Put simply, WALL-E is the reason I’m a movie fan. I’ve been a PIXAR fanboy for many years. In fact, I’ve been a fan of theirs longer than most others, because it predates Toy Story. I’ve been a follower of the technologies of computer animation ever since seeing (and loving) Tron when I was 7 years old. It’s no secret that PIXAR was partially born out of John Lasseter seeing the production of Tron, having worked at Disney as an animator while it was being produced at the studio (though he didn’t have any involvement with said production). During the 80’s, PIXAR formed and started producing animated shorts, including the likes of Red’s Dream, Tin Toy, Knick Knack and the historic Luxo, Jr. When I initially heard they were going to produce the first fully CG feature film, I was thrilled to see the final product. And I wasn’t the only one, as Toy Story changed the world of animation forever. Since then, PIXAR has been firing on all cylinders, producing hit after hit, in stark defiance to those who continually predicted each film to surely be their first failure. Always imaginative, PIXAR continues to come through, time and time again. They are easily the best thing to happen to Walt Disney Pictures since Walt himself.

Writing: Despite the fact that PIXAR is on the leading edge of technology, always a step ahead of anyone else, it’s not the technical aspects that primarily drive a PIXAR film, it’s the story and character. WALL-E is a different film compared to the rest of their feature length productions. It actually has more in common with their short films. It has a minimal amount of dialog (their short films are notable for their lack of dialog) and is much more rooted in physical performance and precisely choreographed energy and blocking. The character of WALL-E himself may very well be one of the most fundamentally engaging and sympathetic characters ever committed to film (or saved to disk). The determined nature of the character combined with the effortless charm makes it basically impossible to not love him. I’m not typically much for action figures, but I think I will pick up one of the inevitable WALL-E action figures/toys. The story itself is actually rather simple, rooted in a great many science fiction staples and character stories. While PIXAR has proven themselves perfectly capable of more complex storytelling, they have an amazing talent at nailing the most simplistic of ideas and making them endlessly entertaining. Their animated shorts are just such examples. Speaking of which, WALL-E is preceded by yet another wonderful animated short, Presto.

Production: Having said all that, I continue to have my mind blown with each successive PIXAR movie I see. The technical aspects of this production are peerless. The cinematography is simply gorgeous, not to mention wonderfully dynamic. Production design is also spectacular, from the garbage-strewn, used up Earth to the hyper-real world on board the spaceship Axiom. The editing is extremely slick, keeping a brisk and smooth pacing throughout. The computer animation is breathtaking, not just in texture and quality, but in character animation. WALL-E is a remarkably animated character, both drawing on previous robots such as Number 5 or R2-D2, but also as a fantastically original design. We also get to meet a number of other fun robotic characters.

Cast: With such a small amount of dialog, it’s hard to think of the performances in the film in terms of casting. The real star is Ben Burtt, who is interestingly credited as the cast performer for WALL-E, as well as M-O, pretty much giving him top billing. It’s well deserved, as his sound design is a key component to making the character of WALL-E work so well. It’s no surprise that he is able to do such a good job, given the fact that he’s the man responsible for R2-D2 himself. I will be rather shocked if Burtt isn’t at least nominated for a sound award or two come Oscar season next spring. Other voice castings are amusing, such as having the Axiom ship’s computer voiced by none-other-than Sigourney Weaver. Fred Willard gets to perform a first for a PIXAR movie, that of an actual live action character. He’s a fun choice for the role. And of course it wouldn’t be a PIXAR movie without John Ratzenberger performing one of the voices. This time, they amusingly just went ahead and named the character “John.”

Music: While not his greatest score, nor the greatest score for a PIXAR film, Thomas Newman’s score is very good. Actually, Thomas Newman’s other PIXAR score is the best of the PIXAR scores, for Finding Nemo (also for writer/director Andrew Stanton). For WALL-E, Newman balances the ethereal sci-fi with the action and emotion of the film quite nicely. Of course it features Newman’s typical rich orchestration and unique instrumentation. A worthy score to a fantastic film.

