Movie Review

WALL-E is worth seeing despite or maybe because of the controversy over the movie’s messages manufactured that those not blowing hard over the non-existent edginess of the current crop of political advertisements.

Regardless of what has been written by pundits and critics from publications as diverse as Entertainment Weekly and The National Review, WALL-E is pure genius in that, like most of Pixar’s other creations, it can be viewed on a variety of levels.

On one it’s a story about perseverance, evolution, and being true to yourself: Built to clean up humanity’s mess after we’ve completely destroyed the planet – the opening sequence of wind farm turbines up to their blades in trash nicely and succinctly skewers the current hype surrounding the need to concentrate on ameliorating climate change as we completely ignore humanity’s rampant over consumption of resources that is the root of all our problems – WALL-E (Waste Allocation Lift Loader – Earth class) is the last of his kind, and in the 700+ years since he was brought online not only has he done his job, he’s also developed a personality, one that’s curious about the objects he finds, and one that is more than a little bit lonely.

Enter EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) a sleek robot that some critics say echoes Apple’s design sense. Dropped off by a large, automated probe, EVE goes about her mission with ever increasing levels of frustration which she expresses by blowing things up with her embedded laser canon. Once she determines that WALL-E isn’t a threat, she follows him back to the cargo vehicle he’s been using as living quarters, the place where he stores and categorizes all the things that have caught his eye over the years, including the one thing EVE is looking for: evidence of plant life.

It is in his sharing of the things that have intrigued him and in his protective treatment of EVE while she is in hibernation mode waiting for pickup from the automated ship that dropped her and the other EVE units off on Earth that WALL-E most obviously evidences this first way to view the movie. When one thing or set of things fails to intrigue EVE, WALL-E finds something else to share, looks for some other way to connect. He takes care of EVE because it seems like the right thing to do. Indeed, WALL-E follows EVE into space because it seems like the right decision to him not because of some programming sub-routine or because of social pressure to behave in a certain way.

On another level, and this is the level that has drawn the most criticism, WALL-E is cultural critique. From that brilliant opening sequence with the wind farm buried in trash to the fact that it’s a corporation, Buy ‘N Large a not very subtle stand-in for Wal-Mart, that runs the U.S. at least and is responsible evacuating humans from the planet to the state of humanity after 700 years of having every whim catered to by obliging robots in a hyper-controlled environment, there is no aspect of our current self-indulgence and destructive over consumption that is spared.

Of course, it is a little hypocritical of Disney, Pixar’s parent company and one of the prime pushers of plastic crap we just do not need, to make a movie criticizing over consumption while still pushing promotional tie-ins of said plastic crap. But Disney’s hypocrisy doesn’t degrade either the message, or the fact that on the final level Pixar has made a story about connecting and what it means to interact with other people.

Is WALL-E perfect? Certainly not, but it’s a damn good movie regardless of your age.

I’m going to be playing a bit of movie review catch-up for the next few entries because, well, I can, and it’s easier than thinking about something original while work is trying to squish my brain out my ears.

Reviews of the following will be forthcoming:

WALL-E
Wanted
The Dark Knight
Hancock

A workman-like remake of Hitchcock’s Rear Window for the short-attention span millennial generation, Disturbia‘s pleasures lay not in the ending of the film but in the journey to the destination.Placed on three months’ of house arrest after slugging his Spanish teacher Kale’s (Shia LaBeouf) transformation from angry – and rightly so (for those of you unnerved by VW’s realistic safety commercials from last fall I recommend skipping this movie altogether. The events that open it are staged with enough intimacy to make them too realistic) – disaffected teen to keeper of the neighborhood’s secrets proves that LaBeouf is, indeed, a young actor to watch.

That LaBeouf manages to turn in a good performance is a feat accomplished in spite of not with the support of the script. The plot points that get us from Kale’s initial teenage whining – OK, so Mom (Carrie Anne Moss looking not old enough to be the mother of a 17 year-old) cuts off his XBox live account…does that necessarily mean he’ll abandon the toy altogether? Aww…Mom cancelled his iTunes account. Last time I checked Mom hadn’t cut off the internet and later the script will have us believe that she’s still buying him cell phone minutes despite the $12 per day “incarceration fee” she has to pay for his house arrest – stretch credibility. Perhaps this stems from the fact that the bulk of Director D.J. Caruso’s experience is in television. Regardless of where it comes from, it’s clear the film makers’ were in a rush to get to the meat of the story.

Turning on the premise that you never really know what is going on under your nose, Kale learns a multitude of things about his neighbors: one man is having an affair with the house keeper; the kids next door are sneaking pay-per-view porn; the lady across the street always walks her dog at the same time every day. And then there’s Robert Turner (David Morse). Turner is an enigma. Seemingly no job, mows his lawn every day, and comes and goes at all hours in the company of redheaded women young enough to be his daughter.

