Monday, July 21, 2008
Film Rabbit punch
Posted by Pat Graham on Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 11:59 AM
You can have your WALL-E, as calculated and corporate a product as the object of its own anemic eco-satire (which pulls so many punches that even Bush and Cheney could probably support the message: yo, we're for less garbage and that kinda shit ... and let's get rid of those fat people too—yeee-haw!). Me, I'm more into Doug Sweetland's Presto, the five-minute Pixar short that comes on before the sentimental google-eyed robot gets down to its sanitized, softball business. Not that Presto doesn't have problems of its own, mainly in character animation that almost seems xeroxed from Ratatouille, which already looked so airbrushed and cuddly that even babies couldn't feel remotely threatened by it. (So whatever happened to all those jagged cartoon edges of the 40s? Best keep the Termite Terrace people away from pointed metal objects ... ) But the pace is dizzying, sometimes even disorienting, both physically and mentally, a perpetual-motion circus—up-down, in-out, all from a handful of obsessional riffs and themes—that puts you in mind of Road Runner and Coyote and at least a half a dozen anvils. A lot of imaginative stretching from all parties involved, extending well beyond the professional "tastefulness" that predictably turns WALL-E into such a dispassionate, stifling bore.
But don't take my word for it—you can watch the whole thing online here.
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