I can’t praise this movie enough. Everybody get out there and see this one. I’ll be seeing it again very soon.

• The petaflop barrier has been broken. Good grief.
• Speaking of computing power, the x86 processor celebrated its 30th anniversary on Sunday
• I will never, ever watch anything on TBS. Not ever. Not after seeing this.
• Leo DiCaprio is set to play Nolan Bushnell in an upcoming biopic on the Atari founder. Guess DiCaprio really is a gamer nerd as has always been said to be true.
• Here’s an interesting write-up on the death of the 60gb PS3. Frankly, if the 60gb model were readily available today, I’d be a PS3 owner.
• A full scene from Wall-E (and links to all the cute little promo reels)
• Gotta be impressed by this one legged little league player
• Get your very own Flux Capacitor
• The 1st anniversary edition of The Smoking Gun’s great “Mug Shots Of The Week” feature
• An amusing law suit against SBC/AT&T (one that was correctly tossed)
• Some cool aerial photography
• A hilarious (and genius) Firefox add-on to prevent you from accidentally wandering onto a MySpace page.
• Is Google making us stupid? An interesting topic, to be sure. Frankly, when I see what gets posted to YouTube comment threads, I weep for the future of humanity. If I look at enough of them, I just wish a big comet would wipe us off the face of the planet, for the good of the universe as a whole.
• Not a big surprise, really, but here’s some interesting info on how airports profit from situations that are bad for everyone but them.
• How broken is the legal system? When they ban the use of the word “rape” in a rape trial, how much more broken can it get?
• The term nerd just hit a brand new level. Holy cow.
• Wow, here’s an approach to the environmental cause that I’d actually back. (language warning)
• Where are the now: Sirhan Sirhan
• Interesting. Burt Rutan has stepped down as president of Scaled Composites. Looks like he’s just shifting focus back to the more hands on stuff. Must have gotten tired of some of the political/corporate flack.
• Define irony
• The math nerds will be happy that the universal solution to Rubik’s Cubes has been cut down from 25 to 23 moves.
• Here’s a fun water slide
• Yikes. Western Digital is prepping work on a 20,000 RPM SATA drive. Wonder what “raptor” variant name they’ll drum up for this one.
• And you thought minutiae was small…

• Go, Amazon, Go…
• Huge congratulations go out to Juno for passing the $100 million mark (well, worldwide, but so little of that is foreign that it’ll roll past the domestic $100 million mark any day now). That’s a big achievement for a low-budget, indie-style movie to pull off. On top of their 4 major Oscar nominations, the folks involved in that film (my favorite of 2007) are surely giddy. The tenacity that it’s shown at the box office is impressive.
• An amusing approach to the insanity of cellular hardware manufacturers and their immediate disinterest in any hardware they’ve already produced, in immediate favor of whatever their next model is. I’ve got an AT&T 8525 (a re-branded HTC Hermes) which has served me well, but the lukewarm support for the device is a surprisingly altruistic situation for an industry that I’ve seen abandon models before most consumers have even got their grubby little paws on ‘em.
• I’m sure I’ve mentioned the site before, but InterfaceLIFT.com is my most highly recommended source for fantastic photographic (primarily) wallpapers. Particularly high-res, widescreen ones. It’s intended as a MAC-centric site, but their archive of material is great for any of us high-res, widescreen monitor fans. Such is the case with this most recent example of a cool photo.
• For those interested in Microsoft certification, they have extended their free “second shot” promotion until the end of June.
• This is old news by now, but the title to the new Bond film is one of their truly stranger choices: Quantum Of Solace.
• Also slightly old news by this point, but very, very cool, is the fact that Disney/PIXAR is releasing the Toy Story films in new 3D transfers.
• Another great Dilbert Blog entry. This time, resulting in a surprisingly good song.
• Speaking of Dilbert, you may have noticed (unless you view my posts via RSS) that I added the flash-based, official Dilbert strip digest widget to the side of the site. Not sure if I’ll keep it. Thought it was cool and figured I’d give it a run. Cool that the archive is to feature the strips in color, no less.
• Geek lust: Canon Rebel XSi

