Movie No. 11: WALL-E

(Note: Sorry this took so long to get done. I actually postponed it to give me time to see a different movie first. You'll see later.)

Few filmmakers just capture the pure magic of storytelling as well as Pixar does. That's one of the best ways to describe their new film, "WALL-E" simply pure movie-making magic. Seriously, see this movie.

Our hero WALL-E, short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, is the last working robot on earth, or at least Manhattan. Humans have long since abandoned earth after toxic levels of garbage overran the city, and WALL-E's fellow robots, essentially full-service trash compactors left behind to clean up the planet, have long-since stopped working. But WALL-E has persevered, going back out every day to compact mounds of trash. Perhaps WALL-E has survived because he has found a reason to. Over the years, WALL-E has developed a personality, mainly a sense of curiosity and wonder. Every day, he saves certain treasures from the trash he compacts, bringing them back to his home.

For all of the treasures WALL-E has found, however, something is missing. Along with curiosity, the robot, whose only friend is a seemingly indestructible cockroach, also has developed a sense of loneliness, a longing for some kind of connection.

Then one day, a spaceship lands on earth carrying EVE, a robot with a specific mission and an itchy trigger finger. Finally, WALL-E hopes, here is the connection he has been longing for.

Much has justifiably been written about the movie's first segment on earth, which is absolutely breathtaking. The vistas are both strangely beautiful and haunting, a barren wasteland of trash. Perhaps better still, however, was the character work. Without more than just a couple of words, this section creates an utterly heart-breaking character in WALL-E. Both his curiosity and his near desperation are so vividly and wonderfully drawn that this robot seems more human than the people in many movies.

While the second half on a spaceship which now houses the human race is not quite as flawless as the first, but there is still a lot of brilliant stuff to be drawn from its rather dystopian view of the future. People have ceded so much of their lives over things and technology that they have lost those very human traits that the robot WALL-E seems to have developed. There's no curiosity, no wonder or awe. People have let technology take care of their every whim, and because of that they've kind of become a slave to it.

On thing that strikes me looking back on the last two Pixar films is how they seem to be digging back into the early days of movies for inspiration. One of the reasons why this review is late is that I wanted to wait until I'd finished seeing my first silent film, "City Lights," which has been cited by some as a possible inspiration for this film. I can see it. But several of the more choreographed comedic sequences reminded me of Pixar's previous outing. Many of the kitchen scenes in "Ratatouille" took on the same balletic quality as many of the scenes in Chaplin's film. It might be neither here nor there, but it is interesting how a company on the cutting edge of technology seems to be turning to the past for storytelling tips.

As some of you who have been reading the various incarnations of my movie lists for a while might recall, two out of the last three Pixar films cracked the top 10 for their respective years. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen once again this year.

In one word: "Whoa!"

A

What am I missing?

So I'm trying to watch some of AFI's top movies that I haven't seen. And that's great when they are as wonderful and hold up as well as "Lawrence of Arabia," which I watched yesterday. But "Gone with the Wind"? Seriously? This is the movie that's so revered? Maybe it just hasn't held up that well over the years, but it certainly generates a lot of love for a film with two unlikable (and not all that interesting) leads, a massively overrated love story (if you can even call it that) and a storytelling style that manages to make the film simultaneously feel unbearably long and extremely rushed. Even most of the iconic lines (with the exception of the admittedly great parting shot) manage to feel leaden in the film itself.

Seriously, someone tell me what I'm missing here. Why does this film generate the level of love and admiration?

Movie No.10: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"

My first reaction after seeing the new Indiana Jones movie: What the @#$@#$?

And I'm actually not talking about the rather out there plot. I'm talking about just how sloppy some parts of it were. Granted there were also moments where you were reminded just how talented the people involved were, but there were too many moments that assaulted my suspension of disbelief with an Uzi, and the film never really achieved a level of consistency to make up for it.

To account for the character's aging, the plot has been moved up about 20 years, eschewing Nazism and religious artifacts for Communists and a more, well, sci-fi related plot. In the 20 intervening years, Indy has apparently added war hero and occasional spy to his previous list of job titles (archaeologist, adventurer, academic). He's been kidnapped and taken to a certain well-known and mysterious military "area" by a group of Soviets led by the somewhat psychic Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett with a black bob) to find an artifact in the storage facility that Indy had helped examine (let's just say the town of Roswell is mentioned).

After a harrowing (and in one case eye-rollingly ludicrous) escape, a young greaser named Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) comes looking for Indy, saying his mother had told him to contact him after she and his pseudo-stepdad, a onetime friend of Indy's were kidnapped after Indy's friend had gone in search of the fabled Crystal Skull.

