More on WALL•E.

"[John] McCain should be required to see WALL•E to learn just how far adrift he is from an America whose economic fears cannot be remedied by his flip-flop embrace of the Bush tax cuts (for the wealthy) and his sham gas-tax holiday (for everyone else)," argues Frank Rich in the New York Times. "[Barack] Obama should see it to be reminded of just how bold his vision of change had been before he settled into a front-runner's complacency. Americans should see it to appreciate just how much things are out of joint on an Independence Day when a cartoon robot evokes America's patriotic ideals with more conviction than either of the men who would be president."

Updated through 7/11.

Nick Shager: "[T]his animated marvel is most epic when operating on a small, personal scale, ultimately earning its esteemed place in the Pixar canon not only through top-notch CG, expertly orchestrated chase sequences, and provocative pro-green viewpoints, but also through its depiction of love's capacity for making us more than what we might otherwise be."

WALL•E "is an immaculately executed character, a necessarily endearing emcee to what is at times the grimmest American comedy in years," writes Brendon Bouzard in Reverse Shot. "As much as I would love to equivocate about the film's reification of gender (yes, the robots have genders, even though the closest they desire to sexual contact is hand-holding) or its satirical barbs at the overstimulated, grotesquely obese humans who lazily populate the spaceship Axiom, a Guy Debord hell of flashing screens and corporate fascism, I find it hard to do so. Its successes are simply too overwhelming."

Susan King reports on how those Hello, Dolly! tunes got in there. Also in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Sragow revisits some of cinema's most memorable dystopias.

Jeffrey Overstreet quotes from a spoilerish review that "has me ready to run out and see it a third time. Or write a book about it. Or something."

Updates, 7/7:"Pixar is playing guts ball commercially," writes Phil Nugent, "and not just because the eco-friendly/accusatory tone of the movie is designed to give Fox News people fits; the bulk of the first half is both experimental and a stunningly well done example of how to orient audiences to a strange new world with a minimum of explanatory dialogue. If Steven Johnson wants to step in now and explain to me how Pixar is doing its part to make kids smarter, he'll be preaching to the converted."

David Smith reports in the Guardian on the film's reception and the debates it's sparked so far.

More from Think Progress: "Somehow, this touching love story has outraged the radical right."

"Pixar's a decent enough animation outfit, probably the best in the United States - but still largely aimed at children, and still years behind what the Japanese are doing now," writes Noel Vera.

Noah Millman has a few problems with the film and lays them out in the American Scene. Via Peter Chattaway.

Updates, 7/8: Online viewing tips. Via Movie City News, Wired's Jenna Wortham notes that Pixar's short, Presto, screening in front of WALL•E, is now online: "Directed by Doug Sweetland, who also helped animate Cars, Toy Story and Monsters Inc, the gag-arific comedy and throwback Hollywood aesthetic ranks this mini-movie high on our list of favorites from Pixar's library of shorts."

Jason Morehead is left "a little underwhelmed" by WALL•E.

"Will Cockroaches Inherit the Earth?" Dan Riley looks into it for you in Slate.

Update, 7/11: "I had heard almost nothing about the film before attending, so was not at all prepared for a strange surprise: It kept reminding me of Kenneth Burke's writings about a grim future world he called Helhaven." Scott McLemee in Inside Higher Ed, via Bookforum.

Posted by dwhudson at July 6, 2008 7:22 AM