About a year ago I sat here in Coffee Cat and wrote a long review of Wall-E, singing the prases of that film. Today I went over to San Jose and watched Up, Pixar’s offering for this year. While it doesn’t hold the same special place in my heart that Wall-E does, Up is an excellent film. Pixar has to be commended for having the most unbelievably gifted creative team on the planet. These guys are magic. I won’t write a review of Up because on of the things that made it enjoyable was not knowing really what it was about. I will way it’s an interesting contrast with Wall-E. If Wall-E is a film  about love and the things we do for love, Up is about loss. I am man enough to admit there are several points that just about brought me to tears. It is very moving.

Lastly, just a quick note on seeing Up in 3D. Meh. I think 3D is more the future than higher and higher resolution (I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really like digital 1080p video for fiction, I like the film look). 3D is a different experience and now that film makers have gotten away from gimmiky “in your face” 3D experiences, it is nice having that added depth on the screen. In the case of Up, 3D isn’t a deal breaker, just go see the movie!

Between Christmas, travels, and being sick the last few days, it’s been quite a while since I wrote anything. Rather than giving you pages and pages of dribble to read though, I’ll just summarize a bunch of the random thoughts that have been running through my head for the last few weeks.

Charlie Bartlet

While laying around the house sick yesterday, I watched Charlie Bartlet which I’ve had on my Netflix queue (along with about 50 other movies) for a while. It’s about Charlie Bartlet (tada!) an affluent high school student who makes friends at his new school by becoming an amateur psychologist/drug dealer specializing in anti-depressants and stimulants. Billed as a comedy, it is genuinely funny and most of the acting (Robert Downy Jr and Kat Dennings especially) is decent, there are a couple problems I had with the movie. Namely, that while the message in the end (be yourself, world be damned) is good, the excessive use of drugs without medical supervision is treated as more of a comedic device than the felony it actually is.  In the end, it’s worth a few good laughs but Varsity Blues and Grease are far better movies about what being in high school is like.

Gaza

Wow, what a mess. I would describe myself as generally pro-Israel but the Israelies are quickly eroding their moral high ground in their fight against Hamas. To be fair, Hamas isn’t doing anything to help their own cause in giving reason for Israel to continue their offensives. But as the death toll continues to mount, sooner or later Israel will run out of the political capitol and friends in Washington they need to stave off foreign intervention from the UN or Arab League.

Mariner Baseball

Mariner fans have quickly gone from despair to optimism about the 2009 seasons and beyond as new GM Jack Z-somethingsomething has moved to quickly rebuild the farm system destroyed in the disastrous Erik Bedard trade and move the club from a strict scouting oriented organization to one which gives equal time to scouts and stat heads. The fact that he and new manager Don Wakamatsu are talking about the importance of team defense is a massive improvement over the last group who stressed chemistry. Now, if we could just sign Griffey to a cheap farewell tour contract we can really have a party!

Grad School

While I still haven’t received the actual letter (seriously? USPS, fail!) I have heard from the Admissions people at Northwest University that I’ve been accepted to the International Care and Community Development program. If you read my blog, you probably already know this because I know most of you (but maybe not, shout out to anyone new!), but since I realize I haven’t written anything here yet, I thought I probably should. The plan right now is that I will move back in with my parents in Edmonds and start school in the Fall. Hopefully between now and then I will be able to find a job that pays somewhat decent wages and ideally at a non-profit that does international relief work. My long term goal is to find ways to help missionaries and aid workers tell the stories of the people they work with.

5D Mk II

Hopefully after I get my tax return and a stimulus check (though I hear rumors the package includes just tax cuts, no checks like last year) and continued savings I will be able to go forward with my plan to buy the aptly named “Jesus camera.” While $2700 is quite a bit of quid to drop on a camera, when you consider the fact I could easily spend $1500 on a first gen 5D and another $2000-3000 on a good HD camcorder, it’s actually quite a good deal. And while the 720p D90 Nikon came out to much fan fair and then fizzled somewhat, the 5D Mk II seems to have pro shooters drooling all over themselves. And who can blame them with the quality of the demo footage shot by guys like Vincent LaForet.  I could always keep waiting for whatever Red has up their sleeves with their Digital Still and Motion Camera (aka DSMC) but while that will likely be an equally good value, it will probably end up more in the $5000+ range, which is definitely out of my budget.

