Dory uses her camouflage of species to surreptitiously touch Marlin’s bottom.

FINDING DORY is lost at sea.

She worked so well as a supporting character in FINDING NEMO (2003) that Pixar spins off Dory’s origin story in FINDING DORY – and only ends up highlighting what a horrifying brain disease she suffers from.

Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang fish with short term memory loss, first appeared in the animated road tale NEMO as comedy relief to Nemo’s father, Marlin. Her memory loss was the driver of many jokes in Marlin’s quest to cross an ocean to find his son. Now, in her own feature, she just comes across as retarded. And not in that inspirational way, where she conquers her disability and triumphs in an orchestra swell. No, the message in the movie is actually: act retarded like Dory and you’ll achieve your goals.

Disney, Pixar’s mother company, is renowned for mixed messages, conflicting messages and downright stupid messages, but even I can’t believe how low Disney/Pixar have, uh, sunk. You think I’m exaggerating? When our fish heroes find themselves in jams in the final act, more than once they ask themselves, “What Would Dory Do?” – and find that being impetuous, ignorant and unmindful of consequences actually saves their skins. You’re welcome, Parents.

In the movie’s opening scene, while watching Dory’s parents futilely trying to teach baby Dory how to stay away from the undertow, we get the distinct impression that Dory is short a few scales. Since fish psychology hasn’t been invented, these poor fish parents have to live with the fact that Dory is in need of round-the-clock supervision and any dreams they had of travel, relaxation or independence are dashed in being Dory’s constant caregivers.

We cut to the inevitable – Dory lost, looking for her parents. She grows up in a montage of asking other sea creatures if they can help her find what she’s looking for, until it becomes apparent that even she has forgotten what she is looking for; her prime directive becomes simply continuing a generic search…

“You doin’ okay, fish? Don’t worry, I don’t need to breathe or anything.”

In a tie-in to NEMO, Dory runs across Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks) looking for Nemo (Hayden Rolence). Then their paths separate. Later, Marlin and Nemo would join Dory closer to her goal, hitching a ride with Crush the Turtle again (voice of Andrew Stanton) to the Marine Life Institute in California, where Sigourney Weaver voices the marine park’s announcements as herself.

Ty Burrell is Bailey the Beluga Whale, who uses his echo-location by putting his pectoral fins to his head like a psychic and going, “Ooooooo!”; Ed O’Neill is Hank the escapist octopus, camouflaging into his surroundings to avoid capture; Bob Peterson is flat-faced Mr. Ray the schoolteacher; Kaitlyn Olson is the shortsighted whale shark Destiny (a brazenly funny chick, but vexing as this character); Idris Elba and Dominic West are seals; there are also cameos by all the fish from the dentist’s office in NEMO, led by Willem Dafoe, still floating around the ocean in plastic bags. (Hasn’t the oxygen in their bags run out yet?)

As the journey progresses, the plot jumps the shark with incalculable lunacy, ending up with the octopus actually stealing and driving a truck into the ocean, freeing all the fish within. Don’t even ask.

We have to entertain the possibility that the title might refer to more than just the journey of Dory. (In essence, she is not really lost from the audience’s point of view, as we are physically with her all the way.) Is it about Dory “finding herself”? Is it referring to Dory’s parents losing her and trying to find her? (No, because that would’ve been told from the parents’ point of view.) Is it about Dory finding a way to live without them and still be happy? (No. Because she finds them anyway.) Is it about Dory finding a path through her cluttered lost memories to one that makes sense and redeems her? (No, her memory comes and goes as required to move the plot.) OK then… I don’t get it! I don’t get why you would put this hapless fish through this brain-wracking misery in front of craven audiences just looking for a laugh with some animated sea life.

And in the end, when everyone is happy and joyous living on the reef again (with Dory’s parents as well!), what ensures that Dory will retain enough brain power not to wander off again and cause another panic-stricken sequel?

You might have found Dory, but you lost me at octopus driving a truck.

END

Outland-ish.

It’s HIGH NOON in space. Well, sort of. Well, not exactly. Well, not at all.

HIGH NOON (1952) is about the dark side of human frailty. OUTLAND is about some space outlaws too stupid not to shoot their cowboy guns in a pressure dome.

Director-writer Peter Hyams: he knows the “how” to make a film, he knows the “where” to get funding, he knows the “why” of driving a plot – but he still knows nothing about the mechanics of space. And I don’t know why he insists on setting his adventures time and again in a medium he is completely ignorant of.

