At the risk of sounding like someone who’s getting onto the Shaun the Sheep bandwagon twenty years late, Shaun the Sheep slaps. I don’t know how I avoided this series except to say that it was probably the fact that I didn’t watch a lot of British children’s shows when I was in college? But through a completely random set of circumstances, about three weeks ago the monsters chose to watch Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015), which I was vaguely aware of as the slightly oddball claymation sibling to Laika and Wes Andersen’s periodic spasms of animation which had once thrown some money Mel Gibson’s way while he was still a cultural icon.
Anyway, if you’re like me and you’ve also been living under a rock for the entirety of your life, these movies are basically silent films that find an anthem that will wiggle into your brain after its third play in the film. The Beast of Mossy Bottom, much like the 2015 movie is paying homage to genre movies of the past century in cinema, much like our good friend Minions y Monstra from earlier this summer. Unlike Coyote v Acme, this is actually a children’s film meant for children AND adults, not just an IP-grab in search of an audience. Instant classic.
