Down to Earth

First off, an individual who'd blend right into the world of Wall-E:

I thought the white tennis shoes with socks was an interesting footwear choice. See? "Blue is the new red" haha.

Speaking of Wall-E, here's my little review of one of my favorite Pixar movies(though I do have a lot of favorites like The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Ratatouille). Also one of my absolutely FAVORITE Pixar shorts: Presto.

Presto was hilarious. By the time the gag tempo REALLY picked up, everyone in the theatre was rolling in the aisles. It was classic Warner Brothers, particularly Chuck Jones, meets the 3D realm. Both characters were so enjoyable to watch. The poses of the magician were particularly brilliant. He didn't seem to be a 3D model at all, really makes me think about what I want to accomplish in my own 3D work. Absolutely one of my favorite Pixar shorts and I'm dying to see this again!

Moving onto Wall-E, I loved it. Pixar took a lot of risks on this movie(like minimal dialogue) and pulled them off brilliantly. So much character! I can't even begin to name some of my favorite moments between Wall-E and Eve--along with the other robots and even cockroach. Also, every scene that was supposed to be either funny, cute, heart-touching, or any other primary emotion absolutely delivered 110%. The sets were gorgeous and I grew very fond of the camera-work, very effective use of almost documentary, hand-held style, filming. While it's not the perfect movie in the world, I personally didn't mind at all. Everyone seems to adore the first roughly 40 minutes of the movie, and then fall into despair about the rest of the movie, but my attention and enjoyment remained until the last credit rolled by. Some reviews have noted that this movie is not for kids, particularly in regards to attention span and if kids could comprehend what's going on since the film's emphasis is on visual storytelling rather than a dialogue-driven story. I went to a 4:30 showing and the kids in the theater were absolutely captivated. This was really noticeable during the extremely quiet emotional scenes and as far as I could tell the kids were not antsy or whispering to their parents about what was going on during the rest of the movie. Another point that's coming up focuses on how humans were treated. I personally found the future depiction of humans perfect. In this specific scenario no body is going to be any less than gelatinous blobs. I found the live-action clips a bit distracting(not the Hello Dolly VHS tape. That was the perfect touch to Wall-E's character). Granted you can't mimic Fred Willard's mannerisms, but something would throw me off every time a live-action actor would appear on a computer display in front of an otherwise 3D cast. I did think it was bold though, and do congratulate Pixar on making the creative choice anyways. Mixing mediums is an interesting frontier, especially when explored in the big mainstream studios. Overall, it is a great film--surpassing all of my expectations and inspiring me to really go outside my own comfort zone. I really feel this quote from the "Art of Wall-E" book really sums up Wall-E perfectly, "With a grin, Lasseter recalls a simple word of advice from an old friend, mentor, and renowned animation director: 'Chuck Jones always said that, with great animation, you should be able to turn off the sound and still be able to tell what's going on.'" I'm already making plans to see Wall-E again next weekend and can't wait! Until then, just storyboarding out ideas, watching the occasional thunderstorm(yesterday the power was knocked out until 11:30 at night! Almost 6 hours without much light to draw by or even the internets!), and working. I can't believe it's pretty much July! Where'd my June go?!?!