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Anyway, that’s most of what I’ve been up to in the last few weeks. I had a great Christmas with the fam back in Seattle in the snow and a pretty anti-climactic New Years back here at Mount Hermon. I’m off to make a stop at Safeway and then figure out what I want to eat for dinner since I had a late lunch. Later!

Now that I’ve spent the last few days telling everyone who would listen how excited I am about the release of Wall-E on DVD, I figure I should actually name my top 5 favorite movies.  I’m not necessarily going to argue these are the five best movies ever made.  There are so many different qualities to gauge a movie on it is hard to make that claim about any 5 films.  Hotel Rwanda won’t ever be on any best list but I think it is one of the most important films made in the last 10 years.  Anyway, without further ado, here is my top five mostly in order. . .

5. The Royal Tenenbaums ysfunctional family, crazy people, drug use, brokenness, beauty.  This is the first Wes Anderson film I saw.  Though I still lose points among the hardcore Wes fans when they find out I still haven’t seen Bottle Rocket.

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Warphotographer: I don’t say this lightly, this movie changed my life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Wall-E: Don’t need to write too much since I already wrote a small book on it when it came out in theater.  I’ll just say this is soooo much more than a kids film, seriously.  See my original post here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Lost in Translation: I saw this movie before I really knew what Post-Modernism was.  I suppose I could have put Garden State here but Lost in Translation is just a flat out better film.  This is my favorite scene.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Field of Dreams: If you know me, this comes as no surprise.  To me, there has never been a more perfect movie made.  Baseball, philosophy, faith, innocence, fantasy, heckeven cryptography.  One day I will make a pilgrimage to that holy of holies, a baseball diamond in the middle of a corn field in Dyersville, Iowa.

Click here to view the embedded video.

*WARNING! This post contains spoilers!*

Wall-E is the story of a trash compacting robot left to clean up the Earth after humans have completely screwed up the environment and are forced to leave.  Wall-E, actually the last of his kind, has (as revealed over the course of the movie) been doing his job for over 700 years.  He spends most of his day pressing piles of trash into cubes which he stacks into gigantic towers.  When I first saw previews for Wall-E, I hoped the first half hour or so would have no dialogue and mostly be him going around cleaning things up.  I got exactly that.  For the first third or so of the movie, you are introduced to how a 700 year old trash cleaning robot goes about his life.  The film opens with the song “Put on Your Sunday Clothes.”  But rather than just being a Randy Newman-esque score piece, it is the first look into the personality of Wall-E.  As the camera pans down from space to the surface of the planet, you discover Wall-E actually plays the song on his built in speaker while he is working and humming along.  Wall-E carries around a Rubber-Made ice-chest which he fills with toys and curiosities he finds throughout his day.  One of the items he saves at the start of the film is an old hubcap.  Upon returning to his home, Wall-E puts on a tape of Hello Dolly and it becomes apparent he wanted the hubcap so he could use it as a cap and practice dancing along to the movie.

Wall-E obviously has a little bit of an uneventful life but one day, as he is heading back into his house, a giant spaceship descends through the clouds and out pops Eve.  Eve is everything that Wall-E isn’t.  She is new and sophisticated and fancy and clean.  She is the Macbook to Wall-E’s Thinkpad.  Oh, she also has a sweet plasma cannon in her right arm.  Anyway, Eve proceeds to search the area for something.  Scanning and scanning and scanning she slowly becomes more and more frustrated.  After finally visiting Wall-E’s house, it is revealed she was looking for signs of life when Wall-E shows her a small plant he found.  To Wall-E’s surprise, Eve puts the plant in a small compartment in her chest and then appears to shut down.  What Wall-E doesn’t know is that she has become an interstellar homing beacon, setting in motion the return of humans to Earth.

