Wall-E (2008)

I have seen all Pixar movies except for Cars, and I can tell you right now that Pixar has a formula. All Pixar movies build their plotlines around the same skeleton--whether they are under the sea or in deep space, in a restaurant or in your closet--Pixar has managed to cleverly repackage the same narrative. The hero is usually an unlikely figure who screws up or gets knocked around a bit before being called upon to save the day. He usually comes very close to doing so before he fails completely. He must then pull himself up and really save the day. It's the same basic idea, so that when you go see a Pixar movie, you know that the almost happy ending is not really the ending because Nemo has already escaped from the fishtank or because Syndrome has decided to take his evil elsewhere or because...well, I wouldn't want to spoil Wall-E for you.

Another interesting thing about Pixar movies is the way that they handle adult themes. Sometimes they are downright morbid, as with 1988's "Tin Toy", where a baby's toys face the gruesome prospect of being chewed to death. More often, however, they are just about facing life with honesty. In 2003's short "Boundin'", we learn about accepting ourselves and being accepted by others as a sheep rebounds from the depressing experience of losing his fluff. We do not always get what we want in the 1989 short "Knick Knack", where a snowman cannot escape his snowglobe to play with the Malibu souvenirs. In Ratatouille and A Bug's Life the characters are social outcasts who must prove that they can contribute by their unique abilities. And although not everyone is special in The Incredibles, those who are should accept it with pride.

Tonight I watched all of their shorts (from 1984's "The Adventures of André and Wally B." to 2007's "Lifted"), and I could not help but notice an obsession with tinkering. Many of the shorts have no actual speech, and many of them are about gadgets and the way things work. I was also amazed to see how far the animation really has come. While they still love to tinker on-screen, it's clear that they have done some serious tinkering off-screen as well in the past 24 years. Moreover, the gadgets exhibited in the shorts have personalities and characterizations to marvel at. The iconic Pixar lamp, originally from 1986's "Luxo Jr.", appeared in that short as a mother-baby duo. The baby lamp is doing his own bit of tinkering--discovering that a bouncy-ball will deflate when jumped on. The mother is looking on with the same curiosity and exasperation that a human mother feels. In "Red's Dream" (1987), a little unicycle dreams of his days with the circus in a short that is sad for its idea (his dream is just that--a dream) but fascinating for its ability to make a tragic figure out of a 50% discounted red unicycle. These films have little or no talking in them, but they communicate by the movements of the characters or the little gasps and sighs, as when the alien of 2006's "Lifted" presses every button but the ones needed to beam up a human from his bed.

Wall-E is no different from other Pixar movies. In fact, in some ways it is the integral of all Pixar movies to date. The ultimate movie about robots and tinkering was conceived back in 1994, but it was never realized until now--now that Pixar has tinkered in so many other ways, in both style and substance. The gadget here is Wall-E, a trash-compacting robot of the post-human world. He is the only animate object left on the planet (except for, naturally, a cockroach); all of humanity is cruising around in space as a congregation of almost-entirely synchronized automatons. However, while Wall-E spends his days compacting what we consider to be waste, he recognizes value in certain bits of debris, and he takes them back to the truck he has made into a trash (treasure?) trove. He does his own bits of tinkering, figuring out how to use a VCR and how to change his own eye-bulbs and that a twinkie is appropriate roach food (something which we all knew already). We see the world through the eyes of a creature who is piecing humanity together backwards--trying to understand who we are by what we have built.

The plot of the movie is the usual--a girly-robot, EVE, comes to Earth with the mission of finding life of some sort. Wall-E has found a plant, which EVE stores and takes back to her space cruiser, followed by Wall-E himself and all of the mayhem he can provide. There is a villain and a close-call and the regular Pixar story. But there is also the assignation of personality and purpose to non-living things. As with their iconic lamp, Pixar has once again given life to a trinket, and they have made it full of curiosity and wonder that even many humans lack. Wall-E gets a 9 out of 10 for being innovative and wonderful, for making me see the true magic of a cigarette lighter, and for celebrating tinkering as only a Pixar movie can.

