Review: Wall-E

Wall-E
5/5

To watch Wall-E is to enter into a world of almost pure cinematic pleasure. It is a love story, told through the medium of slapstick, to rival any of those of Charlie Chaplin. It is also a problematic science-fiction parable that rivals anything that Ridley Scott has ever done. And while I found the last two Pixar features underwhelming (Cars for being overlong and occasionally tedious, Ratatouille for imposing a standard and lifeless love story on the whole proceedings), Wall-E is an unqualified triumph of technology, of storytelling, and of love.

Like most kids movies, Wall-E is a post-Apocalyptic tale set 700 years after humanity's consumerist tendencies, led by giant Wal-Mart stand-in Buy'n'Large (BnL), have turned the Earth into a ruined wasteland. When the film opens, there are only two things that move on the surface of Earth: Wall-E, an adorable trash collector who is the last of the robots left behind to cleanup, and his only friend: a cockroach. Wall-E spends his days trying to single-handedly clean up humanity's messes, but along the way he's developed a personality, so he also collects fun bits of trash (Rubik's Cubes, lighters, car keys), converses with his cockroach friend in delightful warbles and animated gestures, and dances along to his battered tape of Hello Dolly.

All of this changes when EVE shows up. EVE is an Earth-probe of unknown function (Directive: Classified!) and as soon as he sets his eyes on her, Wall-E is in love. Together, they traverse the wasteland, as EVE searches for her unknown objective and Wall-E, lovelorn but mostly ignored, tags along (and tries not to take a laser blast from his trigger-happy would-be girlfriend).

Eve is adorable, but you wouldn't like her angry

Eventually, EVE finds what she's looking for and the action moves to outer space, with the lovelorn Wall-E again tagging along. To say more about the plot is unnecessary. But I should tell you that this is the best-looking Pixar movie ever made, which makes it of course the best-looking computer-animated movie ever made; both the vastness of outer space and the bleakness of a ruined Earth have never looked better. It features, especially in the Wall-E/EVE sections, relatively little dialogue beyond the two robots chirping each other's names, but you won't miss the dialogue, although you will enjoy what you get from Fred Willard, who makes an appearance not as a voice but as a video recording of the BnL president - the first such appearance in Pixar history.

Even without many words, even telling the story of a banged-up trash compacter who loves a sleek robotic space explorer, director Andrew Stanton has crafted one of the most heartfelt love stories in the history of cinema. It ranks, not just with Pixar's best like The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc, and Stanton's own Finding Nemo, but among the most emotionally and cinematically beautiful stories ever to reach the silver screen.

Film Ignorance #4: Laura

Film: Laura
Rating: A Good Movie
Director: Otto Preminger
Stars: Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price
Year: 1944
Reason for Ignorance: Never Heard of it
Ignorance Rating: 18/100

Otto Preminger was apparently a major Hollywood director at the mid-century, but I've never seen any of his films. I did know his name, however, because he directed Anatomy of a Murder, a courtroom drama starring Jimmy Stewart that I have wanted to see for a while. Now that I've seen Laura, I can't say I'm interested in finding anything else by him and watching it, besides the afore-mentioned Stewart picture.

Laura is a pretty straightforward film noir/mystery picture from this period of Hollywood: a beautiful dame is murdered and a tough-talking gumshoe has to work out the truth of the matter while receiving lies from everyone who knew her. There are two main variations her on the noir theme, neither of which serve the picture that well. First, the femme fatale, who's frequently murdered in the final scene, is murdered before the film begins. Secondly, the femme fatale in question is actually a wonderful person. This is what irked me - everyone has fallen in love with Laura: the fallen Kentucky gentleman (Price in a pre-horror role), the painter of her portrait, the urbane newspaper columnist (Clifton Webb) and, most nonsensically, Mark McPherson, the police detective. He never met her, but he fell in love with her anyway. But although she exerts this powerful spell over everyone, everyone also agrees that Laura was the kindest and gentlest woman they'd ever met. This removed the magic of the film noir for me; sure, we're frequently treated to a detective who's above suspicion, but besides that, everyone's supposed to be wading through the muck. Laura floats above it.

It would have been very hard to talk about the plot of Deliverance without mentioning the anal rape, but I was free to do so since everyone already knows about it. Since I don't think it's cultural common knowledge, I won't reveal the big twist that takes place halfway through Laura. Let's just say this: I was pretty sure who killed Laura about 15 minutes into the film, and, although the twist threw me off the scent for a while, I was back on track well before the film revealed all of its secrets. This made the final revelation of the murder un-revelatory.