Now, this movie will receive a lot of attention from people who want to claim it is about the evils of commercialization and globalization.  The true meaning is actually far deeper than this en vogue soapbox.  Wall-E is about purpose and connection.  This is evident throughout the film.  Wall-E is a fan of Hello, Dolly.  He watches it every night, his favorite scene is when Cornelious and Irene hold hands at the end of singing “It Only Takes a Moment.”  From this point on, Wall-E can be seen practicing holding hands while longing to take Eve’s hand in his.  Eve, however, while she takes a liking to Wall-E is driven by her “directive” which she states is classified.  After scanning a plant Wall-E gives her and securing it, seeming to shut down in the process, it becomes apparent Eve’s “directive” is to find signs of life on Earth and report them back to the captain of the starcruiser Axiom (where humanity has been waiting the previous 700 years).  Eve is at first prevented from successfully completing her mission as a result of the ships treacherous Auto-pilot.  When Eve is finally able to break into the captain’s quarters with the plant sample, the captain plays back her video memory to see where she has been.  It is at this point that Eve sees how much Wall-E cares for her, having looked after her when she shut down to await return to the Axiom.  While still in the captain’s quarters, Eve and the captain are surprised by the Auto-pilot and a small security bot who capture the plant sample with the intent of destroying it (having already tried to do so unsuccessfully once before).  However when they toss the plant into the trash shoot it drops no more than a few inches because Wall-E has climbed up the shoot in search of Eve.  Wall-E’s valiant save and actions last for only a few seconds however as Auto-pilot shocks Wall-E with what looks like a cattle prod and overloads his systems.  Wall-E falls back down the shoot with the plant followed closely by a deactivated Eve.

After a narrow escape from a trash compactor, Eve comes to Wall-E’s aid.  She discovers the shock delivered by Auto-pilot has fried Wall-E’s controller card and he is dangerously low on his battery charge.  She immediately begins searching the trash compartment for a controller card capable of fixing Wall-E.  But Wall-E is aware the only way he can be fixed is if they are able to return to Earth and his stash of spare parts.  Holding hands, Wall-E implores Eve to finish her “directive.”  With aid from the captain, they begin the process of activating the ships return to Earth.  Auto-pilot temporarily regains control of the Axiom however and puts at risk the lives of the humans and, in essence, even the success of its own mission to ensure the survival of humanity.  While Eve rushes to save the people who are in danger, Wall-E selflessly sacrifices himself to buy Eve the time she needs to save the humans and guarantee their return to Earth.  Crushed and lifeless, Wall-E is held by Eve as the Axiom makes the jump through hyperspace back to Earth.  Upon landing, Eve rushes Wall-E to his home and quickly replaces his broken gears and components with fresh ones.  However when he is reactivated, Wall-E shows no signs of recognizing Eve and proceeds to start compacting the toys he used to collect, seeing them now as trash that needs to be cleaned in accordance with his “directive.”  In one last ditch effort to remind Wall-E of who he is, Eve takes his hand in hers and gives him another “kiss.”  This was the “spark” Wall-E needed and he recognizes Eve as the movie comes to a close, the two robot heroes having found what they lacked at the start of the film (Wall-E a companion and Eve her “humanity”).

As I said, this is a movie about far more than the surface message of the evils of over-commercialization.  Here’s why. . .

First off, this is a movie about what it means to be human, to really live.  The main characters in the film all start off lacking an essential piece of their humanity (forget for a moment that Eve and Wall-E are obviously robots).  Wall-E lacks community and companionship.  Sure he has his little cockroach buddy, but this is hardly more than a master-pet relationship.  Wall-E watches Hello, Dolly and longs for someone to love.  Eve starts out the film with her life dominated by her “directive.”  Nothing will stand in the way of her mission to find signs of life.  Upon meeting with frustrations and obstacles, she lashes out with her plasma cannon causing great destruction.  As the film progresses Wall-E comes to find the love and companionship he craves in Eve’s company and Eve comes to discover there is far more to life than your “directive.”  The ship’s captain most clearly makes this point when arguing with Auto-pilot.  After spending all night awake combing through the ship’s onboard encyclopedia (dude, holographic Wikipedia anyone?) reading about the history of Earth and human culture he rejects Auto-pilot’s insistence their purpose is to simply ensure human survival.  “I’m through with surviving, I want to LIVE!” he exclaims.

I was wondering through the film what the Axiom stands for,  such a seemingly intentional name choice.  The “Axiom” of the film is once your eyes are opened to the possibilities of what a fully lived life entails, you will no longer settle for going through the motions.  This is further backed up by the side characters of Mary and John, two passengers who begin to discover the world around them after finally being separated from the bubble of their slurpy loving hover chair existence.  In their brief on screen appearances they discover the majesty of space, the fun of splashing in a pool, the excitement of human contact, even the thrill of being in danger.  Wall-E as a film may skirt the edge of some sappy romance an comedy tropes, but it holds a profound message for the human race.  Quit settling for survival and get out there and start living.