Avatar (2009)

Eight and a Half: An Unimpassion’d (but No Less Loving) Defense of Avatar to Those Who Fail to Appreciate It

No one ever accused Avatar of being the best movie ever made. Out of the 750 movies I’ve seen, it is not in the top 20. And talking to other people—most of whom have disliked the movie—I have not registered the highest opinion. However, after seeing it for a third time, I cannot deny that it has merit: its high production value, entertaining storyline, and believable lead performances (Sam Worthington, I love you) deserve at least an 8.5.

The high production value needs very little defense to those who consider James Cameron’s technological development to be revolutionary. Not all people, however, are believers; there are those in the minority who are underwhelmed with his achievement. I find such a critical debate (over the true creativity of the technology) to be analogous to other art forms: some say, “Any filmmaker could’ve done that.” But no other filmmaker did do it. The credit must go to Cameron for putting believable pores on the face of each Na’vi—for making the little soul-spores float in a three-dimensional space not-yet-matched in modern cinema. James Cameron says that if he wanted to, he could make the Dirty Harry sequel out of the same technology. To which I reply, “Prove it, and you will leave no one in doubt of your technological prowess.”

Contrived and familiar as the storyline may be, it is nonetheless entertaining, with its action plot, romance plot, transformation plot, environmental metaphor, and sliver of a parallel to Pocahontas. The romance plot is weak, but it appeals to the saps who yawn at the action (the most well-developed and strongest of the story elements). The transformation plot links the others together, and the environmental metaphor is appealing to tree-huggers and easily ignored by those who get annoyed by such subtexts. Especially interesting to me is a certain similarity between Avatar and Apocalypse Now. Just hear me out: both movies are about one man on a mission for the colonizers who gets sucked in to the world of the colonized, told by first-person narration. Avatar has a happy ending, but the beginning still bears a resemblance which makes it more enjoyable to watch. If Cameron had actually ended the story after the victory of the oppressors, at the blackout following the destruction of Home Tree (second-stupidest name ever, following “Unobtainium”), all of the critics probably would have given it a 10/10.

There is an element of performance required from the unseen actor which critics should not ignore. The Apocalypse Now metaphor would be indiscernible if Jim Carrey had voiced the character of Jake. As it were, I expected his opening line to be “I am still in Saigon.” In his human scenes, Jake is independent and strong—a man who takes orders only because he chose to—not because he is someone’s drone. His Avatar expresses—through a combination of Cameron’s technology and Worthington’s voice, his captured movement—emotions that include wonderment, interest, determination, pain, and love—among others. His vocal expression strongly contributes to the contrast between the physically-restricted man who narrates the story and the free and unbounded member of the Na’vi. In action, he is lively, engaging. As narrator, he is dark and conflicted.

So Avatar is not the best movie of the year. It is not the worst either. I give it six points in production value, an extra point for story line, and two points for its characters (snaps also to Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriquez, Joel Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, and of course, Zoe Saldana). Minus one half of a point (it should be more, but I’m letting him off easy) for the transparent appearances of James Cameron in the script. Next time, please use better names than Unobtanium and Home-Tree. Seriously. All told, it gets a solid 8.5/10. In other words, I liked it; and I thought it was pretty good.

Please do not make me wait another ten years for the sequel.

Brick (2005)

"Keep up with me now."

I cannot watch this movie and cross-stitch. It is an amazing movie in every way...if you take the time to truly watch it. The performances are all riveting, and the juxtaposition of noir drama and the high school drug underworld makes for an intense and entertaining film.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan Frye, a Byronic hero of sorts, whose ex-girlfriend Emily (Emilie de Ravin) gets sucked into the drug underworld and comes up again dead in a creek. Unable to help her, he wants only to find out the truth--and take down a few people who may have blood on their hands. But he also finds himself back in a world he had already renounced, tangling with all kinds--from the riffraff druggie Dode (Noah Segan), to the very overlord of the business, The Pin (Lukas Haas). Also working for The Pin is the hotheaded Tug (Noah Fleiss) and the seductive Laura (Nora Zehetner). Brendan has to balance all of these people with the help of The Brain (Matt O'Leary) and the laissez-faire policy of Assistant V.P. Gary Trueman (Richard Roundtree). The plot is twisted and no scene is insignificant, but it is well worth the viewer's effort to pay close attention. The dialogue is clever but rapid, and the viewer must make sure to catch every word. But if the viewer can keep up, the film guarantees a mesmerizing climax, followed up by haunting denouement. One can only stare, transfixed, as the entire movie is tied together in the final scene--yet the only thing moving are Brendan's lips in a close-up of him explaining all to Laura.

