Tag Archives: wall-e

Dec 26

Props to WALL-E, Michael and A.O.

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I did not realize that Ben Mankiewicz and Ben Lyons had been replaced as hosts of “At The Movies,” the show formerly known as “Siskel & Ebert” and “Ebert & Roeper” before Roger Ebert’s thyroid cancer surgery left him unable to speak.

I like Ben Mankiewicz as a host on Turner Classic Movies, and I used to enjoy Ben Lyons’ father Jeffrey when he hosted a similar movie review show on public TV. But the Mankiewicz / Lyons version of “At The Movies” just didn’t seem to carry the same weight as Ebert & Roeper, much less Siskel & Ebert. The younger, hipper critics seemed to be performing as much as reviewing.

New hosts Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times took over (I now find out) in September, and from the episode I saw tonight they have much the same tone and outlook that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert brought to the program. They don’t seem to be trying to impress the viewer with how clever they are; they’re just passionate about movies and like talking about them in an intelligent way.

In addition to their regular movie reviews, they’ve apparently spent the past few weeks counting down their top 10 movies of the decade, and they revealed their top picks tonight. Scott’s, much to my delight, was “WALL-E.”

I’ll have to set “At The Movies” up on the DVR.

Jul 04

More on WALL-E

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Here’s a great review of WALL-E from a United Methodist web site. An excerpt:

Where the movie really shines—and where it is most daring—is in the two leads. Most of Wall•E is completely free of dialogue, leaving the robots and others to express themselves entirely in body language. Wall•E, a perpetual klutz, comes to resemble the lovable losers of the silent-film era.

Jun 27

WALL-E (No spoilers)

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It’s the law of averages; one of these days, the folks at Pixar Animation Studios are going to fire a dud. Maybe it will be a first-class stinker; maybe it will just cause people to shrug and say “that’s not up to their usual standard.”

Whenever that may happen, it did not happen in 2008.

WALL-E is great. Just great.

A few advance reviews accused it of being a heavy-handed “message movie,” and maybe even a political polemic. Balderdash. It’s certainly no more of a message movie than “Ratatouille,” and — like “Ratatouille” — it is entertainment first, parable second. For one thing, the cartoonishness of its apocalypse is self-deprecating; it both makes its point and mocks itself for having a point. There’s a major vein of science fiction that has some sort of apocalyptic, look-what-we-did-to-ourselves slant. At its best, it can be poignant; even at its worst, it can be overlooked if the story and characters are good enough.

“WALL-E” goes way beyond good enough. It’s beautiful, and thrilling, and fun. See it as soon as possible.

The short subject, “Presto,” is terrific as well, just as we’ve all come to expect from Pixar.

By the way, I was shocked to see a teaser trailer for “Pink Panther 2″ in which Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau tries to weasel his way in to a screening of … “WALL-E.” “Pink Panther 2″ is from MGM; “WALL-E,” of course, is Disney/Pixar. Why would one studio want to promote the other’s product? I’d read in advance that “WALL-E” incorporates some live-action clips from a well-known movie musical, and so I thought maybe this was some sort of quid-pro-quo in return for MGM giving Disney permission to use the clip.

But I looked it up just now, and the musical in question was produced by 20th Century Fox. MGM had nothing to do with it. So there must be some other explanation.