When Hyams pitched OUTLAND as “HIGH NOON in space,” he was just lucky enough that the greenlight executives knew as little about space colonies and gravitational mechanics as he did.

Sean Connery is Marshall O’Niel in a small Earth colony stationed on Io, the volcanic moon of Jupiter. He is one honest man pitted against the corrupt Io administration (led by Peter Boyle) that is selling fatal illegal drugs to the colonists. When he attempts to shut down the cartel, the administration sends for professional killers from Earth to cancel O’Niel’s contract. O’Neil can only find one honest citizen (Frances Sternhagen) to stand with him against the killers.

And all ignorant physics breaks loose.

Space Cowboy Poffy

Like Hyams’ own CAPRICORN ONE (1978), this movie is flawed at such a bedrock level that we would have to re-educate him from kindergarten level upwards for any of this to make sense, so we throw up our hands and file it in the “pure fantasy crap” section. To begin with, it’s quaint how Hyams is trying to get all “scientific” by locating the action on Io – a tectonically unstable moonlet in volcanic flux being battered like taffy by Jupiter’s gravitational forces – where it is impossible to sink foundations to even start building a habitable Earth colony. (It would look like that planet of lava where Obiwan and Anakin battle in REVENGE OF THE SITH, 2005.) And then to have everyone walking around like they’re not in one-quarter Earth gravity. (It’s not like Hyams doesn’t know this – a title card gives us this factoid – then completely ignores its ramifications.)

Once a week a shuttle arrives from Earth. Sounds plausible – if you live in Detroit. But if you’re on Io – and the one-way trip from Earth takes about two years – that means the shuttle transit company or the mining corporation that runs Io is flush enough to afford 104 shuttles, plus 104 crews plus 104 tanks of fuel and two years worth of food onboard 104 shuttles… is everyone just raking in the space-Euros in the future or doesn’t money exist anymore?

I could go on. And on and on. Like CAPRICORN ONE, not one aspect of this movie is thought through. It’s like watching one of those little outlandish plays you put on for your parents when you were seven. From the ridiculous 80s disco decor to the fact that bad guys would behave like 18th century cowboys and fire weapons indiscriminately within the confines of a biosphere. Even in the childish actioner TOTAL RECALL (1990), a bad guy thought twice before firing towards the Perspex dome that enclosed the city.

The story of the One Honest Man deserted by his supposed compatriots still holds some weight – and Connery is the right man to hold up such derision on his broad, righteous shoulders – but the story is buried under the weight of ignorance that informs every single scene.

Marshall O’Niel’s wife – like Marshall Kane’s (Gary Cooper) in HIGH NOON – deserts him. The surrogate “partner” who stands by O’Neil is an interesting social phenomenon:

In the 1950’s, when voluptuous Katie Jurado was cast as Kane’s ex-lover, movies were being made where couples slept in two single beds; so though Kane’s actual wife deserted him, it was not even considered that Gary Cooper would fool around with Jurado, because he was the Pure Hero and the institution of marriage was ironclad, unbreakable – so Jurado’s hotness was an unrepressed tension, a “tragedy” because it could not be acted upon.

Here in OUTLAND, Sean Connery’s 1980’s surrogate is an old woman (Sternhagen), because society’s new norm denotes that if a movie female is hot, it is presumed that a virile man like Connery would definitely have a romantic entanglement with her – so they defused the issue of Married Hero Being Dishonorable by making the surrogate old (although Sternhagen must have been a homewrecker in her day because she still retains a vestigial sexuality and amorous intent towards Connery). If HIGH NOON or – God help us! – OUTLAND is re-made after 2011 (sorry, “reimagined”), the surrogate role would go to a Megan Fox or some smooth-breasted, flat-bellied blond who owns no clothes that cover her midriff – because nowadays, the goalposts for honor and repression in movies have been moved once again, and it would be unthinkable that Hero should get no trim after beating up bad guys. Wife or not, Hero gotta get laid!

P.H. Moriarty leads the bad guys (Hatchet Harry from LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, 1999).

This movie could have been set anywhere – Hyams shoots himself in the foot by setting it in outer space; there are no idiosyncrasies that set it apart from being anywhere on Earth. Poor Connery can’t win, though. If he had remained James Bond, he might have ended up doing a space movie even worse than OUTLAND – MOONRAKER.