The only truly positive thing I have to say about this film concerns the acting. The acting generally ranged from competent to slightly wooden, with Vincent Price's dissolute southern gentleman standing out. But Clifton Webb's columnist, Waldo Lydecker, was a revelation. I don't think I've ever seen Webb in anything before, but he's fantastic. His Lydecker is distasteful and regards everyone else with distaste. He's fantastically arrogant, following McPherson wherever he goes, questioning his methods, interrogating his witnesses, and trying to make it clear that he's the smarter and the classier of the two of them - the more worthy of Laura's posthumous love and the better able to solve her murder. His performance is the only thing about this film that is truly excellent. Otherwise, it's mostly a bit dull.

In other words, this is certainly not a bad film, but it didn't strike me as a special one. Sure, if you want your noir fix you can watch it and enjoy it, but it's not going to wow you. Before watching it, I'd recommend The Third Man, Touch of Evil, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai, The Big Sleep, The Asphalt Jungle, Double Indemnity, and even Manhattan Murder Mystery, Woody Allen's charming noir homage that I only now know references Laura as well as many of those other films I mentioned. If you still want more after that, check out Laura.

Fuck Peter Travers

A fact you may not be aware of: Peter Travers is the worst film critic in existence. Yes, worse than Roeper. Yes, worse than Zombie Siskel. And yes, worse even this guy. (that guy is one bad movie critic. damn).

So anyway, I moseyed on over to metacritic to see if they'd posted any reviews of The Dark Knight yet, because I'm starting to obsess about it just the teeniest bit. And they had one posted. Travers' review. And I read the whole review - and he gushes about the movie (probably for the wrong reasons) - but they chose to excerpt this quote. God have mercy on you, Peter Travers:

"No fair giving away the mysteries of The Dark Knight. It's enough to marvel at the way Nolan — a world-class filmmaker, be it Memento, Insomnia or The Prestige — brings pop escapism whisper-close to enduring art."

1.Pop escapism? I understand, movies where people dress up in costumes and save the day are usually examples of pop escapism. But this is a movie in which a homicidal maniac drives the seriously imbalanced guy who dresses up at night like a bat to the edge of his sanity, all while the district attorney loses his mind and becomes a second homicidal maniac. Mmm, I can feel my worries about the economy receding already.

2.Whisper-close? You see, Nolan was trying really, really hard to make this particular piece of pop escapism "enduring art." He didn't make though. Kudos for almost making it, says Peter Travers.

3.Enduring art? How the fuck does Peter Travers know this movie won't endure. I mean, it's one thing if he says it's not art; I'm sure he's wrong, but he could say something like that. But it's not enduring? HOW THE HELL HAS A MOVIE THAT HASN'T COME OUT YET NOT QUALIFIED AS ENDURING? Apparently he has some sort of movie almanac from the future, which he's going to use to rule the world.

4.Pop escapism and enduring art are mutually exclusive? Last time I checked, both AFI top 100 lists had put Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, and Singin' in the Rain in the top 15 greatest American movies ever made. Pop escapism? Check. Enduring art? Check.

This is the closest thing to a rant I have yet published. It's not very civilized. And I haven't even seen the movie in question, and I'm sure I just exposed myself as a raving lunatic fanboy unworthy of a keyboard, let alone a blog. Sorry.

A Straight Guy's Cinematic Homoeroticism

For those of you who are still hoping for it: no, this is not the post where I renounce my marriage and my heterosexuality, and switch this blog over to a fan-Yaoi* site featuring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. I am sorry. That post is still several years away, at least.

But this is an attempt to explain and situate the reasons why I spend very little time valorizing the female figure and more than a little time mentioning that Christian Bale is hot. I'll divide this into two parts: I. Why I don't obsess over the cinematic female figure.
II. Why I do obsess over the cinematic male figure.

Ia. It just feels juvenile: Sure, Megan Fox in Transformers is about the hottest thing I have ever seen (and no, that's not dirty- she's not much younger than I am. She just played a high schooler). But if I spent time talking about/posting about/leering over how hot Megan Fox was, then I'm pretty sure I would feel like I was 12 years old. If others wish to do so, that's fine...but it just rubs me the wrong way.

