Cal Jacobson’s Blog

The whole family went to see WALL·E on Sunday and I think we got our money’s worth.  As usual, Pixar produced a movie with a decent story — something that has been increasingly rare in Hollywood over the last 20 years.

(Minor spoilers follow: consider yourself warned.)

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about Pixar’s movies are the shorts they show beforehand.  I think the one this time around, Presto, is probably their best to date — lots of physical comedy in the Loony Tunes vein.

WALL·E itself is also a step up from their previous work, though I think more in a technical sense than a storytelling one.  Not only have the animators given a (mostly) voiceless, boxy robot character and emotion, but they appear to have overcome a major issue with CGI: dirt.

Yes, dirt.

I’ve heard that every Pixar film has at least one major technical challenge: in Monsters, Inc. it was hair, in Finding Nemo it was water, in Ratatouille it was supposedly food.  If this film had a technical challenge, my money is on dirt — there was a lot of it and it looked as great as dirt can.

My only criticism of the movie involves the use of live-action footage: some of the 1969 movie version of Hello, Dolly! and some of actor Fred Willard as a company CEO.  Both seemed very out of place in a production by a company that has animated numerous human and dancing characters in the past.  My initial reaction after leaving the theater was that it smacked of simple laziness on the part of Pixar, but now I’m of the mind that it was just a very poor decision by director Andrew Stanton (who previously directed Finding Nemo).

I’ve heard that there has been squawking in various circles about a heavy-handed message in the movie, and to be honest when I saw the first trailer eons ago that was my first impression.  But WALL·E is nowhere near the club-you-over-the-head territory that Happy Feet was, thank God.  The movie may flirt with the boundary between story and propoganda, but it doesn’t cross it.  I’m sure some folks will be put off by the notion that the future is populated by fat, materialistic humans…but I wasn’t.  I think there’s some truth there, but the manner in which it is presented is unlikely to cause Junior to renounce worldly goods and embark on a lifetime of communal living.

I strongly recommend going to see the movie if you’ve enjoyed Pixar’s previous films.  Now if we could only get them to can the forthcoming Cars 2 in favor of an Incredibles sequel.

Man, and I thought Thunderbirds was awful.

Last night my wife and I watched Ultraviolet. I had heard that it was by the same guy who did Equilibrium (which we had both enjoyed) so it seemed like a reasonable choice for a fairly mindless action flick.

I was wrong, and not just white-pants-after-Labor-Day wrong. Oh no. We’re talking liposuction on an 8-year-old wrong. Wedding reception at Golden Corral wrong. Rabbi in Mecca wrong. Linday Lohan as driving instructor wrong. Wrong.

It is never a good sign if the movie starts off with three minutes of narrative. It doesn’t help if the narrator is the main character. It certainly doesn’t help if the main character is being played by Milla Jolololololovovich. Five minutes into the movie I had this growing fear that this cinematic experience was heading nowhere but downhill. Featuring more costume changes than a Cher concert and such disjointed dialog and scenes that I was compelled to turn to my wife half-way through and ask “did anyone actually EDIT this movie?”, Ultraviolet was a lock for Second-Worst Movie In The World^* before it was halfway over.

Lest you think that I am making a mountain out of a molehill, let me quote a few critics courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes, none of which I’m actually making up:

Ultraviolet wants desperately to be a provocative, high-concept action thriller. It is apparently trying to say something about fear and terrorism, paranoia and racism. But it looks more like a shampoo commercial. — Christy Lemire, Associated Press

Lordy mama, the thing’s just unspeakable. — The Daily Mirror (UK)

Ultraviolet will be studied with great interest in the future - not for its quality or its artistic merit, but rather to discover how a turd like this was made. — Kevin Carr, 7M Pictures

Now critics are often highbrow, stuffy types that would prefer some Elizabethan drama to anything you and I would watch. How about some input from typical moviegoers (by way of IMDB)?

This movie is absolutely horrible. The magnitude of its suck is unbelievable. — Niko Stokley

Like a German techno video with badly translated Japanese one-liners for dialogue… only less coherent. — Steph-3

I registered at this site just to tell you how GODAWFUL this movie truly is. About 10 minutes into the movie I started praying for a brain tumor to arrive and kill me. — Batese

I’m going to go set a camera on record, then throw it into a cement sidewalk. This would result in a film that is 10 times better than Ultraviolet. — smitty124

I have no proof, but I suspect that this is the movie that almost killed Roger Ebert in 2006. It is a movie so bad even its star badmouthed it.

Please, for the love of God, don’t watch this movie. Educate your children and your community. If you own a rental store, I strongly urge you to immediately entomb every copy you have in something lead-lined and bury it deep. And please, start writing your senators and representatives in Washington so that we may prevent Ultraviolet on Blu-Ray from ever being released. Think globally, act locally.

* Oh, and the Worst Movie In The World? Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. We saw it in a movie theater; I foolishly argued against walking out, thinking that it would get better. Some people liked that movie, but I won’t say anything about them since it’s not nice to make fun of the mentally handicapped.

…Thunderbirds is simply awful. I may thank God every remaining day of my life that I didn’t pay to see it in a movie theater.

Bill Paxton? Nothing really going on since Twister. Anthony Edwards? Gigs have likely been few after E.R. ended. But Ben Kingsley? I can only assume the movie studio had compromising pictures of him stashed away somewhere.

Those were the words that came from my six-year-old after we finished watching Meet the Robinsons tonight.

After my wife and I finished laughing, I had to break the news to him that he wouldn’t get the chance.  My better half then asked me when she would be adopted, and I told her that it would happen shortly after I was adopted.

“I’ll get adopted by somebody rich, like Bill Gates,” I said, and then tried to reassure her with “oh don’t worry, I’ll take you with me.”

She wasn’t buying it.  Come on, Mr. Gates — dad – you’ve got room in your house for a few more, right?

(Note to self: if my wife gets adopted by Bill Gates, that makes her my sister.  Not good: I need to think these things through a bit more.)

I was a bit surprised to find that I enjoyed the movie — other than Pixar’s stuff I’ve found most Disney movies to be God-awful, saccharine ordeals.  Maybe because Pixar alum John Lasseter had a hand in things, they avoided churning out the same “coming of age” pablum which had become Disney’s staple for the last couple of decades.

Seriously, Bambi II?   Cinderella III?  You’d think that if some company had the resources and budget to crank out a quality production, it would be The Mouse.

Maybe a potential strike in Hollywood might not be so bad.  I bet the handful of talented writers could probably get picked up by sympathetic sponsors outside of California.  Maybe even Bill Gates would adopt a couple.