2008 Movies to See

Wall-E emotes histories of worlds far away through a pair of binocular eyes. I love how Pixar can transcend the boundaries set by mere animation - this is a company unafraid to leap out of the box and create something genuinely worthwhile to see. Animation can have a tendency to get too cutesy, and while this is cute (my god is it CUTE), it has a message, a story, and an ATMOSPHERE. It doesn't go for the cheap tricks of parody like the Shrek movies have evolved into. Wall-E remains that one centerpoint around which hope congregates while the background stays trash-filled and grayish. Undeniably this movie tries to see the best in people (because those people all of a sudden want to clean up the world after 500 years of sitting in chairs...yeah ok), but I like that it tries to stay positive despite our excessive gluttony...maybe we all have a little Wall-E in ourselves.

Surpassed my expectations extensively because I thought it was going to be typical melodrama fare. Throwing a bunch of beauties together in rich costumes can often come up short but in here efforts appealing to the pathos were definitely made, British accents aside (no, Natalie Portman, just no). But at the same time I could feel the actors straining for emotions, and nobody was capable of coming close to embodying their characters. Thus, the omnipresent emotional disconnect. The story maintains interest, but I just never got into it. Also, I like Natalie Portman with her hair up better.