My New Favorite Movie of the Year -- And It Ain't Close

You can certainly forgive a little bit of hyperbole in a headline, can't you?.

My brother texted me over the weekend -- promising that I would have a new top ten favorite soon. Well, I might. I need to see it 10-12 more times -- but it's on track.

It wasn't The Dark Knight. If you skip down and read my review, I liked it a great deal -- but found a central conflict in the last 30 minutes to be rushed and inconsistent in the world Nolan had created. It's a good film -- perhaps the best comic book movie of all time (though I'm crossing my fingers on Watchmen).

Nope, it's the movie I saw yesterday afternoon, perhaps one of the most strangly beautiful movies I've ever seen. EVER SEEN!!!! (Sorry, the hyperbole keeping coming back).

Frankly, what Pixar has done in WALL-E is create a mostly silent film in the grand tradition of Chaplin -- the Outsider who falls in love and who finds his complete-ness in his Other set in a dystopic future that Aldous Huxley would love, with the beauty and majesty of some of the best shots in 2001: A Space Odyssey (there's a pretty clear reference point in one of the key music cues). That's pretty stinking impressive. And, on top of all that -- it has heart! I haven't loved a bizarre looking creature with an acronym for a name like WALL-E since E.T. That's the short list (okay, okay R2-D2 also on the list -- but I still can't forgive Lucas for giving him the ability to fly).

WALL-E is a trash compactor. That's what he does. But he has a very special trait-- his work inspires him. He stacks his little cubes into spires that would have impressed the ancient Egyptians. And throughout his day he saves the little trinkets he finds along the way ("one man's trash. . ." if you will) to take back to his treasure trove. Oh, and he loves musicals. He's pretty complicated for an automated creature with limited vocabulary.

But he knows that he's alone. Other than a cockroach companion with the resilience of the Terminator, his world is empty. Humanity abandoned it 700 years ago on a spaceship that's a cross between The Love Boat (complete with a Lido deck), a Wal*Mart Supercenter, and Discovery One from 2001 (with its own version of HAL 9000).

That's when EVE comes into the picture. EVE is like most women: beautiful, complicated, does a great cold shoulder, has the ability to say her Other's name with a wonderful variety of tone -- from warm to enraged, and has a death ray. She is boundless whereas he is limited. She is focused on the mission whereas he is focused on her, and doesn't mind tracking dirt all over the nice clean spaceship to get to her. She can give life (in her own way -- the "womb" motif is pretty overt), whereas all he does is clean up someone else's trash. They're perfect for each other.

Big time credit goes to the animators to depict a beautiful silent love story as this. WALL-E's furtive Woody Allen-esque sighs and glances combine EVE's warmth coming through the LED's of her cold exterior to tell a story where dialogue is just unnecessary. It would just clutter up the space. At one moment, they enjoy a gravity-free dance with a fire extinguisher worthy of Fred and Ginger.

Their warmth, beauty, and (all right, I'll just say it) love is set against the backdrop of humanity that needs reminded of Dean Wormer classic piece of advice, that "fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life." They exist in a cultural coma, trapped by the "tyranny of the present" (Cicero), lacking an alternative vision, goal, telos. If anyone needed eschatology -- it's these people. Bizarre, then, that it's the love of two robots together with their band of misfit toys (any movie that references City Lights, 2001, and Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer has to be brilliant, right?) that brings awakening and new life.

WALL-E is a movie filled with awe and wonder. I'm sorry that I couldn't keep my inner fan-boy down in this review. There might be flaws to the picture, but I couldn't see them (and I hope I never do). I was sad to read on some internet film bulletin boards that I respect that some really resented the political stance of the movie (there is a bit of a poke at W at one point). That's too bad. They need to read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and A.J. Conyers The Eclipse of Heaven to find the heart of the film. WALL-E and EVE don't give humanity back heaven, but it reintroduces them to the connection between love and life (complete with a cross-moment). It's the best exposition of 1 John I've seen in a long while.