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Topic: Pixar's Wall-E and Presto
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted June 24, 2008 07:02 PM
Ya know Jean, (as well as everybody else) ...
CGI animated films have a small charm and in some cases it works well, (as in the case of Toy Story 1 & 2) ...
But I have really become rather dis-enchanted with them. Granted, I'm 42 and not a kid in this modern computer age, but I'm really bored with CGI and don't even check them out on DVD as a general rule. So I'm happy that they haven't done a lot of Super 8 CGI feature releases.
I do absolutely love hand drawn animation.
Perhaps because it's actually done by a living person ... by hand, and not from some program on a computer. It's been so sad to see hand drawn animation have such a quick death (for the most part, and when I see one advertised, I'm more inclined to go see it, as I'm seeing the ending of an era dying a slow but beautiful death.
-------------------- "All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 03, 2008 09:22 PM
As the Dad of a very Media Savvy five year old I certainly do!
This stuff is just awful! Very one dimensional and annoyingly educational/preachy at times. I usually try to help him out by threading up a few Bugs Bunnies after dark. As long as my kid takes Yosemite Sam as a bad example, he'll do just fine!
Let's be honest, I like accountants just fine. I dated one before I met my wife, and I'll have to say her assets perfectly balanced her liabilities, so to speak. A dearly departed friend was an accountant and a good one, and I miss him plenty. (I miss HER too, here and there...)
The problem with our friends with the adding machines is sometimes they are so focused on the bottom line they fail to see the really big picture.
I came very close to losing my job once because even though it was established that I was actually a very valuable guy (-based on other people's opinions: I just try to show up every day...), there was no room for me in the budget. It was only resolved when the President of the company told the Director of Accounting it was HER job to "make room".
Once again, we appreciate our Accounting Brethren (or "Sistren", where applicable), just as we will certainly enjoy WALL-E!
-Somebody has to keep an eye on the strongbox!
-------------------- All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 10, 2008 09:54 AM
We finally got to see Wall-E last night. It is a definite step forward for Pixar.
The animation has reached the point where for most of the movie it simply looked like live-action footage. The only place where this failed was whenever human beings showed up. This is Pixar's one weakness: people. In my opinion they have an edge on everybody else in pretty much every respect, but for example Dreamworks' human characters are much more photorealistic. The human characters in Wall-E are much like the ones in The Incredibles: they look like they are made of vinyl. They have come a long way from the more doll-like people in "Toy Story", though.
Pixar's strongest suit has always been story telling. This one is no different. There's a depth of feeling to a lot of the characters, and it's shocking the range of emotion they pull out of a robot whose "face" is basically a pair of "eyes" on a "neck"; all the more so when he loses them after a forced reboot and you sense he really is just a machine. It is as much an action movie as a comedy, as a drama. Some people have griped a little about the "environmental message" in it. If there is a "message" at all, it's simply that if you make a mess and don't deal with it, it will eventually come back to haunt you. Any adult should know this. If they taught my kid this message, then the price of the ticket will become a great investment!
The action is a little intense at times, so much that my almost first grader got a little scared here and there. Overall he still enjoyed it. Bring a 3 year old to see this and you may be sorry.
A little unusually for Pixar, there is a sprinkling of pop-culture references, but they are very subtle on a Shrek scale of things.
"Presto" was absolutely great. As a sign of how much the Pixar people are cartoon fans it was even titled in a vintage Disney style. I would not fight the idea of having this one spooled up in my Elmo in the near future. (“Mr. Derann”, are you listening??)
-------------------- All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Bill Brandenstein
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1632
From: California
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted July 10, 2008 05:17 PM
Hey Steve, if I'd known, I'd have invited you to join us!
Really, it's a pretty simple parable wrapped in a very abstract, sophisticated sci-fi movie. I like the emphasis given to the importance of relationships over electronics. But I'm still not sure what my kids got out of it given the "abstraction layer." Is the target audience the parents rather than the kids?
It's disappointing to me, on a technical note, how many so-called first-rate theaters have such a steep rake to the auditorium, that when showing a scope film such as this only a third of the screen can be in razor-sharp focus. Of course, this is because they're targeting only the bottom portion of the screen, which in some cases begins at a lower height than the lens...
It's also getting harder to figure out who's going to give you a good chest-thumping, wide-around-surround sound experience. THX and digital sound are rarely advertised any more, and some of the best results (for me) have turned up in some of the unadvertised spots. On the other hand, last night we were in a THX room but it sounded like the subwoofers were nearly off.
Well, I agree with Steve's comments and think that Wall-E and Presto deserve unqualified recommendation!
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