Hey folks, hope your workweek is winding down nicely!
That Friday eve in your feet…
I’ve seen a number of people posing with their mail-in ballots on social media, and while I of course applaud the fervor for exercising your civic muscles … make sure you aren’t breaking the law! Seriously, there are some places where your #ballotselfie is not going to get a like from the authorities. It’s at least worth checking to see what the rules are where you’re voting!
I don’t know how anyone could plan anything this far out, but … Thanksgiving is eight weeks away from today. If you’re already starting preliminary prep, my hometown paper The Houston Chronicle put together a list of holiday activities ranked by CDC-designated risk level.
Lastly, this one is mostly for the New Yorkers on the list, though visitors or movie-lovers should not tune out entirely! The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens (a museum devoted to movies, my kind of place) is now on Kickstarter to ensure their future. Beyond just preserving a palace to the medium, you can get some pretty good benefits out of it! Everything from a bread baking class to a private museum tour is available.
Now, what you came for…
DAY 210: Chicken Run (available on Hulu)
Is it possible that one of the greatest prison uprising and escape movies is … Chicken Run? I was majorly obsessed with this movie as a 7-year-old, wearing out the VHS tape and owning several plush chicken stuffed animals from the film. (You can’t see it in the header image of this newsletter, but this poster hung above my head in my childhood bedroom.)
Turns out, I was onto something as a young cinephile — this movie still absolutely slaps as both a work of accessible genre filmmaking and animation creativity. It’s just nuts to think this entire movie was made by hand; apparently Aardman’s animators were only able to complete a single minute of the film for every week spent in production. Nonetheless, it was time well spent as the story of how the chickens on the British Tweedy farm rebel against their captors. The task becomes especially urgent as the farmers begin converting the farm from harvesting the hens’ eggs to making chicken pot pies.
The animals think they’re getting a godsend when the rooster Rocky (voiced by an actor who we should not name) lands in their midst. The chickens think he can fly and begin to get their hopes up that Rocky can teach them, leading to some hilarious and earnest “training” montages. There’s such creativity, heart and pluck in Chicken Run that’s hard to resist no matter your age. It’s worth a rewatch (or a first watch) to bring out the kid in you without feeling like the movie infantilizes you.
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall