If every studio had the quality control guidelines they must have at Pixar, there would be alot less movies but what we'd get would be fantastic. "Wall-E" is yet another triumph by the team, spearheaded by Andrew Stanton, a resident of almost every Pixar film made so far.
We open with 'a day in the life of Wall-E as he cleans the still filthy planet Earth. He finds trinkets leftover from human civilization, crushing most of it into towering piles of cubes, keeping the bits that he likes. He keeps all his prizes in his home, in his own kind of messy filing system (my favourite is the non-filable 'spork') and goes about his life.
After meeting and chasing his new fascination, E.V.E, Wall-E accidentally arrives on The Axiom, a cruise shuttle that humans have been living on for centuries. Overweight, unattentive and completely dependant on their machines, the humans are now living out a kind of non-society drinking food-juice and sleeping day in, day out.
The automation of the society is overbearing and I'm sure things would just keep on keeping on...until Wall-E shows up and, without trying, changes the course of everyone and everything he meets. The machines, reacting to Wall-E, end up acting more humans than the humans do. The adorable Wall-E spends most of the story just trying to get and keep E.V.E's attention but in doing so, changes the course of human civilization.
There is precious little dialogue in all of "Wall-E". This makes a tricky dilemma. Usually, animators have an actors voice to work off of when they are animating a particular scene, so the consistency of Wall-E and how incredibly endearing he is speaks volumes for how much collaberation had to have been going on from day one with the entire team on this movie. Every whir, beep and head tilt endears Wall-E to the watcher as if he were our own intelligent pet robot. You can almost hear "Aww, I want one!" hidden in every giggle of the audience throughout the film. The theatre was packed with younglings and they were dead quiet the entire time. I think having to watch every moment to know what was going on (plus Wall-E being so damn cute) makes this movie an attention-teaching tool for future parents (like myself) so pre-order the dvd now!
I hope this 2nd movie of the Futurama franchise is looked back on one day as the only weak film of the bunch. At least it's out of the way early on. Though clearly done with tender loving care and respect for the fans, "Beast with a Billion Backs" lacks the zip of the first film.
"Bender's Big Score" was a triumph of Futuramaness and though "Beast..." does carry on the tradition of crazy crap going down, it just isn't as funny as it's predecessor. The storyline changes quite a few times, making this hour and a half literally feel like 3 or 4 episodes sloppily thrown together with the backdrop being the monster hinted at in the movie title. The jumpy storyline and lack of in-your-face jokes made this tough to sit through the first time but there is so much going on you can't not watch!
What I've always liked about Futurama is that it's not afraid to blow up a planet, cut off someone's head, destroy the known universe or re-write the laws of physics and then justify it for the rest of the episode (or keep it as a plot point for the ongoing reality of the series). In many classic cartoons, someone gets hurt and is fine in the next frame but in Futurama, if Hermes' head gets cut off as it did in "Big Score", he's going to have to deal with it until a solution arrives. This trick alone makes Futurama stand out from other animated series and gives fans lots of easter eggs to enjoy as the stories unfold. In "Beast", for example, there's a casual shot of Leela filling the tank of the Planet Express Ship with a drop of Nibbler's poop. Fans know that Nibblonian droppings are condensed dark matter, which the ship happens to run on. Each character has their place (even Scruffy!).
The "beast" in the title is a multi-tentacled planet that only wants to spread feelings of love (the overall theme of this movie is 'love', which is crammed down our throats a little too heavily). After some time-killing subplots that beef up the 'love, actually' feel of the 1st half of the film, the beast eventually shows up and takes over all living beings, much to their joy! All robots, including Bender, are not effected by this love and, though you'd expect that to have some effect, Bender spends most of this film in his own side story. With the planet being taken over, you'd expect the two stories to merge much sooner than they do and it's a pretty big distraction waiting for something to actually happen.
The movie is certainly depending on fan appreciation because if I wasn't a fan, I would not have listed the first 30 minutes. I can just imagine my mom watching, for example, and within 20 minutes I would not blame her for for inquiring what the hell was going on. However, as experienced Futurama fans, we trust that the strange dialogue, half-laugh jokes and elaborated scenery are all going to play a role in the grand scheme of the script. The writers have always had a 'har har' way of making a sentence you heard at the beginning of the story make it's way to be the solution to the problem at the end of the story. It's always a nice payoff and these movies are fun, well animated and cleary chock-full of inside jokes, hidden gags and mathematical inserts that the writers are all too happy to explain in the DVD extras.