And finally, a quick section refute my friend Brandon’s insistance the message of Wall-E is that technology will save us:

1) Technology has clearly failed even as the movie begins.  Wall-E keeps himself functioning by cannibalizing parts from other units that have long since ceased to function.  As Fred Willard’s character (the CEO of Buy n Large/ global president) states the conditions on Earth are far worse than they though and all hope is lost for ever fixing the environment.  The fact a lone plant is able to finally germinate after 700 years (hmm, I didn’t think of this until now but where the heck did that seed come from?) is more a testament to the eventual resiliency and self-restoration of the environment than technology’s ability to save us.

2) An argument can be made that Eve’s motivations for escaping from the trash compactor and initiating the return to Earth are as much about her love for Wall-E as for her directive to deliver the plant sample to the captain.  She is willing to abandon her directive to stay with Wall-E and it is only after his pointing out their return to Earth is the only way to fix him that she takes action.

3) Finally, Wall-E and Eve couldn’t have completed the return to Earth without the aid of the captain of the Axiom who physically overpowers Auto-pilot and rights the ship.  Without his aid they would have failed.

All right, hopefully you will now go out and watch this gem.  And when you do, let me know what you think!

So if you follow my twitter, facebook, or flickr updates, you are probably aware that I went and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night.  I’ll admit that I’m far from the biggest Indy fan out there but I’ve seen the originals enough to know that they are pretty freaking awesome.  Well, except for Temple of Doom but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.  Walking out of the theater, if I had to rename the movie, I would have gone with either “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Steaming Pile of Poo” or “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom . . . What the Hell?”

*from here on there will be spoilers*

(but really, this movie pretty much sucked so just keep reading and I’ll save you $10)

So KOTCS starts out all right.  The moment when Harrison Ford puts on his trademark leather fedora is pretty awesome.  And Ford is in UNBELIEVABLE shape for this movie.  There is a scene of him getting scrubbed down to clean off nuclear radiation and he’s a little flabby from age but still clearly fit.  And he moved incredibly well, never seeming to be lumbering or awkward during stunt sequences.  Yes some of this was a stunt double, but Ford himself did the vast majority of the stunt work required for the film.

The acting as a whole is pretty decent, too.  Ford, is well, Indy.  I think though he benefits from Indy aging much, much better than Han Solo would.  Shia LaBouf is, also, solid.  If he is going to be the dominant leading action hero of the next 20 years, I’m all right with that.  At minimum, he is light years ahead of Hayden Christiansen.  Cate Blanchett was, oddly, my least favorite performance in the movie.  Which is a little odd because after Steve Zissu and The Aviator I figured that she was one of the types where if they made a movie of her having a conversation with a potted plant it would be riveting.  Her accent kept doing a Connery-esque slide from Russian back to a British/Australia thing.  It was hard to take her seriously as the villain because as tough as she acted, the script let her down.  She plays a psychic who clearly isn’t psychic and ruthless Russian who isn’t ruthless (or even Russian, as Jones points out she is Ukrainian).  She never has a moment where she gets to be heartless.  The best villains (certainly Indiana Jones villains) are driving by a lust for ultimate power and have no problem sacrificing anyone and anything to get it.  Blanchett rather just kind of bumbles along until finally meeting a CG fate that isn’t really all that terrible.  Seriously, how can you have an Indy movie without melting faces?

Anyway, since I already mentioned it, lets talk about the script for a moment.  And to that end I say, Lucas, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?  Are you on drugs?  Did you wake up one day thinking if there is one thing missing from Indiana Jones it’s aliens?  I understand that you decided not to use Nazi’s because Spielberg thought that whole thing was a little played out and you wanted to make an accurate period piece, but dude, you had aliens.  Actually, to be correct, they weren’t aliens, were they?  No, they were trans-dimensional beings.  You were worried about people believing the Nazi’s could still be chasing Indy but you were cool with having an alien space ship rise up out of the Amazon rain forest?  And what was with the gunpowder at the start of the movie?  I can understand having it fall in a general direction, but when it starts floating down the aisles of the warehouse?  Oh, and then there is the lead lined uber-fridge.  An atomic blast destroys everything in town but Indy in his lead lined Frigidaire flying high above the Nevada desert survives without a scratch?  And why were there only 6 guys guarding all of America’s secrets at Area 51?  And when did Shia LaBouf turn into Tarzan?  And why are Irena Spalko’s henchmen so willing to follow her around and take orders when she is obviously a crock?  And did we really need Mac being a double, double agent?  And perhaps the single worst offense of the whole movie, “knowledge is their treasure.”  Wow, buddy, have you been hanging out with Jimbo Wales?  Did you really need to ram a moral down everyones collective throats?