If the plot is rich, the cast is appropriately complex, and even the most besotted characters draw empathy. As a 26-year-old cripple running dope out of his mother's basement, Lukas Haas layers sensitivity and cold economy--we wonder why the Kingpin eats his mother's oatmeal cookies and loves the imagery of Tolkien. Tug and Dode both have weaknesses for Emily that undermine their ability to remain businesslike when it comes to drugs. And Nora Zehetner steals every scene she is in as the inscrutable femme fatale Laura. At least, she tries. It is impossible to steal a scene from Brendan. As his near-obsessive love for Emily leads him into drama beyond his own life, he holds together and breaks down all at once. In the end he makes choices and faces consequences that reach way past the death of his ex-girlfriend and affect the lives of all involved. And we stick with him through that end.

"There's not much chance of coming out clean."

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

After watching it for the 8th or 9th time last night, I remembered why I Heart Huckabees is one of my favorite movies. There are so many details, and each time I watch it I can appreciate it more. The first time I ever saw it was with my aunt Kathy, and she and I laughed through the whole thing, although we weren't entirely sure what was funny about it.

Billed as an "existential comedy", the movie begins when Albert Markovski (Schwartzmann) has a crisis over the significance of four chance encounters with a certain tall African. He goes to the detectives Jaffe (Tomlin and Hoffman) to investigate his coincidence and to give him an overarching explanation about the nature of existence. They begin to examine and interpret his life through a combination of bemusingly vague explanations and near-screwball spy techniques. This leads them into his work situation--he is part of an environmental action organization attempting to save the woods and the marsh from imminent development by the Huckabees corporation. This brings him into conflict with Huckabees liason Brad Stand (Law) and his girlfriend, Huckabees poster-girl Dawn Campbell (Watts). Meanwhile Mark Wahlberg plays Tommy, a firefighter preoccupied with the evils of petroleum. Together he and Albert navigate the waters of existence, including a journey to the dark side, when they leave the "everything-is-everything" approach of the detectives to follow the "everything-is-nothing" teachings of philosopher Caterine Vauban (Huppert).

As character after character gets pulled into the current of existential crisis, the movie begins to dismantle the viewer's reality as much as Albert's. The plot is sidelined by quirky themes and clever dialogue--it is more a collection of scenes than a thread. This is okay, however, because it is about viewing the world as a puzzle--as it gets taken apart and put back together, we see that all of the pieces are the same and yet each is entirely different. And the entire thing is held together by rich and nuanced performances by all of the leads.

Truly, this movie is existential comedy at its best.

The Last King of Scotland (James McAvoy) (2006)

The Last King of Scotland

I fell in love with James McAvoy in the scene where he shoots the cow. He is a new doctor who feels trapped by a comfortable life in Scotland, so he sets out for the first place his finger lands on the globe (well, the second place--apparently Canada is simply not an option). He goes to Uganda with the vague feeling that he can make a difference, but his life proves to be one hardly worth saving (as we see at the end). It is a coming-of-age story, but that subtext gets buried beneath Forest Whitaker's shocking portrayal of the near-psychotic rule of dictator Idi Amin. I first fell in love with McAvoy in the scene where he actually meets Idi Amin. Amin has only just come to power, and McAvoy's character (Dr. Nicholas Garrigan) encounters him on the road, where Amin has had an accident with a farmer's cart. Dr. Garrigan proceeds to tend to Amin (whose injuries are only minor), but the entire scene is made frantic and stressful--for both the Doctor and the viewer--by the wailing of the farmer's ox dying by the side of the road. Nicholas's anxiety and distraction turn nearly to fear until he pulls a gun from one of Amin's guards and shoots the cow--to the astonishment of all present.

