{"id":4359,"date":"2025-07-01T15:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T21:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4359"},"modified":"2025-06-18T21:55:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T03:55:51","slug":"movie-a-close-shave-1995","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/01\/movie-a-close-shave-1995\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: A Close Shave (1995)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/c\/cc\/A-close-shave.jpg\" alt=\"A Close Shave\" width=\"200\" height=\"365\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><u>A Close Shave<br \/><\/u><\/strong>Year: 1995<br \/>Rating: PG<br \/>Length: 31 minutes \/ 0.52 hours<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s difficult for the third film in a series to live up to the success of its predecessors. When the first film feels a bit rough and the second is polished to perfection, the third has a lot to live up to. <em>A Close Shave<\/em> (1995) is definitely better than <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/18\/movie-a-grand-day-out-1989\/\"><em>A Grand Day Out<\/em><\/a> (1989) but I think its scarier elements hold it back from the perfection that is <a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/movie-the-wrong-trousers-1993\/\"><em>The Wrong Trousers<\/em><\/a> (1993). After all, the levity of <em>Wallace &amp; Gromit<\/em> is what makes it fun to watch.<\/p>\n<p>As is always the case in these early <em>Wallace &amp; Gromit<\/em> shorts, the technical achievement here is incredible. Aardman makes it look so easy that you don&#8217;t even realize how they pulled off stop motion flying sequences or have so many moving parts working all in tandem to make a sweater. And the reason why this is falls squarely on how engaging the plot is. The art of claymation serves to enhance the story so that you hardly even notice it&#8217;s there. This is the mark of pure artistry and the reason Aardman dominated this space for so many years.<\/p>\n<p>While there are violent elements in <em>A Grand Day Out<\/em> and <em>The Wrong Trousers<\/em>, the main characters never feel like they&#8217;re truly in danger. Leaning more into the Hitchcock-like suspense in A Close Shave was a bold decision, but I definitely have strong memories of watching this as a kid and being scared when the big reveal happens near the end. That&#8217;s not to say <em>Wallace &amp; Gromit<\/em> has to be specifically for kids, it&#8217;s more that parents should know these moments are there before letting their kids watch it.<\/p>\n<p>Another superb <em>Wallace &amp; Gromit<\/em> short that&#8217;s a little darker than normal, I give <em>A Close Shave<\/em>\u00a04.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/> 1\/2<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/bmw-the-critic\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"820\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3.png 820w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-300x114.png 300w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-768x292.png 768w, https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/BMW-the-Critic-v3-640x244.png 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Close ShaveYear: 1995Rating: PGLength: 31 minutes \/ 0.52 hours I think it&#8217;s difficult for the third film in a series to live up to the success of its predecessors. When the first film feels a bit rough and the second is polished to perfection, the third has a lot to live up to. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1199,2],"tags":[1772,4190,3976,4022,4021,4024,13,8,257,4023,3973],"class_list":["post-4359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-5-stars","category-animated","category-movie","tag-1772","tag-a-close-shave","tag-aardman","tag-aardman-animation","tag-claymation","tag-gromit","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-stop-motion","tag-wallace","tag-wallace-gromit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4363,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions\/4363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}