Harry flips for WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT and SUICIDE GIRLS BURLESQUE Review!

There are days where you count your blessings that Cthulhu has given you the graciousness of another day of life. Yesterday was one of those. I know some of you hate, “A Day in the Life of Harry” review/pieces – and wished that I just told ya how the film was so for those that are curious about WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT – It is as if Wallace & Gromit made a movie. It’s simply that perfect, chaotic, charming, whimsical and blissfully perfect. BEWARE of Spoilers – choose reviews you read carefully – there’s perfect twists that you should not know about in advance. PERFECT filmmaking.

Ok. Now for the day. I had gone to sleep following a day that involved Tony Scott’s fantastic DOMINO, hanging out with Richard Kelly shooting shotguns and watching scenes from SOUTHLAND TALES and getting intoxicated after feasting on Quail carcasses. How could this day possibly be better?

For one – I had about 4 production phone calls to deal with, including one major exec story meeting on GHOST TOWN that my writer and I were anxiously nervous about – only to discover that we apparently have the greatest exec ever. Amazing. I find as that call comes in, that my Transistor Radio Promotional Television Item from John Carpenter’s THEY LIVE had shipped, that I won on Ebay! Ok – good day so far.

My nephew comes busting into my apartment with Eyes on Stalks growing out of his head clutching a brain and screaming, “Unca Harry, My brain fell out my ear, help me put it back in!” Oh, did I mention he was laughing like a maniac? Cuz he was. Then co-FANTASTIC FEST partner in crime, Robogeek I.M.s me that SUICIDEGIRLS.COM wants to interview me. I excitedly, and jokingly, type back – Only if they can get me into the sold out SUICIDE GIRLS Burlesque Revue tonight at EMO’S. – About 5 minutes later – I’m told I’m “on the VIP list”!!!

Oh man – Tonight I see WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT – and I get to see the SUICIDE GIRLS live burlesque show! I don’t know which I love more. The stop-motion or the naked motion – but in my juvenile mind – they’re equally groovy to contemplate. Only concern was that the film would be getting out at roughly 8:45pm and the advertised start time of the Suicide Girls was 9pm. That would mean dropping off the dwarf (His mom said I couldn’t take him to see SUICIDE GIRLS – I’d like to note this is when the boy’s chances of a blissful addiction to future heterosexuality was first threatened.) – Then drive to the 6th Street region of Austin, attempt to find parking – and then get a great vantage point from which to ogle. Of all of those – Parking is the fear factor. Downtown Bar District Austin – one could drive for 7 years without finding parking, ,if they were lucky. We would have mere moments, lest we miss the glory that would be SUICIDE GIRLS!

Ok – so that was the agenda for the night.

Upon arrival to the Metropolitan, I see my buddy in geekiness – Glen Oliver – who, with his son share in my bemoaning of the terrible lot in life we have that forces us to see movies such as these. We are, of course, being facetious. It’s movies like WALLACE & GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-BUNNY where you bless the almighty for making you someone that’s job is to see movies like this.

As I enter the theater – the radio promotions folks ask me how the film will be, usually – that’s my position at these things. Folks say, “This gonna be any good?,” almost constantly to me. This time, I responded with absolute confidence – “You’re about to witness GENIUS!”

This is AARDMAN and specifically… Nick Park. The guy with the greatest Oscar Bow-ties in history! If there’s a company on Earth that gets it at the exact same level as PIXAR – it’s these folks. Watching their shorts and feature tell me one single thing… They are perfect.

Before the film – they had Dreamworks’ first trailer for OVER THE HEDGE based on this “newspaper strip” - I think this will become my favorite Dreamworks CG animated film yet. William Shatner’s OZZIE the Possum is genius! Also – Bruce Willis and Garry Shandling as RJ and Verne are awesome. The voice cast for this is my favorite yet – and I’m dying to see and hear Nick Nolte’s Vincent. I don’t believe Vincent was in the trailer. The tone and look of the piece is classic. Great job here!

Then it was time for WALLACE AND GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT… From the elegant opening – showing various photographs of Wallace and Gromit as… essentially the old married chaste couple – well, it’s beautiful you see… because these frozen single frames of living breathing seconds of W&G’s lives make us hunger to see them move. Then – through score and camera movement the tone changes dramatically from the opening titles to the frightening terror threatening vegetable patches everywhere. Something horrid is on the other side of the fence – the robotic gnomes of the Anti-Pesto service send out their signal… lighting up the eyes of the client picture back at W&G’s place – this seems to set into motion the first of the Rube Goldberg devices meant to awake, dress and set Wallace & Gromit into motion. At this point.. about one minute and forty-five minutes into the film – the smile you’ll notice on your face… it feels warm doesn’t it? For the next, however long the film is, that smile will only grow exponentially upon your face stretching around to the back of your neck. It’s just that good.