END

A decade later, we’re still a bunch of kids.

After all the hype for TOY STORY 3, it should give me an actual buzz and an actual woody.
— Bill Maher, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER, June 2010

Is it the best TOY STORY ever? Well, that’s subjective as a pudding bear on Tuesday, but TOY STORY 3 is another plastic fantastic, wild child, great escape, life and death extravaganza that should thrill Bill Maher sufficiently.

In TOY STORY 2 (1999), Stinky Pete mocked Woody, “Do you really think Andy is going to take you to college?” TOY STORY 3 is that very plot line – Andy, now a teen, is headed for college (played by the same voice actor who played him as a boy, John Morris – it’s been eleven years between sequels!). He packs Woody in his college bag (Stinky Pete was wrong!), putting Buzz and all his other toys in a bag bound for the attic. Through a mixup, the bagged toys and Woody (trying to save them) end up at Sunnyside Day Care Center for kids.

Kids who rend and rip and scream and crush kill destroy… you know, normal kids.

Cowboy Poffy

Upon arriving at Sunnyside, Andy’s toys are in Toy Nirvana. Lotso the strawberry-smelling huggy bear (voiced by Ned Beatty) welcoming them with a whole slew of new characters, including Ken (of Ken’s Dream House fame, voiced by Michael Keaton – only in our elder years do we realize what a big gay metrosexual Ken has always been, with his fake tan, his ascot, his beach pants and that big smooth patch where his tools should be).

Already suffering neglect issues, Andy’s toys embrace Sunnyside’s lifestyle of being common property playthings. Lotso tells them, “If you have no owners you can never be outgrown, never neglected!” (Ah yes, the Gene Simmons mantra against marriage.)

Best friends Woody the cowboy (Tom Hanks) and Buzz the spaceman (Tim Allen) are at odds on whether to stay at Sunnyside. Woody leaves to return to Andy, while the other toys stay – and discover not only the barbaric kids, but that Lotso runs the Center like a mafia kingpin, a big doll-baby his muscle, Ken and some monster toys his enforcers. At night, Lotso imprisons Andy’s toys (Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, Blake Clark as Slinky Dog, Wallace Shawn as Rex Dinosaur, John Ratzenberger as Hamm) – and thus begins Woody’s quest to rescue them.

Of course, the magic of every TOY STORY is not in its synopsis, but in the execution of the movie and the depth of its characters. And cuteness. Don’t forget cuteness.

Safe to say TOY STORY 3 contains the most poignant hammers of the trilogy: themes of abandonment, of age overtaking us all, of the passing of torches, of the wonder of youth, and leaving that wonder behind…

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry…

Death comes calling. The most serious circumstance they have ever faced, as Woody, Buzz and the gang inexorably slide slowly towards an iron smelter. Unlike any threats before it, this death is unthinking, unyielding, unable to be reasoned with like a fierce dog or a bad kid, it is overwhelming. And as they struggle vainly against the relentless landslide of scrap metal, Buzz, with his arm around Jessie, looks around and sees Woody. His look is final. It says there is no way out. And wordlessly he stretches his hand toward Woody. Woody takes it. Woody looks to the Potato Heads holding each other. He reaches out to them. They hold his hand. As all the toys join hands, there is no sound, but the relentless scream of metal melting in the maw of the furnace. No words, no tears, only an abiding, crushing love between them. They are not toys any more. They are our friends. We’ve lived with them for over a decade; now we’re going to die with them.

One cute and funny deus ex machina later…

pondering metaphysics: the nature of toy consciousness.

To escape Lotso’s prison, Mr. Potato Head puts his face and limbs on a tortilla. And he is still “himself.” His parts can move discretely and retain his personality. Later, he puts himself on a cucumber! (Don’t get me started.) Likewise, Mrs. Potato Head can see through her missing eye, which is lost under Andy’s bed. So where exactly is the toy soul housed?

Though we thought we’d have to hold it in for the incinerator scene, the makers of TOY STORY 3 (director Lee Unkrich, writers Unkrich, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Michael Arndt) save the best for last and with the final scene, they hit us right in the vagina: Andy bequeaths his toys to shy, generous, tender Bonnie; just before he drives off, he turns for one last look at his beloved playthings and says softly, “Thank you, guys.”

