Chuck Amuck: The Movie

This tribute to Chuck Jones, the least threatening Warner Brothers animation genius around and no less brilliant for it, gets off on the wrong foot, meandering toward its subject with insipid BBC narration. But after five minutes the decks are cleared and Chuck is given a platform to reminisce, to expound, and to theorize. His words are rehearsed and calculated as well as insightful - the recent TCM doc "Chuck Jones: Memories," based on an interview he gave over a decade later, reiterates many of these anecdotes almost down to the phrase. The latter work is more artful and more intimate, but this one gets the edge - for his comments on the need to 'respect the single frame' which is just about the most essential quote on film-making I've ever heard from anybody, and for the generous nods to the team that worked behind, above and alongside him - to isolate Chuck Jones from this milieu is like writing a one-man show about Tommy Douglas, and there are gems galore to be found here.