Is Turner the man responsible for the disappearance of a local college girl? Things Kale observes tell him yes. The Powers That Be, including a patrol officer who is cousin to Kale’s Spanish teacher, don’t believe his observations. With the help of his friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) and new-girl-in-town and next door Ashley (Sarah Roemer) what starts out as a game yields some grisly (and slightly unbelievable) discoveries.

Unlike Hitchcock’s classic Disturbia‘s hip references (YouTube, iPods, product placements for Boost Mobile) will age the film before its time. The thrills and chills are mostly of the things produced by the art department popping out of closets variety. If you don’t go in expecting great art, or great surprises, it’s an OK way to spend 90 minutes on a rainy afternoon.

Official site

Not since Fight Club has a movie been so misrepresented by its trailers as Smokin’ Aces is by both the commercials and theatrical previews that have been advertising the film.

Sold as a race against time to see who can get their hands on Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven) first – the various hitters lured by the Mob’s $1M bounty on the snitch’s head or the FBI – this film is characterized by its commercials as a violent romp, a black comedy/action thriller with guns, insanity, and a lot of macho posturing. In reality Smokin’ Aces is a meditation on betrayal whose sweat slick, blood stained surface only begins to ask the question what is loyalty. And while it does have some funny moments it is most certainly not a comedy.

Betrayal is never funny and this movie heaps betrayal upon betrayal. The very foundation of the plot is, in fact, betrayal of the most basic kind: denial of responsibility in the face of fact.

Getting beyond the theme, though, Smokin’ Aces is, to a large extent, as advertised. FBI Agents Donald Carruthers (Ray Liotta) and Richard Messner (Ryan Reynolds) have been staking out Mafia don Primo Sparazza (Joseph Ruskin) for nearly three days when the call is made: put out a hit on Buddy Israel. Israel, showman, magician, three-time Entertainer of the Year, has managed over the years to weasel his way in with the wise guys left in Vegas and not content with the shadow has decided he actually wants to live the life. But as we’re told, in an interesting piece of cross-cut exposition, by bailbondsman Jack Dupree (Ben Affleck), Israel is a wanna-be and a fuck up and things go really bad for him really fast.

Turning one faction of Sparazza’s organization against another wasn’t the problem for Israel. No, it was his own criminal ventures that drew the attention of every bored FBI agent and organized crime task force within 300 miles of Vegas. This is why, when we meet him, Israel is holed up in the penthouse of a hotel on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe waiting for Morris Mecklen (Curtis Armstrong) to call with the final word on his immunity deal – who he’ll have to snitch on, who he’ll have to give up, and what he’ll get in return.

Myriad elements, including the Tremor brothers (three walking pieces of tattooed, Aryan-nation berserker insanity), Sharice and Georgia (Alicia Keys (yes, that Alicia Keys)) (two slick sisters developing a rep in the hitman game), Lazlo Soot (Tommy Flanagan) (a master of disguise as ruthless as he is clever), and Pasquale Acosta (Nestor Carbonell) (dubbed “the plague” a hitman who when captured by Interpol chewed off his own finger prints), come together all with a coked out, paranoid, over-whored Israel at the center.

Despite having all the pieces, writer/director Joe Carnahan (Narc) never manages to make the sum worth more than the parts. He just can’t seem to get up any momentum even with a cast of many, many recognizable faces (including Andy Garcia in a role not far from the one he played in Ocean’s Eleven, Matthew Fox (virtually unrecognizable under a ghastly proto-mullet wig), Brian Bloom, Peter Berg, and Jason Bateman (who proves yet again just how underrated he has been as an actor for all these years)).

Even though it doesn’t quite deliver what it promised Smokin’ Aces is a bizarre little film that just might make you think. 3 popcorns out of 5.

Visit the official site

This is the time of year that many movie reviewers refer to as “the dumping ground”: Hollywood dumps that which it thinks it can make money on but is unwilling to invest in on a public that has already proven that it will buy tickets to any number of shitty movies (here, here, and here among others) on the most flimsy of reasons (it’s a sequel; the girl in the poster looks hot in leather pants; it looks really violent (Oh…wait…those last two might just be my rationales…never mind)).

Fact is that from about the middle of December to Oscar time (February 25th this year) most of the country gets diddly squat to watch. Given this, it’s unsurprising that my Netflix queue has been getting quite a work out. Be that as it may, here I’ll catch up on reviews of the two things I have seen in the theater since just before Christmas.

Curse Of The Golden Flower
It’s pretty, but don’t expect too much.

Night At The Museum
So much potential wasted.

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