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Wall-E: Cuteness Ceiling Shattered

If you are having a problem finding this movie cute, endearing and bordering on unbearably adorable, please update your emotional server to Mac operating system 295.5.6, otherwise known as “Cockatoo”.

The moment of delivery finally came. Pixar gave birth to yet one more instant classic character who rode his miniature tank treads into the hearts of adults and children across the nation. Bringing in $62 million in the opening weekend it stole the #1 spot easily (but fantastic job to Wanted for its #2 appearance at $51 million). Once again Pixar created something that parents and older siblings don’t moan and groan about having to bring their little ones to, in fact, the little ones might even be dragged there without a choice of their own. This is the creative key to their continued success, lure in the entire family.

So let’s get to the star of our show, Wall-E. He is a self-sufficient, solar powered, mini-roving trash compacter left on Earth to clean it after the humans evacuated to party in space. In the span of 700 years, Wall-E becomes incredibly lonely as most life on the planet, even artificial life, shuts down, but Wall-E refuses to quit and he fills his time with his own style of treasure hunting and antique collecting. His life takes a drastic turn though when a unmanned probe is sent back to Earth as a routine to check for signs of surviving biological life. This is the moment where we see that in its core this is one of the most classic stories ever told: Boy meets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy chases after Girl (there is one more step, but I have to leave something to chance, don’t I?).

Beyond the dazzling CGI animation, which by now is expected and consistently delivered by Pixar, the amazing beauty of this film is the simplicity of it. In the first thirty minutes of the show is covered in approximately four or five words of dialogue. Thoughts and emotion shine through the most minute of movements, the sound of Wall-E’s eyes focusing, the inflection in tone as he repeats one word over and over again, and the continually changing angles of his head. Wall-E reminds us of the power of silent film when we were shown emotion and meaning without being told through banal and brain coddling exposition. Throughout the rest of the film more speaking roles appear, but our two main characters run the gamut with only a handful of words between them. It’s a wondrous achievement in screenwriting and a powerful display of trust and belief on the side of the studio.

Surrounding our two main star-crossed lovers, Pixar gently tackles the idea of making a cockroach, one of the most universally hated insects on the planet, into a loyal and adorable friend, once again proving that anything in their hands is capable of becoming endearing. There is also a noticeable left-leaning bend to the story, somewhat in the vein of our last eco-friendly animated juggernaut, Happy Feet, where we get a slight glimpse of what our future might be on this planet if we don’t start to turn things around. On a more sneaky and capitalist note, you should also take note to what operating system is running everything 700 years into the future. I’m not going to give away the goat, but let’s just say we could name it “iFuture”.

Overall, this is one more grand slam for the wizards of animation at Pixar and one more DVD that I will be including in my library in the coming months. See this as soon as you can!

p.s. There is another one of Pixar’s great short films in front of Wall-E, which coincidentally, is also completely silent. Seriously, these guys are geniuses. They must eat that Smart Start cereal every morning. I’m gonna get me some…

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One Day for Another: It’s Never to Late

I don’t know the words to express how I feel right now, but as a writer words are all I have, so I’m going to  do my best to find some of the right ones. A dear, close friend of mine was already going through a tough time in her life when things drastically went from bad to worse to unimaginable. The horrors she was put through are nothing short of inhuman and the pressure of dealing with them felt insurmountable. There is no way for me to look through her eyes in this situation, no way for me to even begin to empathize, no way to know how hard it was to reach out and ask for help.