He thanks his toys for being there as he grew up! He gave them souls, gave them the ability to have affected him as any mentor, as any friend might have. And like the promise in SUPERMAN, You’ll Believe A Man Can Cry…

And thus do we fulfill Bill Maher’s criteria: even if most of the movie is chase-action-rescue, the emotional wallops will leave you with that contact high headrush that all good movies aim for and few achieve; and let’s admit it fellas, she’s only a cartoon, but Barbie’s bangin’ butt sure does give us half a chubby…

END

Toying with our emotions.

One of the best-reviewed sequels of all time, TOY STORY 2 continues the tale of the toys from Andy’s room, adding a few characters, upping the chase ante and breaking our hearts with animated toys that are better actors than people.

Cowboy Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) is stolen by Al the toy collector (Wayne Knight, still playing a blubbering fat guy – even as a cartoon!). Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) mounts a rescue mission with some of the other toys to get him back. But Woody may not want to return…

Woody turns out to be a collector’s item, completing Woody’s Roundup Gang, comprising Jessie the Cowgirl (Joan Cusack), Stinky Pete the Prospector (Kelsey Grammer) and Woody’s trusty steed, Bullseye; all awaiting shipment to a museum in Japan, making big bucks for Al.

All the principals return to voice their now beloved toys: Don Rickles as cantankerous Mr. Potato Head, Jim Varney as pragmatic Slinky Dog, Wallace Shawn as twitchy Rex Dinosaur, John Ratzenberger as impatient Hamm the Piggy Bank. And the three little green aliens find a new god in Mr. Potato Head and make “oooo” sounds at him.

In their quest, the toys enter Al’s toy store and separate, searching for Woody. They meet Tour Guide Barbie, who joins their quest, while Buzz’s nemesis, the Evil Emperor Zurg, stalks them, and is involved in the funniest STAR WARS joke since George Lucas cast Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader.

It’s ironic that the TOY STORY movies are the best feature film work of Tim Allen’s career, as he imbues Buzz with such vibrant personality and imbues his human roles with the personality of a puppet.

Buzz runs across a whole aisle of Buzz Lightyear action figures and is entrapped by one inculcated with the Space Ranger/George W. Bush credo of Imprison First with no habeas corpus. The “fake” Buzz then joins our toy friends without their knowledge, thereafter calling each toy by their obvious design: “Lizard Man” for Rex and “Vegetable Man” for Mr. Potato Head; Hamm asks, “Where’d you get the cool belt, Buzz?” “Well, Slotted Pig, they’re standard issue.”

Meanwhile, Al calls in a Cleaner on Woody. This sequence is remarkable, accompanied by mind-bending mood music, as the old cleaner polishes, stitches and refurbishes Woody, which is a good thing, but which ultimately removes his identity as Andy’s plaything. The music is reminiscent of the best cute, magical, yet ominous themes from the Disney archives, before Disney Corp became too sanctimonious to bear. (The Cleaner is voiced by Jonathan Harris – Dr. Smith from 1965’s LOST IN SPACE!)

Like the original TOY STORY (1995), Pixar Studios and the genius writers-directors (John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, Lee Unkrich among others) somehow find a way to break off a piece of our hearts, as Jessie recounts the tale of her little girl owner growing up and abandoning her for interests in ponies and boys, all to the strains of Sarah McLoughlin‘s melancholy, nostalgic When She Loved Me. It takes us back to our own childhoods and forgotten toys and carefree feelings and young friends now grown old like ourselves. “You never forget kids like Emily or Andy, but they forget you.” Every 40-year-old man becomes a blubbering baby. It’s embarrassing.

The big question on all our minds: does Woody break off his namesake in Jessie the Cowgirl, who’s a loud, raucous, game lass when it comes to tickling him and enticing him to stay with the Roundup Gang (with Filthy Pete – I mean, Stinky Pete watching out of the corner of his box)? But no – Jessie actually makes puppet eyes at Buzz in the end, leaving Woody to oil his guns on Bo Peep’s bloomers.

When Woody faces the dilemma of choosing between being a star in Japan or returning to Andy who will one day forget him, Buzz turns the tables on him, and in a mirror image of TOY STORY, Buzz emphatically chides Woody, “You – are – a toy!”

Now tell that to us weeping 40-year-olds.

END

Two Thumbs UP.

The madmen at Pixar once again prove themselves the best storytellers on the planet. Or off it.

