Movies Under the Pines: Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Nevada City Film Festival (NCFF) presents Movies Under the Pines, an outdoor cinema experience for the entire family, Friday, July 7 at the Pioneer Park Bandshell in Nevada City. 

This Friday, the fest will screen the Oscar award-winning 2005 animated feature “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (G, 82min).

The plucky characters from a series of animated shorts, Wallace (the voice of Peter Salles) and his dog, Gromit, make their feature debut here. After starting a pest control business, the duo soon lands a job from the alluring Lady Tottington (the voice of Helena Bonham Carter) to stop a giant rabbit from destroying the town’s crops. Both Wallace and the stuffy Victor (the voice of Ralph Fiennes) vie for the lady’s affections. If Wallace wants to please his pretty client, and best Victor, he needs to capture that pesky bunny. 

Wallace and Gromit are the inventions of a British animator Nick Park, who co-directs this time with Steve Box. In an era of high-tech CGI, Park uses the beloved traditional form of stop-motion animation. He constructs his characters and sets out of Plasticine, a brand of modeling clay, and makes minute adjustments to them between every frame, giving the impression not only of movement but of exuberant life and color bursting from every frame. (As a nod to technology, just a little CGI is incorporated for certain scenes that would be hard to do in Plasticine, as when the vacuumed bunnies are in free-fall).

Wallace and Gromit are arguably the two most delightful characters in the history of animation.  To know them is to enter a universe of boundless optimism, in which two creatures who are perfectly suited to each other venture out every morning to make the world into a safer place for the gentle, the good and the funny.

The film festival brings in the largest screen in the county, state of the art projection and sound to create an outdoor movie theatre on the lawn in Pioneer Park.  

Beer, wine, popcorn, soft drinks, and ice cream available for purchase. Outside food and non-alcoholic drinks allowed. Outside alcoholic beverages prohibited.  Blankets and low back chairs are suggested.  Save the Date: the final MUTP of the season is July 28, Song of the Sea.