it again right now!

Love it to pieces.

Rated PG. 82 glorious minutes!

BEETLEJUICE — SHOCKTOBER!

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Tim Burton's 1988 kids' movie horror/goof-fest might have impressed that era's young audiences with its stop-motion animation effects, but "Beetlejuice" is too scattershot with its humor to make much of an impression.

Tim Burton's use of surrealistic elements gives you a disorienting sense of time and place, and that is this movie's greatest gift; it takes you to weird, dystopic landscapes and atmospheres.

There are plenty of great sight-gags, but they only get the movie so far. The narrative development just isn't there.

At heart, "Beetlejuice" is a haunted house story, with Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin doing the ghostly honors.

Winona Ryder owns the picture with her insouciant Goth attitude.

In what equates to Ryder's big screen career (this is just her third film), you can clearly see her star shining bright behind those dyed black bangs.

Michael Keaton elevates the meandering script with sheer energy. Only Robin Williams could have come close to Keaton's over-the-top performance, and even he would have had a hard time matching it.

For kids' Halloween movie, "Beetlejuice" is a safe bet, but it won't go over as well with the adults.

Debatable though is the film's tone-deaf use of Calypso music.

Not helping.

Raged PG. 92 mins.

LITTLE OTIK — SHOCKTOBER!

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Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer draws upon his long history of theatrical experience working with marionettes in this mysteriously comic retelling of an ancient Czech fairy tale.

Svankmajer marvelously intermingles stop-motion animation with live-action to tell the tale of an infertile married couple obsessed with having a child, even if that child is a murderous monster made of tree root.

Husband Karel Horák (Jan Hartl) finds inspiration in a tree root that he shapes into the body of a genetically correct branch-limbed baby boy. Karel's wife Božena Horáková (Veronika Žilková) is overjoyed with the result. She hatches a plan involving nine handmade pillows of sequential sizes to publicly account for a gestation period that will allow her to act as a mother to the lifeless piece of wood. However, upon its "birth," Otik comes to life.

Alzbetka (Kristina Adamcova) is a precocious pre-teen girl, obsessed with sex and babies, who lives in the couple's apartment building. Her intense curiosity about Karel's and Božena's "baby" taps into the magical tale of "Otesánek," that Alzbetka reads in a book of fairy tales.

Weirdness prevails. Little Otik proves to be an insatiably hungry baby. The family cat is turned into a pile of bloody bones. Otik gradually grows to a gargantuan size. The mailman also becomes a victim. The strange child-creature takes on a serial killer identity. Daddy wants to chop baby into splinters, but mommy won't let him.

Svankmajer creates an undeniably original fairytale-tinged satire about the gruesome reality of childbirth and the tremendous social pressures that come with the duties of parenting. The picture resonates especially with David Lynch’s “Eraserhead.”

Božena's compulsory overprotection of a baby she can never allow her neighbors to see is a point of high humor. She takes to putting a plastic toy-baby in the pram she that leaves outside while she shops. Božena, you see, is overprotective only to a point.

Most striking is the bizarre baby itself. With its flattop head, frayed branch appendages, and snout-like nose, Otik makes a strong case for the ugliest infant you've ever seen. Still, in spite of its unsightly appearance and reprehensible behavior, Božena can't help but adore her creepy offspring.

Fairy tales are cautionary stories written to teach children hard lessons that most parents would rather not attempt to paraphrase. "Little Otik" is in a class all by itself. Jan Svankmajer is a mad genius of cinema. Nightmares may follow.

Not Rated. 132 mins.