UP is a unique animated adventure that follows crusty retiree Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), as he uses thousands of air balloons to try to float his house to his dream location.

Another humbling display of Pixar’s incredible grasp of story structure. How do Pixar do it? Look at their ratings record on imdb – every major theatrical release (except CARS) scores 8/10 or above. From TOY STORY to THE INCREDIBLES to WALL-E, it is becoming boring referring to them “batting another out of the park.” They know no other trajectory.

UP’s first sequence is a sad little vignette all on its own. We meet Carl as a cute little boy, marveling at the exploits of adventurer Charles Muntz (voice of Christopher Plummer). Carl Meets Cute another fan of Muntz, Ellie (Elie Docter), as she pretends to fly a dilapidated house to an enigmatic South American rainforest plateau called Paradise Falls. A whirlwind montage of Ellie’s and Carl’s lives as they marry, move into that house and try to keep ends met while still vowing to trek to Paradise Falls “someday.” He’s a balloon salesman at the zoo, while she works in the South American exhibit. Montage rushes through their married life, dark days of miscarriage, old age, and finally Ellie’s death; throughout, a picture of their promised destination on the mantel seeming to recede further into childhood fantasy. It stirs simultaneous nostalgia, bereavement and regret.

And it’s just a cartoon!

As city developers tear down everything around Carl’s little house, he resolves to make his fantasy a reality. He attaches thousands of balloons to his house, rends it from its moorings and takes to the skies, with ingenious steering and sailing mechanisms that were once merely play-acting ropes for young Ellie.

Along for the ride is a plump little Asian-American boy scout, Russell (Jordan Nagai), who was on Carl’s porch when he lifted off. It is refreshing that Pixar would create this mixed-ethnicity character, as it has always been the provenance of spoiled blond white kids (which Carl was in the opening scenes) to go on adventures such as these.

In the sky, no one cares if you leave your blinker on.

En route to the Falls, Carl and Russell encounter a big exotic bird which Russell names Kevin (and continues to call it that even after it is discovered the bird is a mother), a dog named Dug with a special collar that enables him to speak (voice of co-writer-director Bob Peterson) and Muntz himself as a neurotic recluse with his pack of trained collar-speaking hounds.

Using the word ingenious to describe Pixar is like using skank to describe Britney Spears – it’s intrinsic; built into every detail of this production, from the logistics of Carl’s balloon-powered house to Muntz’s airship, to the house-airship chase through canyons, and the endearing little animation details.

Characterizations are, once again, as good as you will find in any drama. Though the movie obviously has a strong kiddie demographic, Russell’s pathological need to earn his badges to impress his absent father is far from the usual syrupy guff. And watch how artfully Dug’s lovable character is carved out in a few seconds of screentime, through his actions, voice and content of his disjointed dialog–squirrel! This is why Pixar shames Disney Proper when it comes to writing “real” characters – Disney’s are STILL written as naively as Amy Adams satirically plays Giselle in ENCHANTED (2007).

Pixar writing vets Pete Docter (TOY STORY, MONSTERS, INC) and Bob Peterson (FINDING NEMO) direct, with Thomas McCarthy sharing co-writing credits with them. Creating an action-adventure without overpowering the people at the heart of it.

UP was recommended to me by a screenwriter as an example of the perfect execution of the screenplay form. It is. A whip-cracking put-us-in-our-place illustration of just how a story should be told, with humor, action, poignancy, and every little detail paid off–squirrel!

END

Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto!

Earth. 700 years in the desolate future. A small robot that looks like E.T. crossed with the Mars Rover Sojourner blissfully rolls along on little tank treads, compacting trash into cubes that he builds into towering trash skyscrapers. He is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class – WALL-E.

Poff-E

Humankind has abandoned the ravaged Earth, leaving only their refuse behind, which stretches into orbit like filthy facsimiles of Saturn’s rings; a dystopian, disturbing, Terry Gilliam-like vision, tempered by a smarmy CEO (Fred Willard, the first live human integrated into Pixar animation) entreating us with space as the final frontier, in holograms re-playing to dead cityscapes.

WALL-E is the last of his kind – broken-down WALL-E’s litter the blighted garbage-land. Unmindful of the dead planet, he plies his trade in simple joy. On his time off, he fills a cooler with artifacts, retiring to a derelict trailer each night (with a free-roaming pet cockroach) where he files everything, while watching HELLO DOLLY on VHS and yearning for tactile contact.