Some of the things that you'd expect from an Indiana Jones movie are still there. The action sequences still mostly carry the same level of excitement. Ford, though visibly aged, still wears the character well, and his easy delivery of some of the movie's snarkier lines helps add some intentional laughs to the proceedings, especially after he meets back up with "Raiders of the Lost Ark" flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Blanchett also is a nice addition to the cast. Her character is occasionally a bit over the top, but the Oscar winner makes her work.

The problem is several sequences are so jaw-droppingly ridiculous (the refrigerator scene, the monkey scene and the "It drops three times" scene, among others) that they kill any momentum the film had. This is especially bad when they seem to, without fail, come immediately after the film's strongest scenes. Some parts feel overly drawn out. Others feel rushed. Overall it just doesn't really come together all that well. It's not an awful film, but it sure as heck ain't "Raiders of the Lost Ark" either.

D+

If you'll notice I also added "In the Valley of Elah" (better than I expected) and "Southland Tales" to the list. "Southland Tales" is a bizarre one. I simultaneously think I have it rated too high and too low. It has moments of a fever-dream type brilliance, but its plot also manages to twist and turn its way into utter incoherence. Let's just say this is a film that quotes liberally from the Book of Revelations, has Sarah Michelle Gellar's character hosting a TV show that can perhaps best be described as the McLaughlin Group if it were made up entirely of ditsy female porn stars, and has a couple of characters utter a variation of the line "I'm a pimp, and pimps don't commit suicide."

A little more on 2007

I was a little baffled when I made up the initial top-90 list why so many people considered 2007 such a great year for movies. There were certainly many I liked, but it seemed actually slightly down from a lot of years.

What a difference 12 movies make.

I have hit 100 and posted them, in order, on the side of page with the new ones having an asterisk. As you can see, many of them are toward the top. I already told you about "The Savages," but even better was "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." It lived up to its reviews. Many of the stretches are simply marvelous. I'd also highly recommend "Lars and the Real Girl," "Control," "The Hunting Party" and "Starting Out in the Evening." And as highly uneven as it was, "I'm Not There" had moments of, if not genius, then at least a reasonable facsimile. "Walk Hard" wasn't as good as the other two high-profile Apatow productions of last year, but it was frequently very, very funny. And while "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" was a bit of a disappointment to me, it, "King of California" and "Things We Lost in the Fire" were all at least passable. Even by far the worst, the bipolar train-wreck of a film that is "Romance and Cigarettes," had a delightful performance by Kate Winslet.

So hey, the year's looking up. I'll probably see at least another 10 or so movies. "Persepolis," "In the Valley of Elah," "This is England," "10 Canoes" and, for sheer curiousity's sake, "Southland Tales" are all on the list. What else do you think should be?

Movie No. 9: "Baby Mama"

I had a bad feeling at the start of "Baby Mama." The first 15 minutes are everything that Tina Fey's comedy "30 Rock" usually isn't: stale and really poorly paced. It seemed sloppy and flabby, in need of scenes trimmed a few seconds earlier and laughs that hit a bit harder -- or at all.

Then Amy Poehler entered the picture.

Poehler plays the trashy surrogate to Tina Fey's well-put-together corporate executive on the rise. The film is mostly about them becoming friends during the pregnancy, with a few predictable (and one rather surprising) twist thrown in along the way.

"Baby Mama" isn't a great film, but the interaction between Fey and Poehler makes it a watchable one. The SNL vets play off each other well, and with the exception of a couple of lines from Dax Shepard, most of the laughs come when the film's stars are sharing the screen.

It lacks the sharpness of a film like "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," but as a matinee or a night curled up on the couch after it is released on DVD, it should offer a suitable amount of entertainment. C+

Movie No. 8: "Iron Man"

There's a lesson to be learned from "Iron Man." You don't cast Paul Walker when you can get Robert Downey Jr. You don't cast Jessica Alba when you can get Gwyneth Paltrow. You don't cast Ice Cube when you can get Terrance Howard. Their performances, especially Downey in the title role, help make "Iron Man" into a very good summer blockbuster.


While the casting of Downey in a superhero film might have initially raised some eyebrows, the role fits him like a glove (as perhaps well it should, given the actor's past and the harder-living aspects of Tony Stark's personal life). He imbues Stark not only with a charisma and quick wit that the public persona need but also with a good deal of humanity. Downey makes the character's transformation moving and believable as the weapons dealer's eyes are opened to the destruction that his life's work has wrought.

Perhaps the only complaint is that the action scenes weren't all that inventive or exciting. A film like "Spider-Man 2" worked both in and out of costume, but nothing here even approaches that film's train showdown. Still, though, it is not a bad effort. Not by a long shot.

B+