Pre Dark Knight Update

As the month of June closes out, I am very pleased with the summer season thus far. I'm writing right now in an attempt to continue my written recollections of movies that I watch too much of.

Ty Burr of the Boston Globe said that WALL E is not only the best movie of the summer slate, but the best American film to so far in 2008. A day after seeing it, I find myself agreeing. I was disappointed last summer with Ratatouille, a movie that I went into very excited to see. I don't know what it was that detracted me from the movie; I like to think that it was the simple concept that food is a romantic thing to make a movie about, which I just cannot agree with. I was even more shocked to then read about how everyone thought Ratatouille was one of the best films of the year, and how some critics thought it deserved to be on the Best Picture category rather than the Best Animated Feature. I thought it was well made, with some of the msot beautiful imagery that Pixar has created, but I struggled to identify with its characters and their interests.

That being said, WALL E is perhaps my favorite Pixar film yet. It has the sophistication of Ratatouille's imagery and characters, yet it holds as much charm as Finding Nemo and Toy Story combined. It's main character, I think, will become an iconic figure in the Disney canon, which is quite extraordinary considering it can't even talk! How Pixar created a romantic comedy out of two robots calls attention to a creativity and attention to detail that astounds me. I watched the entire movie in a state of dumbfoundedness, a 20 year old who felt mixed emotions of love and childhood blurred together. The "Define Dancing" part of the film might be a scene that is remembered forever, if not in film class, then at least in my heart. I cared for this little robot so much; the end of the film reminded me of this fact.

Also, just a little note, as I was watching it, I remember thinking of the headline, "Pixar gets political?" Post-apocalypse, Fat-America, these things made this G rated comedy have a little bite to it.

AND, I appreciate the film's recognition of earlier cinema. I still feel I am lacking in film history/appreciation, but I understand the winks to Charlie Chaplin, Hal 9000, and, in another wonderful Pixar short, Yensid from Fantasia.