Nick Park is one of the greatest filmmakers in motion-picture history -- and chances are that, until this week, you'd never heard of him or his movies. Park has made five films. Four of them are short subjects -- the longest of which runs thirty minutes, the briefest a mere five. Three of those shorts are comic masterpieces, comparable to the silent classics of Chaplin and Keaton. The other two Park works are merely wonderful, including his first full-length Hollywood feature, Chicken Run, which just opened in three thousand theaters nationwide.
Park's movies are filmed on tiny sets populated by characters made of clay. They are photographed frame by frame (it takes twenty-four frames to make one second of film) to give the illusion of movement and action....