I look forward to the next few dvd releases because the characters and universe in which they live are lovingly consistent that it's nice we have this chance to visit them since the series got cancelled. I look forward to watching "Beast..." again with lowered expectations because, other than the noted problems with the less punchy jokes and mixed-bag storyline, the characters and situations are classic Futurama!
"Gus" has been given the honour of the world's ugliest dog at a 20th annual "World's Ugliest Dog" contest in California. The contest is held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair and is apparently one of the top attractions. I was surprised to learn there were only 12 contestants but I guess it's tough to be ugly when you're a dog.
The winning pup has a few obvious problems aside from his messed up right ear. He lost an eye to a fight with a tomcat, is missing one of his legs due to amputation and is suffering from skin cancer. But he's got a heart of gold. Possibly as a side effect of the cancer, we don't know.
His owner (Jeanenne Teed of Florida, I hope she didn't spend a fortune flying across the country to do this) has won $1600 in prize money, which she (says) will spend on Gus' cancer treatments. Gus is clearly deserving and to top off his story, he was rescued from a bad home a few years ago.
Based on his smiling picture, I doubt he's aware of what's just happened.
Wow, this animated feature wastes no time getting to the action. I had heard some positive reviews of this film with the only complaint, which I back up, was the 'Saturday morning' style of the animation quality. Most feature films get a bit of a boost but they made up for it in this film by covering up most of the animation cells with human blood, and plenty of it! Within the first few minutes of this film, blood is splattering on the camera and your brain races for something to compare the experience to...but it can't. This film looks like you always wished your Saturday morning cartoons always did; where the enemies didn't slap eachother to slap another day, they literally gut eachother and make new enemies afterward.
The plot is quickly set up as a "sins of the father" story with a twist, easily re-worded as "sins of the son". As a teenager, Turok accidentally wounds his brother to near death (in a fit of blind rage) while in a battle with a neighbouring tribe. He is banished from his own tribe and we flash forward sixteen years (it then cuts to the title and I was expecting a long opening credit sequence to eat up some of the 72 minute run-time, to my surprise, it was a two second title shot and right back into the story. Sweet!). Turok's nephew, Andar (who has been born and grown since the banishment), who is also son of the chief (yep, Turok's bro) tracks Turok down to let him know the tribe is being attacked the next day and they expect a slaughter. Turok basically says "Tough shit" and sends the kid on his way. Now just what Turok has been up to during these lost years? We must find out how he has grown while...oh, shit, wait, no time for that crap! It's another tribal battle! Holy crap! Another blood-spattering battle wipes out Turok's family tribe with some gut-wrenching deaths that make you squirm. The lone survivor (coincidentally, Turok's nephew again) finds Turok after making his escape from the fight. He reports the tribe and his father's death to Turok, who gets pretty upset. Time for some internal personal reflection as emotions run high...oh, wait, that doesn't happen, Turok's just ran into the enemy and started chopping everyone's spleens out! Oh god!
Okay, phew. That's over. However, the bad guy got away and kidnapped Andar's mother. Time to catch our breath and form a plan...oh shit, nevermind, Turok's off on horseback to get her back! Ok, good, he's got him cornered in a cave now. Time for a stand-off to set up a boiling hatred between these two men...if it weren't for that twenty-foot giant bird that just tore Turok's a horse in half! Holy crap! Kill it Kill it! Oh, nuts, during that distraction, the bad guy snuck away. Turock and Andar follow to discover a forgotten land filled with ancient animals and plants. This looks like a good time to research this amazing place and marvel at it's wonders...oh shit a tyrannosaurus is trying to eat everyone, run!
