Beautiful Handcrafted Animals

We went and saw Wall-E last night, saw a 10:15 showing up in Nyack.

There are people shitting all over this movie online, saying Wall-E is a condemnation of our crass commercialism, that it’s a denoucement of humans and their ways.

Anyone who says that must have walked out in the first 30 minutes.  There’s no other explanation, really.

This is a magnificent movie.  Not just for the art, the animation, etc..  This movie’s got heart.  Wall-E and Eva are amazing characters, especially in how much emotion is conveyed with almost no words and by creatures that are, let’s be honest, not really getting a lot through by way of facial expressions.

The crew at Pixar have completely outdone themselves with this one.

More than anything, Wall-E is a message of hope.  It shows us how down one can be — a person, a robot, or a species — and how no matter how easy it may be to stay down, no matter how comfortable one may become, you can still want more.

And fight for it.

What I find interesting about Wall-E, and this is something that many watching and condemning the movie may not have thought about, but the humans in this movie didn’t choose their way of life.

I’m going to delve into spoilers for a bit — you’ve been warned.

Okay, it’s 700 years since folks left Earth.  To be more specific, it’s 700 years since the folks who could AFFORD to pay for the luxury of The Axiom (the ship) left Earth.

In those 700 years, the entitled folks on board The Axiom have been waited on hand and foot.  Gradually (or perhaps not so gradually), they fell into a Dionysian life of sloth.  They don’t get up out of their chairs.  Robots feed and (presumably) wash them.

The crop of humans on board The Axiom in Wall-E have never known any life but the life they are leading.  Their parents and their parents’ parents (and so on for many generations) lived like this.

To put it another way; for generations, we humans have been waring pants.  Imagine if someone came along and cried to the heavens, “AWAY WITH PANTS!”

So, this is the world they know.

I don’t feel we can blame them for it.

These humans are certainly not to be blamed for the state of the Earth.  They had nothing to do with its polluting.

Now, take the Captain.  Take Bill.  Take Mary.  The first moment those three humans — who are clearly as slothful as the rest, at first — are given the option to experience life for themselves, for raise their hands and take a stand . . . they do.

In spite of 700 years of civilization standing in their way, the Captain, Bill and Mary go against their society and strive for something more.

The Captain fights against the counsel of the Autopilot even though its opinion is quite reasonable.  They have to fight for the possibility that Earth could be theirs again.  That humanity can be more than just a chubby invalid in a floating couch, being waited on hand and foot.

And, if you stayed for the credits, you can see that the rest of humanity (at least, some amount, though the end sequence makes it look like everyone’s in for the haul) joins the cause.  They’re working with the robots to clean up and start growing again.  Humans in the credits are even getting skinnier, doing without their floating couches.

Wall-E has a wonderfully optimistic message that is relevant to our times.  People!  We don’t have to lay back and let our comfortable lifestyles dictate the state of the world!  We can stand up and refuse to be sheep!  Refuse to let the media blind us!  Refuse to let our leaders tell us what’s best!

We can think for ourselves, and we can act for ourselves.

That’s a lot for a G-rated cartoon about a robot.

That’s a hell of a movie.

Ever wonder how Google Maps gets those awesome (and sometimes creepy) shots for its “Streets” view?

Well, wonder no longer. Here’s a shot of the Google Maps-Mobile getting pulled over by the Presidio in San Francisco. The article goes into further details but I would just like to formally express my surprise that, as a resident of New York City, which is almost completely represented on Google Maps, I have never seen one of these babies, “in the wild.”

Cool beans.

Heh, sorry, but I couldn’t resist . . .

Saw on CHUD.com this morning that J.J. Abrhams, of Cloverfield, Lost and, heh, Alias fame (what, it’s a good show), has bought the option on the below-posted “Puzzle-House” story from the original New York Times author.

Heaven only knows what the story’s going to turn into, as I don’t see a pulse-pounding movie about a 5th Avenue apartment that ends with the discover of . . . A POEM!

Still, pretty cool beans

Here’s the CHUD story: ker-link!

Just a quick one, but worth sharing, of course.  I mentioned I was moving?  Well, I wonder what it’d feel like to move into a new home and discover the architect you’d hired to put the place together for you turned it into an elaborate puzzle box / scavanger hunt.

Pretty cool pics there.  I have to wonder, though, how hard it is to sell a place like that . . .

We saw, The Incredible Hulk over the weekend. Pretty damned awesome movie.

But you already knew that, didn’t you? Alrighty. Let’s move on. We’ll come back to Dr. Banner and his, ahem, hulkish alter-ego in a bit.

We’re moving. We’re buying a house and moving out of the City.

We initially saw the house and were impressed. We went back and saw it again. Measured some stuff. Checked some things we hadn’t been 100% on previously (example: we wanted to check the specs on the electrical power to the house). We felt even better about the house. So what’s the next step?

Call the bank?

Call the lawyer?

Nope — Google it. Wiki it.

Yup, before putting in an offer on a house, we looked it up on Google and Wikipedia. Not the house itself, of course, but the town and the village. The outerlying areas.

We looked up the school district. We followed links to westchester.gov and did Google searches for different restaurants, banks, supermarkets, etc. We punched in different destinations (my folks’ house, her folks’ house) to see how long it would take to drive to each.

Is this something other folks do, or are my wife and I just super-nerds?

And, if you’re making a major financial investment, do you really want to trust wikipedia.net to guild your way?

To be fair, we’ve also spoken to several folks about our new neighborhood and what we’re hearing matches up with what the ‘net has to say. But what if it didn’t? What if they told us to run screaming like our hair was on fire. Would we? Or would we tsk tsk and wave them away. “Wikipedia says you’re wrong.”

Which brings us back to Mr. Hulk.

We saw parents on either side of the marriage this weekend — dinner with mine, lunch with hers — and talked to both about The Incredible Hulk. We told my folks and her folks that we loved the movie. Loved it, yes. Their response?

“The reviews didn’t sound so good. Probably we’ll skip it.”

Getting scary out there, folks. At least, that’s what I read on Wikipedia . . .

Saw Sex and the City last night with Jessy and I’m pleased to report that my genitals did not retreat back into my body. Men! It’s safe to take your girlfriends and wives to see this movie.

Honest.

I’d make sure to get some popcorn and a drink, maybe some candy. There’s a Fashion Week montage that’s timed almost perfectly for a bathroom break and you get to see a decent amount of topless women (it’s almost like they tossed in the montage and the bewbs just for us).

So go see it. Score some brownie points. In a Summer with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, The Dark Knight and probably a dozen other “man movies” I’m forgetting to mention (not Indy 4 — that movie sucked donkey scrotum), it’s the least you can do.

Oh, unless you’re like my buddy Sam, who broke up with a girl he was dating two days before the opening so he could avoid the movie. You have to kind of admire balls like that, eh?