Yes, I could look at that all day long. I'd feel pretty bad about myself, though

Ib: It's misogynist/objectifying: This one, surely, is obvious to everyone. Now, certainly, there are male actors who have been chosen purely for their looks, and who feel bad about being objectified that way; Burt Lancaster started his own production company just to get some roles where he could keep his shirt on. But those male figures are relatively rare. On the other hand, I would say that over half of female Hollywood stars and starlets are viewed as sex objects first, and then actors and/or people second. And talking about how hot Megan Fox is is only a few steps away from chasing Britney Spears with a camera and ruining her life.

Oh Burt, put your shirt on

This leads to a corollary: except for the occasional shot that Craig Ferguson shows of Jack Nicholson shirtless, male movie stars are generally allowed to age. The women, on the other hand, are hounded into plastic surgery, then mocked for getting plastic surgery. I'd rather not be part of that cycle.


Ic. It encourages bad acting: Sure, there are guys who get cast just because they're pretty. But there's a long history of less than super good-looking guys (Spencer Tracy, Robert DeNiro, etc) being major Hollywood stars, as well as a long tradition of pretty boys (Pitt and Clooney, for recent examples) who get their break because of looks but, through hard work and (one presumes) outside pressure, eventually back up their looks with great acting.

I don't really know of either of these traditions for the ladies. Instead, the cult of female attractiveness leads casting people to scour the modeling agencies for fresh, talentless faces, which it tosses in front of the camera just to put leering men in the seats. And maybe some of those faces would pan out with actual acting ability...but the life of a Hollywood leading lady is desperately short, and they usually get thrown on the junk heap before we find out if they can act or not. I'd rather not encourage that system.

II: Reasons why Man-Love is Awesome

IIa. It's Generational: This isn't so much a reason as a statement of fact. An anecdote: Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which seriously pushes the bounds of male-nudity) features a British cock-rocker (Russell Brand) and a Hawaiian waiter (Jonah Hill) who loves him. At least one reviewer described Jonah Hill as "gay." But neither I nor any of my friends perceived him as gay. He was just a guy who really liked his favorite rock star, to the point of sexual arousal. And in an age where the term "man-crush" can be used even by the homophobic, I think that's just not that weird.

You can be straight, and still want to hit that.

IIb. It's funny: Now, in case you were wondering, I don't think Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are that hot. But boy is it comical - with my wife, on my blog, but above all at parties and gathering - to loudly and passionately proclaim my belief in their physical attractiveness. Or at least, I think it's comical. If everyone else doesn't: sorry. Don't invite me to parties or read my blog any more, because I ain't giving this one up.

IIc. It's Sublimation: I know this isn't a classical use of sublimation (i.e. sublimation is usually nonsexual), but I think the term applies. Here's what I mean: I do like looking at pretty people up on the big screen. But I feel bad and/or dirty (see reasons Ia, Ib, and Ic) for ogling the ladies (besides, apparently, Megan Fox). But I'd like to ogle someone. So I redirect my desires to subjects that I can admire without feeling like I'm turning them into inhuman sex objects. That's not so bad, is it?

IId. Christian Bale is hot.

*I am so naive. I couldn't remember the name for Japanese cartoon guy-on-guy porn. So I searched, in google, for "Japanese cartoon male porn." That search...did not turn up what I was looking for.

Film Ignorance #3: Deliverance

Film: Deliverance
Rating: Yep, It's a Classic.
Director: John Boorman
Stars: John Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty
Year: 1972
Reason for Ignorance: Never seemed that appetizing, for some reason...
Ignorance Rating: 25

I went to the University of South Carolina, which means there was a plaque about 50 feet from my freshman dorm proclaiming the campus as the site where poet James Dickey wrote the novel Deliverance. One of my professors, Dr. Greiner, was full of stories about Dickey's life and his dying words; another professor, who happened to be one of the worst human beings I had ever met, bragged about beating Dickey at tennis. It was a place suffused with the spirit of Dickey. But beyond the time when I was little that my dad showed me the dueling banjo scene because he thought I'd like the music, I never encountered this rough-hewn story of four friends on the canoe trip from hell in any form.

Deliverance, it turns out, is every bit the grueling and gut-wrenching experience I had always assumed it to be. It's also a masterpiece. Director John Boorman follows the four friends down the river to their catastrophe, and imbues the entire film with a sense of inevitable dread; although certainly any modern viewer of this film gets an extra dose of dread in the first 50 minutes, awaiting the famous "squeal like a pig" scene. Intense close-ups give all of the actors a chance to showcase their responses to the disasters that befall them, and all of them respond well, especially Voight. Although the violence is not especially graphic, it's nevertheless deeply disturbing when it occurs, and becomes even more disturbing when we watch the faces of the victims and the victimizers in its aftermath.

