Anthony King: 2008

MOVIE #9 - As everyone has been saying, the first 30-40 minutes of this movie are truly amazing. But once Wall-E is fully sucked into Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, the movie loses its charm. I think that may be because Pixar, at its best, takes huge themes (like loss, longing, desire, discovery, individuality, etc.) and merges them seemlessly into impossibly unique characters and stories. In Wall-E, the themes of the movie never fully connect with our main character. Wall-E is a high-tech Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. And while Stoppard wrote a brilliant satire starring those two characters, he never asked us to actually care about them.

Pixar is breaking new ground with this bold, dark animated satire, but they can’t help begging the audience to also love what they’ve created. Sadly, those conflicting goals result in a movie that is neither as biting as a satire should be, nor as touching as a true love-story could be.

Of course, it sure is nice to be able to have a nuanced, thoughtful - if ultimately somewhat negative - response to an animated film. Just the trailers for Madagascar 2, Bolt, Fly Me To The Moon, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua are a full-scale attack against a civilized humanity.

Seriously, the theatrical release of Beverly Hills Chihuahua may be the moment future historians pinpoint as the end of America, Inc. as a superpower.

PLAY #6 - This weird, dark, touching, surprising, and wonderful little musical is only playing for a few more weeks. It’s not frivolous entertainment, but worth seeing if you’re looking for something to chew on. I particularly liked an idea expressed near the end of the show by my Gravid Water pal, Nick Offerman’s, character (paraphrased from memory):

“Do you think they’d go to all the trouble to make a soul and only use it once?”

BUD & DOUG: Fort Worth, TX

MOVIE #8 - I probably never would have seen this movie if not for the awesome trailer.  Problem is - the trailer gave away all of the best sequences (save one very cool and insane sequence on a train).  So, in the end, I feel swindled: Movie got my money, but I wanted more.

BOOK #15 - TC Boyle is a clever writer.  And I mean that in the worst way possible.

BUD & DOUG: Hudson, NY

DVD/DVR #28 - This movie was basically the Fail Safe to Swimming With Sharks’ Dr. Strangelove (with a pedophile instead of a producer).

Yawn.

DVD/DVR #27 - I’m not completely sure this was supposed to be a comedy.

DVD/DVR #26 - I love paranoia thrillers and this one is pretty great (based on the same source material as Dr. Strangelove).   The series of shots of normal NYC life just before the unsettling climax are really arresting.  Nice job, Sidney!

P.S.  Not Walter Matthau’s funniest performance.

BUD & DOUG: Chicago