Whatever, I’ve been writing far to much about a movie that really doesn’t deserve it.  So if you want a quick summation of the movie, think National Treasure II (the bad one) mixed with Stargate and way too much suck.

P.S. wow, who knew South Park would get it right?

I just got out of watching The Forbidden Kingdom at Scott’s Valley Cinema.  I love going to weekday matinée showings of movies.  There might have been 5 other people there watching it with me.  While seeing a really good movie with a big crowd is a great experience, sometimes it’s nice to just relax and not worry about the person next to you talking or the kid behind you kicking your seat, because they aren’t there.  All right, on to the move!

The premise of the movie is that a good hearted kid from south Boston who dreams of learning kung fu is transported through time to medieval  China where Jackie Chan and Jet Li teach him said martial art.  He discovers that the magical staff which transported him back belonged to the “Monkey King” and he must return it to him to defeat the evil tyrant who now rules in his place.  Yada, yada, yada, he succeeds in his quest and is returned to the modern day where he beats up the bullies who were giving him a hard time at the start of the movie and becomes the confident kung fu master he dreamed of being.  Oh, and there’s a girl.

As you might guess, this isn’t a great movie. . . it’s not horrible, it just isn’t anything special.  That’s actually ok though, because the movie realizes it’s not great and thus doesn’t try to be anything more than it is.  Sometimes bad movies are bad because they take themselves far to seriously.  The Forbidden Kingdom is far from campy and while it does use the hero time travel from modern day to the past and back again trope, it doesn’t try to reinvent the genre.  It features a couple of great training montages and the standard giant Crouching Tiger people flying on piano wire over the top kung fu battles that everyone loves.  It’s fun to watch and in the tradition of a summer movie (it’s a little early in the season, but that is the style of it) you really don’t have to think at all to follow the plot.  Just watch Chan and Li beat the crap out of everyone.

So is there anything glaringly bad or wrong about it?  Eh, there are a few things you can nit pick.  I heard someone say that Michael Angarano, who plays the kung fu loving teen male lead, is like Shia LaBeouf sans any shred of talent.  He’s not THAT bad, but I see their point.  He doesn’t have a ton of charisma and you could probably replace him with any number of other white teen males and the movie would pretty much turn out the same.  Again though, what movie couldn’t use a little more Shia LaBeouf?

Anyway, final verdict?  I’d give it a 7 out of 10.  Worth the ticket but don’t expect it to blow your socks off.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yes.

I went and saw 3:10 to Yuma yesterday.  It’s pretty good but not quite Tombstone (or even The Quick and the Dead, Russell Crowe’s first western) good.  I enjoyed some of the dialog about right and wrong but it would have been more enjoyable if the ending had been different.  I think my favorite line from the movie is when Christian Bale says that the $200 pension he got from the government wasn’t so he could walk away, it was so the government could walk away.  He refuses the money from the railway because he is tired of letting people off the hook.  He is going to finish his job and earn what he deserves even if it means risking his life to do it.  The thing this movie really lacked was some good fun western shootouts.  There is only one good shootout in the end and the tension in between is high, but relatively predictable.  Rather than taking risks with who dies when, you are watching and thinking to yourself, “oh, here is where the next guy dies, wait for it, wait for it, there it is.”  You also never see Bale’s character prove how good of a shot he is.  All throughout the movie they talk about how he was a sharpshooter in the Union army and he obviously has a reputation as being a good shot, but all he uses is a shot gun and pistol and never makes any “impossible” shots.  And then there is poor, poor Alan Tudyk.  The last two times I’ve seen him in a movie he was playing the like-able comic relief who finally does something amazing to save the day and then gets killed.  He saves the ship in Serenity, then gets harpooned by the Reavers.  He hits a guy in the face in 3:10 to Yuma and then gets shot in the back.  Hmm, is that some kind of sad typecasting?  Bruce Willis always saves the day, Alan Tudyk always gets killed.  Well, at least he faired better than Luke Wilson did.  Anyway, 3:10 to Yuma is definitely worth seeing, just not quite as good as I hoped it would be.

I’m off to see Pirates of the Caribbean in about an hour so I’ll try to post when I get back about how awesome of an experience it is going to be.  Anyway, I think I might take a nap first though, or at least get some caffeine.  Later!