The Were-Rabbit character is genius. The rabbits are genius. The howling at the moon is genius. Flying carnie rides rule! Dog fighting is awesome. Coin purses are genius. And even a rabbit that is pure of heart and says his prayers at night, may become a were-rabbit when the autumn moon is full and bright! I love that Gromit is silent throughout. The look on his face is just sublime, especially the morning after the full Were-Rabbit encounter. Oh my God, comedy gold by the mountain load.

Every single moment of this film is genius. Absolute perfection. And with every second that follows it grows brighter and funnier. At the beginning of the film – my nephew had a few questions – but after the first 5 minutes – he was hypnotized by the film… as were all the kids at the screening. That first few minutes you’d hear kids asking parents and guardians all sorts of kid questions – then… it just stopped. The movie had them. Wallace and Gromit had them… and the were-rabbit definitely had them.

Now – that isn’t to say they enjoyed it more than me. In fact, this is a family film that I guarantee adults will love even more than the kids in the room. The wit of the film is sharp, the sight gags – perfection. The characters are emotional and remarkable. If these clay creations had been any warmer, they’d be ceramic! Perfect!

I’m not going to go into the various film references because – I’d rather you discover them in the theater. They’re smart, they’re close enough to get the smile, but then brilliant enough to take the inspiration and dab it with enough creativity to own the images outright, instead of merely borrowing them to substitute for actual creativity. This has the real thing.

Ok – so after the movie we dropped the monkey with his momma, then headed to face the fucking nightmare that is downtown parking. As we hit 6th and turn up Red River… it is looking incredibly bad. So we go to make the block before giving up and paying for parking 5 blocks away. As we’re approaching the 6th Street entrance to EMO’s – not only is there the mass of bodies in line, but there’s no parking… then… no, it couldn’t be, but it is! God wants us to see SUICIDE GIRLS! The tail lights directly in front of the club light up on a car… then the reverse lights, then the wheels actually turned and the car drove off… and there were screams of jubilation. Getting parking on 6th Street at night – is nothing short of an actual proof of God and in this case His endorsement of the SUICIDE GIRLS!

We get in, I decide to get a stage side placement, because, um… well… um… the titties and asses – one must be close. The first band begins setting up, they’re a group of hot chicks – and as the speaker was exactly 2 ft from my right ear – the sonic assault never really let up – what words I heard had something to do with nothing but a series of lewd language and confrontational nouns and adjectives. I began to blush, I’d never heard such language. Ahem. The band was attractive, but frankly not that great. They were called the HOT-AS-SHITS. And they kinda play like that too. The one song of theirs I dug was one about getting a ride from a really cute guy on a motorcycle and it feeling like a vibrator. Not for the lyrics, but because the sonics were actually pleasing.

As they ended, my long time friend – Johnny Wad arrives – smiling like a well-blown monkey in a bale of bananas. He asks me, “Have you ever heard of Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re?” Given my suddenly inadequate ability to hear, I say, “Heard of what?” “Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re? They’re an amazing all girl Japanese group from Japan. A friend of mine flew to Tokyo to hear them, then discovered they had played first, and he had missed them.” I look at him as though he’s high. What’s that got to do with tonight. “They’re playing next!”

I looked to the stage, and these 3 amazingly gorgeous Japanese girls in Kimonos are ritually blessing their wires for their amps and various electrical equipment – while fanning themselves with their fans. It was fascinating to watch. Especially the one closest to me. She looked, I swear to Dagon, exactly like CUTIE HONEY. If you know what that is… um yeah, I was going gaga. They were so damn cute. I had no idea of what they would play.

Then they began. This isn’t some cute Japanese girl band, no matter how adorably cute they may be. No, this is powerfully awesome punk rock mixed with traditional Japanese arrangements that are absolutely out of this world. They don’t rock, so much as they just own in the way that Jack Black says the word “OWN”. This is the single best girl band I’ve seen live since Joan Jett back about a decade ago in a small tiny club. TsuShiMaMiRe absolutely rules and the music being performed is from their album, PREGNANT FANTASY – the last song on the album which Mari (The darling Cutie Honey look a like) said, “This song about baby born by mother make 1 mistake. Baby want know why born, if not for love, why should baby live.” It took her about 3 minutes to get that out – as English is definitely nowhere near a mastered language yet for TsuShiMaMiRe. However, the ability to blow everyone away was. Perhaps the greatest power intro to a song in over a decade belongs to their Umeboshi Plums – Big Seeds… involving the bass and lead guitar playing together in exact synch this fantastic set of chords very evocative electrical stringed gong beats (if that makes any sense whatsoever). But it was just amazing. And the body language these girls used. For one song, they hand an intro that sounded eerily like the theme that the crazed hyped up bike delivery man has from SPACED – but then it turns into something else entirely. And the way that Mamire used her hair on the ancient Japanese Mariner song… HOLY SHIT! Imagine an exotic version of the horror hair from JUON or THE RING – but in the face of a beautiful Japanese girl who could transform from CUTIE HONEY into that freak-my-shit out RING witch at the flip of a mental switch. FUCKING AWESOME!