The canoe trip is a response to Reynolds' survivalist predictions of doom; a river is being damned for hydroelectric power and Reynolds wants to canoe down it before the opportunity is lost to civilization forever. Early in the film, when his character decides to trust the Griner brothers (coincidence?) with their vehicles, John Voight's character suggests it might not be such a good idea to trust their cars to these "rough-looking characters." Reynolds responds: "You can't judge people based on how they look."

The message of the first half Deliverance seems to be that Reynolds is wrong. Lewis (Reynolds) looks like a good ole boy with outdoorsy pretentions, and he certainly is. Ed (Voight) looks like a regular guy, and he is. Drew (Ronny Cox) looks friendly and affable, and he's the one who befriends the banjo-playing inbred hillbilly boy. Bobby (Ned Beatty) is short, round, soft, and piggish looking, and he gets anally raped. And yes, the inbred hillbillies doing the raping look violent and uncivilized. The second half of the film provides an interesting deconstruction of this way of judging, in ways that I cannot go into without ruining things for those who remain blissfully ignorant about the trials of Deliverance.

Ultimately, Deliverance is someone's (Dickey's?) nightmarish fantasy about a world without civilization. It's a world that Lewis hungers for; when he tells Ed that civilization has gotten too complicated and will inevitably fall, Ed responds: "You sound like you're looking forward to it." Ed gets what he wants, but it's not the backbone-building experience he was hoping for. It's a world of violence but, more importantly, suffering, and above all a world where unruly systems crush human beings. All humanity can do is try to build other, more humane systems in response. As their taxi driver says about Aintry, the town to be swallowed by the lake: "It's the best thing that's ever happened to this town."

Review: Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
1.5/5

When Futurama was on TV, it was one of the best and smartest shows on television. Matt Groening, creator of the The Simpsons, was a scifi geek at heart, and Futurama allowed him to create a scifi version of the Simpsons, set in the 30th Century. Every episode was very funny, many were quite moving, and the very best episodes, like Luck of the Fryrish or the Emmy-winning Roswell that Ends Well, stand among my favorite works of art of all time.

Futurama was reincarnated last year as a series of four made for DVD movies, and while the first of them, Bender's Big Score, wasn't as good as the best of the episodes, it was every bit as good as the average episode. To paraphrase A.O. Scott on The Simpsons Movie, being as good as the average Futurama episode means I would be willing to watch it roughly 30 more times. Above all, the movie was true to the show, with a twisty sci-fi plot, a whole slew of mostly unnecessary but very funny references to the episodes, and a new story about the unrequited love of 20th century everyman Fry for 30th century one-eyed mutant Leela.

In stark contrast, The Beast with a Billion Backs has almost nothing to recommend it. Rather than the complex plot of the best episodes, the plot is an inert, sluggish thing, with two especially pointless subplots involving Bender's search for acceptance and Fry's new girlfriend. At the end of the previous movie, a hole was ripped open in the universe; halfway through this movie, we learn that the other side of the hole contains a giant squid monster - something we learned from both the trailer and the DVD box. A second plot "revelation" is (spoiler alert, kind of) contained in the title.

But the uninteresting plot and subplots - and what seems to have been a general lack of effort in constructing this movie - could be forgiven if it was funny. It's not. This is the most perplexing thing. None of the episodes of Futurama have a plot as uninteresting as Beast, but even the weaker ones are full of funny moments. This movie isn't. Nearly every joke falls flat. Classic characters like Zoidberg, Professor Farnsworth, and Zap Brannigan - who are usually funny on sight - deliver nothing.

So that's the story. The plot is bad and the jokes aren't funny. I could have lived without the character development of the best episodes, although that was something that Bender's Big Score delivered. But when 90 minutes of Futurama goes by and I only chuckle once or twice and check the clock every five minutes, something has gone terribly wrong.