Pixar Studios have slammed another one right outa the park! Written and directed by Andrew Stanton (FINDING NEMO, 2003), WALL-E is one of the few original movies this season (not a sequel or remake or derived from a TV show). How does Pixar craft these ingenious, inventive nuggets (where each viewing reveals new discoveries)? Their movies and characters are imbued with so much energy and verve, authenticity hits our nerves in all the right g-spots. A combination of effective storyline, unbridled 3D animation and cuteness so contagious it’ll burn your breakfast.

One day a thunderous spaceship lands, and leaves behind a sleek, pill-shaped “female” robot named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), with a lethal power-blast right hook. Her mission: to find Life on Earth. (Waiter, there’s a little iron in my irony.)

WALL-E immediately falls in love. Or at least rusty lust.

So begins a wondrous, accidental journey for WALL-E and EVE, back to the AXIOM, the spaceship housing all Humankind. By bringing back a lone plant, EVE signals Humankind may safely walk the Earth again. But there is a slight problem: over seven centuries, Humankind have become hover-chair blobs, insensate slaves to Big Brother holo-screens in front of their triple-chinned faces – Humankind can’t think anymore, let alone walk, their bones and muscles atrophied.

Again, the horror of this totalitarian society might have slapped us in the BRAZIL bone was it not for the Pixar team injecting robot buffoonery at every pixel.

EVE’s plant becomes the symbol for freedom and sparks a power struggle between the ship’s evil computer (voiced by Sigourney Weaver), who wants to destroy the green and continue cruising amongst the black, and the AXIOM Captain (a more cognizant blob than the passengers, voiced by Jeff Garlin), who is aided by WALL-E and EVE in potting the plant to drive the ship Earthward.

And this is why Republicans are outraged! As juvenile and unbelievable as it sounds, the duplicitous, traitorous, treasonous swine of the Republican Klan of George W. Bush’s Amerika vilify WALL-E for its “message.” And what “message” are they protesting?…

The ship’s Manual instructs a return to Earth when organic life is found, yet the ship’s evil computer has been instructed by Fred Willard to “Stay the Course” (Willard’s exact words!) instead of ever returning to Earth if “conditions on the ground change.” Sound familiar? Exactly! Though there is no intent to analogize Iraq and George W. McCain, the plotline accidentally highlights how unutterably asinine the McBush-Cheney administration’s foreign policies are, with their claims of “The Surge Is Working but Stay The Course to guarantee Safety Of Our Troops, unless Conditions On The Ground Change, for When Iraq Stands Up, We Will Stand Down, but not if that sovereign country we’ve invaded (to bring democracy to) democratically TELLS us to leave, because we can’t guarantee Safety Of Our Troops (even though LEAVING will definitely guarantee Safety Of Our Troops), because Leaving = Surrender and we Never Surrender, against Those Who Attacked Us (even though Iraq never attacked us)…” Sound confusing? Then the Terrorists Win (the terrorists being the thugs of the Ku McBush-Cheney Klan, of course)…

Only the insane are offended by the insanity of the ship’s computer, who Stays The Course supposedly for the good of Humankind, while keeping Humankind blind to the actual good it can bring upon itself.

The Earth, after a Republican presidency.

Trust the Repubs to focus on this paradox of their own laughable design, while the movie gets away with so many other anomalies:

1. Anthropomorphism: when EVE fires on WALL-E, he cowers and shivers. Why do humans shiver? Because our adrenalin is pumping for Fight Or Flight – has robotics advanced to the point of installing non-utility adrenal glands in cleanup robots?
2. Computerized beings desiring company and holding hands: organic life seeks to replicate its genes. “Holding hands” and “love” precipitates continuance; they are means to an end – but with robots, holding hands IS the “end.” The last shot shows them touching foreheads and holding hands – how nice – now what? Metal coupling? To what purpose?
3. The ship’s “gravity”: the evil computer takes over, slams its steering wheel left and tilts the spaceship (!), making all the blobby humans careen to one side… er, how? Artificial gravity is created by a spaceship’s axial spin. Since this ship is not spinning, gravity has nothing to do with the direction of the ship’s steering wheel.
4. Deep space exodus: why the economic stupidity of piloting a spaceship into deep space, even though it plans to return to Earth eventually? There are two stable Lagrange Points (L4 and L5) on Earth’s orbit where a ship could perch without any fuel expenditure at all, and would eradicate the need to traverse billions of miles through theoretical hyperspace and wormholes on the return trip.

