MY MOVIE SHELF: WALL-E

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 7 Days to go: 9

Movie #433:  WALL-E

My toddler likes to play robots. She marches up and down the hall saying “beep-boop, beep-boop” and articulating her wrists forward and back. It’s adorable, and not just because she’s my baby and I’m biased. When WALL-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) does his eye-goggle adjustments, it reminds me of her (or she reminds me of him, whichever), with its sort of basic robotics aesthetic. It’s very old school, and that’s a theme that repeats pretty often in WALL-E, in the most wonderful ways.

The first third of the movie is reminiscent of an old silent film, with this lonely little trash robot wheeling through the barren wasteland that is the abandoned Earth finding curiosities among the trash and delighting himself with simple items like Zippos and sporks and light bulbs. And he has a very special place in his heart for Hello, Dolly! Then an incredibly modern robot — EVE, voiced by Elissa Knight — shows up and turns his world upside down. She’s sleek, powerful, pristine and she flies — completely different from anything WALL-E has ever known or seen before. And his developing crush on her plays out in delightful dialogue-free scenes with physical comedy and sweetness in the style of Buster Keaton that positively warms the heart.

When they reach the Axiom, however, it becomes an action comedy. WALL-E has to navigate the scary and rigidly automated structure of the space community in order to stay with EVE, wreaking all kinds of havoc along the way, including inciting all sorts of little rebellions by knocking John (John Ratzenberger) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) off their automated traveling lounge chairs, forcing M-O (Ben Burtt) to leave the pre-determined travel lanes in order to clean up WALL-E’s mess, and teaching any number of robots how to wave. And once the captain (Jeff Garlin) discovers the plant missing from EVE’s storage unit, EVE and WALL-E are launched into a slew of obstacles they have to overcome in order to find and retrieve the plant and get the Axiom back to Earth. They’re labeled as rogue robots and are hunted by practically the ship’s entire robotic fleet. It’s funny and thrilling and really romantic in places. There are dozens of romantic comedies I could list that aren’t anywhere as lovely and effective as WALL-E is.

The film is also a scathing indictment of waste, of not taking care of our planet, of brash commercialism, of mindless consumerism, of laziness and of needless automation, but it’s not harsh or preachy. It focuses instead on the positive moments and messages of taking control, of moving, of doing and building things from your own hands. Technological advancements are great, it posits, but nothing can replace our planet, and nothing is more efficient or better for you than physical activity. It doesn’t scold, but it does encourage taking a better path than the one these people have been on.

Pixar also does something in WALL-E that it’s never done before by using live video footage of Fred Willard as the Global CEO of Buy ‘n Large, providing messages from Earth in the Axiom’s archives. It’s striking and unexpected, but perhaps more stunning is how seamlessly it fits into the landscape of the film. With all the video messages flashing everywhere inside the ship, his is just another in the series — despite the others all being animated. As I prepared to watch the movie again, in fact, I thought maybe I was misremembering Willard’s character being live action, because it seemed so out-of-place in concept. But he is, and it’s not out-of-place at all. It fits, and it’s surprisingly great.

WALL-E is a beautiful film, and it might be my sentimental favorite of all the Pixar catalogue. I should watch it more. It really exemplifies enjoying the simple things, and I think everyone needs to remember to do that more.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Anchorman

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray (I’ll know for sure how many at the end of this project). Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #17: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Confession: I can only take so much Will Ferrell. More often than not, in the movies of his I enjoy, it’s the supporting cast that wins me over, and that’s the case here. Whenever I feel Ferrell’s portrayal of Ron Burgundy teetering over the edge into unwatchable, Paul Rudd (as Brian Fantana), Steve Carell (as Brick Tamland) or, most of all, Christina Applegate (Veronica Corningstone) is there to reel me back in. Applegate, especially, is the star of this show as far as I’m concerned. Her haltingly proper, overenunciated delivery of every single line is contained enough to level out the manic antics of everyone else on the film while still being absolutely hilarious in its own right.

What else works? The news crew gang fight (Tim Robbins in a Mike Brady perm as the public news anchor is my favorite cameo here), the animated rainbow love scene, singing “Afternoon Delight,” Sex Panther, the Burgundy/Corningstone physical fight (“Knights of Columbus, that hurt!” is the only Burgundy outburst that really makes me laugh), post-sign-off insult exchanges, some little girl on the street telling Burgundy off, Fred Willard (as news director Ed Harken) on the telephone to various people about his character’s son’s escalating violence, and the running teleprompter gag. “Go fuck yourself, San Diego,” still makes me laugh my ass off.

What doesn’t work? Well, like I said, I can only take so much Will Ferrell, so a lot of his mugging bores me to tears. I can do without the shirtlessness, the Jazz flute, the screaming and crying jags, the Jack Black scene, and the entire relationship with his dog Baxter. I also don’t understand his intelligence level. One minute he’s correcting someone on his team for saying something ridiculous, the next minute he has no idea what words mean. I know it’s meant to be funny, and I’m sure a lot of people will tell me I’m uptight for not thinking it is, but it just strikes me as inconsistent and weird. Carell’s Tamland is never not stupid, and he’s consistently one of the funniest characters in the whole film. I think Burgundy could’ve been hilarious (and Anchorman as a whole just as much of a success) if Burgundy had simply been arrogant and sexist with a tin ear for tactful conversation without being a bumbling idiot. I know idiocy is kind of Ferrell’s schtick, though, so I guess we’re stuck with it.

On a whole, I do like the movie (as I mentioned, there are lots of really funny things about it), and there’s no denying it’s secured a place in pop culture history. The only real mistake surrounding it was the decision to make a sequel, not only because it sucked, but because the original ends with a perfect epilogue, letting the audience in on the futures of our featured players. The sequel completely undermined all of that, but luckily we don’t have to go into that here, because I don’t own it and never will.

With any luck, maybe in five or ten years no one will remember that anything but this one Anchorman movie ever existed.