There are things in this life that no one is meant to deal with. Pressures and emotions heightened to such extents leaving normal human capabilities far behind. So what are people supposed to do then? Do they have to become superhuman? Do they have to make themselves more than everyone else just to stay afloat in a life proving once and again to be unfair towards them? I wish I could say no, I wish I could say that people could just take a deep breath and things will suddenly be alright, but ignoring that type of pain is comparable to standing on train tracks and ignoring the rumbling getting louder beneath your feet. We all need to step up in those moments and do anything we can to help deal with this unequal reality, not just the victims, but those people close to them as well. The hands of the victim need to unwrap from around themselves, where they desperately try to hold themselves together, and reach out for the arms, hands, shoulders and chests all ready and willing to share in whatever small piece of the burden available to them. I’ve spent my share of time locked up in my room, hiding from the light, hiding from the outside world, only in the hopes that someone would come looking for me, but the responsibility is on both sides. We need to learn to reach out so we can in turn teach others how to reach back.

I realize that this might seem a tad vague, which is intentional because those details are her story to tell or not tell, not mine. What I hope for, what I wrote this entry for is to remind everyone out there to take a moment today, tomorrow, every day to think about those close to you. Think about someone you haven’t spoken to in a while and drop them a line, just remind them you’re out there and that you care. Just that small offering of an ear to listen or a shoulder to lean on can mean the difference between seeing the light and walking towards it. And for those people who might be reading this and are on the other side of the equation, don’t wait one more second to reach out and ask for help. There are people who care about you, people who know and love you, even people who have never met you, they are all ready and willing to drop it all to be there for you when you need it. If you find your circle of friends and family not as strong or responsive as you hoped, don’t despair, there are so many others on call at that very moment. Please follow this link to the Find Help section of To Write Love on Her Arms. This list is only the tip of the iceberg of support services and hotlines. These people are here for you. You are never alone and it is never, ever too late.

Tossing Drinks to Tossing Jokes: A day in the life of…(6/6)

1 – The only bad thing about this spectacular display of bartending skill is you can imagine how annoying it would be to try to get your keys back from her at the end of the night. [via Pandachute via SkillVideos]

2 – Hunter S. Thompson was a visionary, genius and possible lunatic, which in turn means that anything you create to talk about and feature his life, I’m gonna watch it. [via FilmDrunk]

3 – If you watch this video of an amazingly happy child and don’t crack a smile yourself, you need to look under your bed when you get home, I think you’ll find you left your soul there. We all deserve days where we laugh like that just once. [via Pandachute]

4 – I’m a fan of Seth Rogan, along with millions of other movie watchers happy about the upswing in popularity and profit for R-rated comedies, but I’m not sure I’m a big enough fan to endorse the idea of him playing The Green Hornet in an upcoming adaptation. I knew he was writing it and I’m fine with that, but he doesn’t seem like the superhero type to me. Even Will Smith got on my nerves with unnecessary quips and jokes throughout I, Robot, you think Rogan is going to go through any scene without a pot/dick/sex/fart joke? I’m willing to wait and give him a shot, but this is a risky venture for him, no two ways about it. [via Perez]

5 – You know what’s not a rsiky venture? Making Transporter 3! Jason Statham is coming back once again as the driver who just can’t say no to a job, then can’t say no to kicking the crap out of those who gave him the job. I’m predicting ridiculous car chases, chaser bullets everywhere and needlessly hot women (wait, is “needlessly hot” actually possible? I’m gonna meditate on that…) [via FilmSchoolRejects]

6 – Universal Studios is taking their recent fire as positive as they can and using the destruction as an excuse to rebuild and recreate something new in lieu of the 20-year-old King Kong attraction. Smart move, people. As iconic as it was, it was time to move on from that. They let go of the Back to the Future ride recently and that was at least 5 years its junior. My hope, drive-thru Wanted experience! Angelina Jolie dives down and shoots curved bullets around the tram all day long. Sweet… (although in reality, they should make it a Hulk experience. It could basically be the same set, just updated.) [via ComingSoon]

7 – Sometimes I wonder if people read this and then go out specifically to do exactly the opposite of what I wished for. Brett Ratner came out talking about how he wants to make the next Beverly Hills Cop for the 10 and 12-year-olds who don’t know the first film. Guess what? No one would have known the first film or any of them if they were originally made for the kids. It was an R-rated comedy and one of the nest ever made. They need to jump on this bandwagon and run with it instead of trying to continually trying to shove Eddie Murphy into the family genre. It worked for him for a while, but it’s time he got his mouth dirty once again. Hell, let him wear the Michael Jackson jacket again too, if that helps. [via FilmSchoolRejects]