Of course, I only mention these anomalies because I am a stickler for educative fiction. If WALL-E caused even one Republican’s refried brain to reconsider their satanic party’s non-ethics, I say:

“Thank you very much, Mr. Robot!”

END

”Buzz, maybe you can help Tim Allen with his career.”

Plastic Fantastic.

Y’know, I always suspected my toys were coming to life when I wasn’t looking!

In TOY STORY, young Andy’s toys lead lives of noisy desperation come every birthday and Christmas – no one wants to be one-upped by a new addition to the toy box. Led by Cowboy Woody (there’s a BROKEBACK joke just waiting to happen), Mr. Potato Head, Rex the Dinosaur, Ham the piggybank, Bo Peep, Slinky the dog and a smattering of other playthings go about their toyish business of playing checkers, hanging around Andy’s room, and “plastic corrosion awareness meetings,” until Andy’s birthday party, when they gather expectantly around a transistor radio, listening to the reports of their toy soldier troops “in the field” (downstairs watching Andy’s gift-opening), hoping that no gift will be exciting enough to cause Andy to neglect them.

There is. His name is Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger.

Poffy Lightyear

Directed by Pixar mainstay John Lasseter, with the voice talents of Tom Hanks as Woody, Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger (forever Cliff from CHEERS), R. Lee Ermey, Annie Potts, Jim Varney and Tim Allen as Buzz (“To Infinity and Beyond!”), TOY STORY is that rara avis that succeeds on all levels – animation, storyline, character development, messages of friendship and self-realization and, most importantly, entertainment value. The fact this is a cartoon (the “first ever computer-animated feature” – just what DO we call this new wave of 3D cartoons?) is incidental. The slightly dodgy animation of the “real people” is irrelevant; TOY STORY gets the point across with or without technological finesse.

The “Disney Movie” has become synonymous with maudlin messages, redneck fundamentalism, anachronistic family values, boneheaded parents, smart-mouthing youngsters, too-hip-to-be-smart teens and insufferable pets. Though Disney’s tyrannical umbrella overarches this film’s production studio, Pixar Animation, TOY STORY somehow avoided all trace of Disney’s craven hand. It becomes doubly surprising when we consider this is Pixar’s first feature length film after years of experimentation. Right outa the gate and right outa the field.

Sure, there are “messages,” but they are heartfelt, rather than maudlin (Woody tells Buzz during Buzz’s greatest depression that it matters not what Buzz thinks of himself, what makes him important is what his owner, Andy, thinks of him); there are emotional segments, which are truly heartbreaking, rather than cheesy (when Buzz’s escape attempt lands him with a broken arm, proving he is Not A Flying Toy, the lyric, “Clearly I will go sailing no more,” launches a thousand hankies). And the portrayal of Andy’s family is Pixar’s triumphal achievement – boldly contravening Disney’s idée fixé of the 1950’s nuclear family and Norman Rockwell fantasies, one of the many incarnations of a modern family is presented: a single mother with two kids, who are neither geniuses nor monsters, just normal children, happy to visit Pizza Planet and disappointed when favorite toys are lost.

Buzz – who believes he is a real life space ranger on a mission to save the universe – becomes Andy’s favorite toy over Woody. The amusing thing is: though Buzz believes he is real, he still adheres to toy protocol of “playing inert” when humans are in the area. When he mentions saving a toy from Sid, the vicious boy next door, how does he propose to do it while adhering to the inert protocol?

Buzz’s ingenuousness regarding his toy role infuriates Woody to the point of attempted toy-assassination. Through a concatenation of accidents, both he and Buzz become lost and must use teamwork, trust and ingenuity to beat their path back to Andy, which finds them ensconced in scorchingly funny vignettes (Buzz fastening himself in an oversized seatbelt; Buzz and Woody falling in with green, three-eyed alien toys who regard them as gods; Buzz hyperventilating as “Mrs. Nesbitt”). During a climactic rocket ride, the callback line, “This is not flying – this is falling with style,” seals this movie’s greatness.

At least I now have a plausible explanation as to why my toys always got lost: after going about their toy business, they would just go inert anywhere they happened to be, instead of paying attention to their master’s infallible toy filing system….

END