Ok, I have to shut the movie off or I'll never catch my breath to review it! This movie is action-packed from start to finish, and I mean that, it never lets up. It's not all blood splattering (though even a simple egg hunt turns bloody) but there is always something going on, it's just crazy. The hatred between Turok and his enemy "Chichak" is felt all the way through. It's funny that they don't even know one another aside from "You killed my dad" and "Yeah, well, you killed my brother" and that core for their hatred is still enough to fuel this movie. It's basically tribe vs. tribe but they're the last two left. If the animation was kicked up just 25% more, I would give this film a 10/10 but with this much action, I couldn't help but picture how much cooler each death or adventure would have looked with top-knotch animation on it. Even so, this gets a 9/10. Once I saw "Curt Geda" and "Dan Riba" were directors (from the Batman Animated Series and Batman Beyond), I suspected this film would end up pretty damn good. I heard next to nothing about this film prior to it's release but once it came out, the 'holy crap' reviews just flowed in. I forgot about this film for a couple months and just happened upon it at the video store, now I have to go and buy my own copy to watch again and again!
This is definitely not for the younglings though, I'm not kidding when I say there's blood-o-plenty and violence galore. So don't say I didn't tell you so.
I say, what a smashing good time! Though not as thoroughly entertaining as I found "Iron Man" to be, the new Hulk film is alot of fun. The Hulk's origin is known by anyone over the age of 5 so they plow through it during the opening credits, much to everyone's glee, meaning they can right into the awesomeness. And into it they did. We get to see the Hulk in all his smashy glory within the first 15 minutes of the movie!
The plot to the film is the basic Hulk storyline, Bruce Banner is on the run from General Ross while trying to rekindle his romance with Betty Ross. Nothing new here, just great fun to see it done right, with lots of fun action and fitting the Hulk into the new Marvel Movie Universe. Speaking of which, this film is not so much about the Hulk as it is about the government's former super soldier program that created Captain America back in the 40's. In fact, keep an eye on the newspaper Bruce is holding when on campus stalking Betty mid-film, the headline announces the discovery of a certain WWII hero recently discovered! Cha-ching! Next Marvel movie, please! Each of these films leads into the next and with the appearance of Tony Stark in this film (which I couldn't beleive half the nerdy looking people in the audience seemed shocked by) that heralds yet another clue as to the lineup of the up and coming "Avengers" movie. There was one other Marvel hero hinted at in this film when Hulk and Betty are in the caves, I'd talk more about it but my throat is getting thor.
This film was alot of fun but really feels like a bridge connecting "Iron Man" to the next films which will be "Thor", then "Captain America" bet even those are after "Iron Man II" and finally ending up with "The Avengers". Exciting times for long and lifetime comic readers like me who actually kept this damn industry alive long enough for these movies to be made. DC should take notice of these films and smarten up because their hero's films could be so much better.
So the Phoenix Lander landing was alot of fun to watch on tv last week. Yes, I watched the excitement unfold as years of work was launched into the red-hot tempurature of Mars' atmosphere. It disappeared (as planned and unavoidable) for 7 excruciating minutes and came out unscathed, opened it's parachute, then released it's parachute and finally kicked in the retro rockets just in time to descend from thousands of miles per hour to zero in mere minutes, landing right on target: an arctic ice flow on the northern face of the planet. This giant area was of interest due to the high possibility of ice, real water ice, existing there to this day, having not been stripped away like the rest of the planet.
So imagine the excitement when not only does your baby survive an almost impossible journey, not only does she land right on target (keep in mind 'on target' for a planet is within a few thousand miles of your goal) but you get an image back from her that maybe she not only landed near some ice, but right on top! From a tiny speck of possibility, you can vaguely make out a small dot of potential ice from the image above. Then, a day or two later, you move the camera slightly to the left and get another image!...
This hasn't been 100% confirmed to be real water ice just yet but, wow, talk about hitting the bullseye. The Phoenix Lander only has 90 days before winter rolls over and buries it under frozen carbon dioxide, ending the mission and the Lander's life span. The lander will be digging in and scooping out samples in the next few weeks. Those samples will enter a series of scorching hot chambers, giving us a better idea of what the area is made of. The sensors in the chambers may pick up remnants of current or past organic matter. If they do, our place in the universe changes forever. Well, at least we'll finally have proof, I should say. It doesn't mean there ever existed a real life Marvin the Martian or The Martian Manhunter, though that would be cool. Even knowing the tiniest and lowest forms of life ever existed will change everything and help us enter a new world of scientific accomplishment.