Even Scruffy isn't good in this movie

The Worst Casts of All-Time

Last week, I ran down some possible best casts of all-time. This week, I'd like to do the same thing for bad casts. This list, unfortunately, is heavily weighted to the last decade or so, because I simply don't know bad movies as far back as I know good movies. Here are the considerations:

1.They must be big names. Sure, any Lifetime movie can have a terrible cast, but generic crappy actor doesn't count. Tom Cruise...now you've got the making of a terrible cast.
2.Inconsistent Actors, Actors who Jumped the Shark, and Actors who turned a corner all count.
Examples: Anthony Hopkins can be better than almost anyone else. He's also frequently terrible and can count as a black mark for a cast.
Pre-Scent of a Woman Al Pacino is a feather in a cast's cap. Post-Scent Pacino is bad news.
Both Brad Pitt and George Clooney are really, really good actors. Mid-90s Pitt and Clooney: Do not want.
3. They should be bad in the film in question, i.e. Tombstone should have a terrible cast but bad actors Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer are actually good in it.
4. Depth counts. A movie with a lot of bad actors is worse than one with just two or three.

Just like with last week's list, there's a prohibitive favorite. And that's Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko follow-up, Southland Tales:


As you can see from the poster, the movie appears to feature The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and not one but two Seann William Scotts! Disaster already! But what if I were to tell you that the movie also featured Justin Timberlake, Christopher Lambert, Jon Lovitz, Janeane Garofalo, and Mandy Moore. If that is not the worst cast ever (as evidenced by two comedians who weren't even funny comedians, and three, count 'em, three "entertainers" (Rock, Timberlake, Moore)). Oh my god. Avoid.

The Challengers:
1.Alexander


Welcome to your destiny, Colin Farrell. You suck. Angelina Jolie's with you? That's great. You'd like to add Val Kilmer? Wonderful. Anthony Hopkins is cashing a paycheck at your expense? Bring it on. And you'll throw in Rosario Dawson for free? I guess Christopher Plummer is your Katie Holmes.

2.The Wedding Singer


I know I said depth counts, but I loathe the two principals in this movie so, so much. This is the bad cast version of The African Queen. And no, the Billy Idol cameo, while fun, doesn't alleviate anything. Totally not Awesome.

3. Rat Race


Picking on Rat Race just makes me feel bad about myself. John Cleese, 25 years past his prime, is surrounded by Rowan Atkinson, Dean Cain, Cuba Gooding, Jr, Jon Lovitz, Whoopi Goldberg, and Seth Green. I don't actually know who Breckin Meyer is, but he's in this movie, so he probably sucks. And don't even try to say "Whoopi's made some good movies." She hasn't. See:

4. Ghost

Shudder. The bad cast version of The Philadelphia Story. You have to watch Patrick Swayze for two hours, and frequently Whoopi Goldberg is with him. Also, Demi Moore. And yes, Patrick Swayze's ghost does inhabit Whoopi Goldberg's body at one point, so we get to watch Whoopi and Demi make-out, with Whoopi acting as Swayze. Acting.

5. Mission Impossible: II


Oh, Tom Cruise. We knew you were showing up. Anthony Hopkins is back, and I've actually seen this movie and can vouch: he is terrible, terrible, terrible in this movie. Thandie Newton is even worser, and she should be a no-name, but has somehow continued to get work. And Dougray Scott. Dougray Scott is a no-name. He is absolutely horrendous in this movie - even worse than Newton. I shouldn't count him, seeing as he's never been an actor of note, except: he was originally cast as Wolverine for the X-Men movies, but overruns in this movie prevented him from taking the part. Please now, imagine an alternate universe in which the crappy villain from MI:2 has Hugh Jackman's career. Damn, that's scary.

6. Dogma


I know, I know. Just like some of you probably like Buffy and think Sarah Michelle Gellar is great, plenty of you probably like Kevin Smith. Well, we're just going to have to disagree there.

Crappy actors/gay-lovers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon anchor this picture, and by themselves they'd constitute another Wedding Singer. But such pseudo-actors (ie comedians, singers, etc) as Janeane Garofalo (again!), Chris Rock, Alanis Morissette, and George Carlin are running around making things worse, while perpetual craptor Selma Hayek and pre-tolerable Jason Lee bring their lack of magic to the proceedings. I'm not really familiar with leading lady Linda Fiorentino, and Alan Rickman is always awesome, but even if Linda is the second coming of Julie Christie, that's still a bad cast. And again, I've actually seen this movie. Ugh.

Well, I've got a few other ideas, but those are my top picks. Now I want to hear from you. Do any of these casts get your vote? Have I left anyone out? Are you confused as to why this list is completely lacking in Cameron Diaz? Let me know.