8 – The creepy next step after buying these Joker themed playing cards is for everyone to show up at the game in Joker makeup. Now tell me who’s bluffing… [via FilmSchoolRejects]

9 – Someone needs to go back and digitally insert this necktie into American Psycho. It’s just too perfect. [via Uncrate]

10 – Here’s a little folk song to end the day entitled New Math. It starts out cute and kinda funny, then segways smoothly into totally irreverent and borderline hysterical. Kudos guitar playing sir. [via GorillaMask via ejb]

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Axel Foely to At-At Families: A day in the life of…(6/3)

1 – In the massive upswing of sequels, it was only a matter of time until they hit something I really hold dear. Beverly Hills Cop is one of my favorite comedies and it holds so many great peaks for R-rated laughers along with being the beginning of a possibly legendary career for Eddie Murphy. It’s not really a big surprise that Eddie would want to jump back into the role of Axel Foley, but take my word, the only way this will work is if they get the old Eddie back. No PG-13 rating here. We need swearing, cocky, abrasive Axel Foley once again. If they follow through on that, I might just start playing the theme song once again as my alarm clock. [via Perez]

2 – Turning from sequels, we go to the only logical place, prequels. J.K. Rowling said she would not continue any more books in the Harry Potter series, but she never said anything about going backwards. She wrote a prequel novel for the Potter-verse, but this is only going to sold for charity in an auction, no mass publication will be done. As gracious as this is, and I am sure it will pull in a healthy amount of Euros, I feel bad for the house that will inevitably get broken into by a mob of crazed quidditch players in search of the mythical tome. [via Starpulse]

3 – I’ve heard rumblings through my group of friends that I should start paying attention to the Fox TV starlet show, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I usually would have been glued to this already by the casting choice of Summer Glau, but something kept me from feeling totally committed to it. Now they sweetened the pot by dropping in Shirley Manson, the lead singer of Garbage, for next season. Hello TiVo, goodbye productivity. [via ComingSoon]

4 – Is it possible the Coen Brothers will ever make a normal movie? I doubt it sincerely. Here’s a link to the Red-Band trailer for their next ecclectic collection of actors in Burn After Reading. [via WWTDD]

5 – This might actually crack a smile on the faces of all those dark, black nailed little girls in the world. Their heroine, Emily the Strange, is on her sad and angry way to the screen. Something tells me a PG rating for this is not forthcoming. [via ComingSoon]

6 – So a couple of teenage girls blatantly stole $150 from a 9-year-old girl scout who was selling those painfully addicting cookies. Two things are wrong with the video here; first, these girls have no concept of morality and a frightening absence of realization of their own effect on the world around them, secondly, these girls are obviously not right in the head because they stole the money and not the cookies. Seriously, they are like crack cookies! [via Today's Big Thing]

7 – Hopefully you haven’t tossed your computer out the window after watching that last scarred piece of humanity, but if you are lucky enough to keep your revulsion in check, here is your reward. You see, there are still some decent people in this place. [via YouTube via Diablo Cody's Blog]

8 – Sometimes, just sometimes, they get something so painfully right. I have no idea if the movie is going to be any good at all, but I hope they keep making these videos, because they are certainly worth the entire movie’s budget. [via The Superficial]

9 – Oh yeah, nothing says lovin’ like a good monkey suit. [via Garfield Minus Garfield]

10 – This is pure genius. Prints available here. [via TCritic]

P.S. There soon will be some changes to this blog. You will see more pointed posts about particular topics alongside those about random happenings on the web or in the entertainment world. Also, I just added two more links on the Charities page, so please take a look in there. I will be adding to that list more often now. Thanks for any support you can lend to these deserving causes.

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