The character's desire to "put that animal out of its misery" struck a chord with me for personal reasons, but it is James's fever over the situation that makes the scene significant. It foreshadows his understanding of the situation in the country, yet even he cannot quite interpret his anxiety. He comprehends all of the absurd situations that follow with unease--for him, things seem out of control, but all can be explained away with only a slight pang to his conscience. It is only when his own affair with Amin's wife (gracefully portrayed by the doe-eyed Kerry Washington) is exposed that the horrors around him take root--he reaches full enlightenment only when reality penetrates his self-absorption. Yet for as much as I love the coming-of-age story, I have the appropriate disdain for his naivety. When the film finally asks whether or not the Doctor's life is one worth saving, I stand behind the question. What has he done that is worthy? James has not disappointed. He embodies fully the line between innocence and ignorance, and I didn't even notice that he stepped over into the region of ignorance just enough to make me question the value of the character. This is subtle performance at its finest--he does not seek love for himself or the character, but he preserves the integrity of the protagonist as he was written.

King Arthur (2004)

Unfortunately, King Arthur cannot be everything that it wants to be as a movie. It has solid action and good themes, but it asks too many deep questions without really taking a stance on any of them. This leaves me with such an unexpected melancholy, no matter how often I watch it. However, it has good action and interesting characters--from the good guys to the bad guys, every player asserts a definitive characterization.

Arthur (Clive Owen) is an idealistic Roman who has been away from the city too long to know that its ideals are decaying. He has been away because he is commander of a band of knights who are sons of the conquered warriors of Sarmatia. There are only six of these left after their 15-year campaign of defense of Great Britain, which is under Roman rule and must be guarded against the native Britons. When the story begins, they have just completed their service and are ready to receive letters of safe conduct home. Instead they receive orders for one last mission--they are to go retrieve the Pope's nephew Alecto from the last outpost of the Empire; Rome is contracting its borders and leaving Great Britain to be overrun by the Saxons. By accepting this mission, Arthur and his knights will accept certain death, for they must pass the Britons and outrun the Saxons. Yet they go. And they return with the Saxons on their heels. So they join forces with the Britons in their last epic battle together.

These are not the classic knights of the Middle Ages, with their shining armor. Arthur is a tough-yet-just warrior who only seeks to do the right thing and who puts his faith in God. Lancelot (Ioan Gruffud) is his most loyal follower--he is a rogue with no no home and no ideals, but he puts all of his face and his loyalty in Arthur. Arthur's other most faithful servant is Dagonet (Ray Stevenson), who says little but lets it always suffice that Arthur is their leader, and it is their duty to follow him. Dag does not say much, but he is still the best friend of Bors (Ray Winstone), the good-natured fellow and community voice of the lot. All he wants is to go home to Sarmatia (and to take his dozen illegitimate children with him). Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen) finds all of the killing to his taste, while young-tempered Galahad (Hugh Dancy) is reminded of his duty by even-keel Gawain (Joel Edgerton). And let us not forget Guinevere (Keira Knightley), a pagan Briton locked up by Alecto's pious father. Merlin (Stephen Dillane) is a Briton sorcerer, but he and his natives are not the true enemies. Those truly to be feared are the ruthless Saxons, led by the cruel Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgârd) and his son Cynric (Til Schweiger).

The movie incorporates themes from the ideals that hold Arthur's world together: God, right, and freedom among them. Yet these ideals are undermined in Rome and in the movie alike. Lancelot is angry at Arthur for following a God in whose name the men are asked to sacrifice themselves for the protection of one boy. And it is in God's name that Alecto's father has enslaved the villagers of his outpost and forced them to starve while he has plenty. It is in God's name that he has locked up and tortured the Britons and non-believers. Lancelot chastises Arthur for confiding in God rather than his most loyal servant. The movie is also a movie about freedom: freedom for the Sarmatian knights, freedom for the Britons, freedom for each individual to claim his own land and to worship who he may.

But all of these are left open-ended while the knights spend their last half-hour in a great battle-to-the-death with the Saxons that we could actually have lived without. Even if it was necessary, it did not have to go on for quite so long. The grand action muddles the movie's point, and the movie's issues weigh down the action. In the end, it is an enjoyable movie to watch but not entirely satisfying. The battle scenes are spectacular, and the drama is well-played, but there is only time for a taste of each character and each performance and each theme.