Then – it was time for the SUICIDE GIRLS…

Now, I’m an unabashed lover of SUICIDEGIRLS.COM – I think it is everything that PLAYBOY used to represent to past generations in my opinion, but so much more. For me here in Austin, Suicide Girls ARE the Girls Next Door. Piercings and tattoos are a way of life and often times used to stunningly unique beauty accentuations. Their site celebrates – but also defies the stereotypes by giving each of these non-bubbleheads the ability to show you what and from where they come from. Girls that can love HELLO KITTY and OLDBOY, that love BLADE RUNNER and DAWN OF THE DEAD, that love MARY POPPINS and BAISE MOI. These are the women that defy the Cleaver mom kitchen life, but that may long for their own version of that. They’re degreed, heavy readers with a vast array of fascinations… and their layouts scream classic pin-up photography without being imitative. Missy Suicide is a goddess for setting that site up. And here would be their BURLESQUE SHOW!

I love Burlesque. As a young boy, I marveled at HBO’S LIVE FROM THE MOULIN ROUGE – their nudie musical epics and dramatics were part of what warped my libido from the earliest of days… that and BARBARELLA and FLESH GORDON… and the collective works of R. Crumb and S. Clay Wilson. Oh – and Brian DePalma. Ahem. However, I’ve never seen a real Burlesque Show. One of these days when I’m in Los Angeles, I must see Dita Von Teese’s legendary show. I’ve reports that it is heavenly. BUT – what about the SUICIDE GIRLS’ show?

I didn’t really know what to expect – but I have to just say it right now. Nixon Suicide – you rule Satan’s ass! He’s not red because of God, but because you beat him red! She’s amazing. She first took the stage dressed as Hunter S Thompson. I SHIT YOU NOT! Out comes this wildly feminine Depp-ish caricature of Hunter… walking out of line, fish hat thingee, sunglasses – cigarette on the end of that thing Garbo smoked from, Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts and just… insane. She begins huffing from a rag and a can… then begins popping pills from an upended bottle… the pills spilling out of her mouth like a coagulated end of a video that each of you have on your hard drive. This was wild. I just couldn’t stop looking at Hunter’s legs… she was batting at the invisible bat country and suddenly she began a slow transformation. Pieces of Hunter were falling away… only to be replaced with.. rabbit fur? Suddenly the floppy wabbit ears go on… and I realize… Hunter “Sexy” Thompson has transformed into a garshdurned WERE-RABBIT. WHAT ARE THE FUCKING ODDS OF THAT????

How the fuck did this happen. I see WALLACE AND GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT --- then go to a SUICIDE GIRLS BURLESQUE SHOW only to find Nixon Suicide as Hunter S Thompson transforming into a Were-Rabbit!?!?!?! Was I on drugs? What was in the drink Dad gave me? Rum and Coke? What type of coke? This number was the most erotically awesome performance I’d ever seen… Till Nixon and another girl reenacted the Mr. Blonde and Cop scene from RESERVOIR DOGS… That’s hot enough to spontaneously blister the head of every sex organ in EMO’S! It was amazing!

Wow! To be sure the other acts were amazing, hot and stunning. But when “Pat” charged the stage out of the crowd cuz the girl doing the whip cream and other delicious ointments of the culinary variety was so hot – this gal in dude clothes totally lost her mind and took the stage. EVERYONE thought it was an ignorant college dude – including security – when suddenly one of security flew out of the wings Antonio Banderas / Rodriguez style clocking the would be seductress knocking her to the floor where her head bounced HARD 2 ft from my face as blood and bones cracked and snapped. HOLY SHIT!

What a night. Wow. What a night. I highly recommend seeing WALLACE AND GROMIT: CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT followed by SUICIDE GIRLS’ BURLESQUE SHOW… You’ll reach a new plane of existence. Or masturbate for a week… unless you’re incredibly busy with other coolness programmed immediately thereafter. Sigh.