Out There There's A World Outside of Yonkers

Buttfacemakani is made of win, not only because she is an awesome artist, but because she also probably hates Twilight as much as I do. This reminds me of when Katranna once pointed out the textual awfulness of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The internet is smart!

Last night Bear, White-Harp, Kim, and I went to see WALL·E and it may have been the best movie ever.

Review of Pixar’s WALL·E

Wall-E

It goes without being said, of course, that Pixar consistently produces excellent films and I mean films. It’s a mistake to view any of its previously produced movies as mere “kiddie fare” as each transcends the formulaic, contrived, and cliché found in most G-rated films these days. Cutting-edge technology aside (the realism and attention to detail is incredible but that is par for the course in computer animation), Pixar’s films are so successful because their characters are, just like their animated selves, three-dimensional. And because of that, memorable.

The eponymous character of WALL·E sticks in the brain like the song “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” from Hello, Dolly! which opens the movie. “He” (gender is only implied—he’s a robot after all, although I suppose WALL· identifies as “male” which could possibly spark another interesting philosophical discussion which I won’t get into now) is scrappy, hard-working, lovable, and incredibly lonely. And all this is conveyed without a stitch of dialogue. The brilliance of this film lies in Pixar’s ability to portray emotion in a robot and to have us sympathize with “him” with no words and no facial features save for two approximations of eyes. But wordless storytelling is a particular strength of Pixar’s; the studio made its first impression with the short “Luxo, Jr.”, a mischievous little lamp who pestered its “dad” to play with it. (Come to think of it, I can recall only one of Pixar’s shorts with words, and it wasn’t particularly good.)

WALL·E has a decent “9 to 5″ job compacting the refuse and garbage left behind by us humans, but over 700 years he’s developed something of a personality. He sorts through our trash to find little treasures to marvel over: rubber duckies, Zippo lighters, sporks, Rubix cubes, and a worn VHS copy of Hello, Dolly! from which he learns about dancing, love, and the desire to hold someone else’s hand. (The best part about Hello, Dolly!? It’s played on a Betamax, which is hooked up to an iPod, which is then hooked up to a projector!) His wish is granted in the form of EVE, a sleek probe with a classified directive and a temper. (EVE also looks like the robot version of White-Harp.) Their ensuing “courtship” is the most endearing, adorable, and geeky thing ever.

While the first half is beautiful and poetic, the second half is more of a conventional “Hey, let’s save the day, kids!” story and I was a little disappointed by it. Relatively speaking, of course, because I do think WALL·E is excellent overall. But the scrappy, rag-tag bunch of “crazy” robots against the big-baddies was the only element that felt formulaic to me. I loved the social commentary from Pixar about the life we lead: humans 700 years in the future have become fat, overgrown babies addicted to consumerism and lacking any real interpersonal connections. The little nudges scattered throughout the film were brilliant and never once did the film stoop to “preaching.” The ecological and social message the film conveys is pervasive, yet subtle, so that audiences may choose to make of it what they will, unlike the other ecologically minded computer-animated family film Happy Feet. The satirical barbs in WALL·E are pointed but not absurd (penguins have suddenly started tap-dancing! That must mean we must save the planet! WTF?).

I will also say that I’ve never rooted for a movie couple more than EVE and WALL·E. The cuteness slays me, I swear to god.

Go see this! Everyone, go! It may be the first movie in a long time for which I felt absolutely justified in spending $12!

Writing date with Wicked Cool Riley tonight. Oh, and laundry. Laundry is kind of important.

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