• OK, time to do another HD disc rant. This time the target is HD-DVD. More specifically, it’s the HD-DVD/DVD combo format. I got my third defective combo format disc yesterday (Mr. Bean’s Holiday), following up my other recent one (Bourne Ultimatum) and the first one (Hot Fuzz). So far, they’ve all been Universal titles, and have been fixed by getting an exchange for another copy (which I’ll be doing for Mr. Bean tomorrow). Not only are these combo discs typically more expensive (most often by about $5) than the normal non-combo release, but these things are clearly an unreliable format technique. At this point, I’m extremely hesitant to buy any combo format releases.
• Amazingly, StarTrek.com is in trouble, getting caught in cut-backs.
• A new trailer for WALL-E has hit the net. My inner (and outer) PIXAR nerd is all aflutter. I can’t wait.
• So, The 4400 is officially canceled after 4 season. I’m just slightly behind in watching the show (a couple episodes away from finishing the first season).
• Beowulf (which I just saw again today in IMAX 3D) has been slotted for HD-DVD release on February 26. I’d love to see them attempt a 3D presentation on the disc (the first high-def 3D content?).
• Speaking of HD-DVD, Universal recently announced the upcoming release of Fletch. Hmmm, as much as I love the movie, I have to wonder just how big a difference a high def transfer will make for that one. Frankly, I think Fletch Lives might benefit a bit more from it (and it’s one of the all-time under appreciated sequels).
• Here’s a well coordinated attempt to throw a log
• Wesley Snipes proves why the backlash has everything to do with him, NOT his race.
• And, it’s old news by this point that’s been reported on every entertainment and non-entertainment news source alike - Peter Jackson and New Line are teaming up after all for not just The Hobbit, but also a sequel to The Hobbit.

• In case you haven’t heard already, CompUSA is going bye-bye for good. Can’t say I’m surprised.
• The poster for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull has been revealed
• Check out this crazy video of two trains colliding head-on
• Speaking of trains, check out this one
• Here’s a equally hilarious and cute video of a cat in a rather strange sleeping position. Plenty of other great cat videos at that site.
• Squirrel armor. Awesome.
• Check out this great compilation of PIXAR in-joke references
• Here’s some new Firefly/Serenity goodies coming in 2008. The new comics will certainly be cool.
• It would figure that the Japanese produced history’s most obedient soldier
• And while you’re up at that site, check out 7 very unlucky people
• Or their good list of stupid celebrity quotations
• Good grief. They’re attempting to remake Metropolis? Well, I guess that’ll be one of the longest remake delays there is.
• A fascinating NYT article on the tiny country of Nauru. The article is from 2000, and it’s interesting to see some of the progress (or lack thereof) since then.

• Happy 30th Birthday, Atari 2600! (I’m a life-long Atari nerd - yes, I’ve got the t-shirt and everything)
• PIXAR, the greatest thing to happen to Disney Studios since Walt himself - and the greatest movie production company currently in existence, has released the first trailer for WALL*E, their new film for next year. I’m such a PIXAR geek, I’m darn near as exited about WALL*E’s release as I am for the new Indiana Jones movie. This trailer is but an extended version of the earlier teaser trailer, but hey, new material is new material. This is actually a cool trailer. I say that because I’m actually not impressed by trailers to PIXAR’s movies very often. Their one weakness has always been Disney’s advertising department and their trailers, so I’m thrilled to see a marketing campaign for one of their films that I’m liking so far. BTW, how cool will it be having Ben Burtt doing the sound design for the movie? And the cool fact that there will actually be very little dialog in the film…
• RIP: Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny)
• Proving that the “SNL Digital Short” segments are the best part of SNL these days, this amusing bit on a certain Iranian in NYC is pretty funny. Not my particular taste in music, of course, but neither was the classic Natalie Portman one.
• A fun appearance by Paris Hilton on Letterman. Dave’s in top form for this one…
• Speaking of top socialites, watching Britney Spears in the news lately is like watching a plane, both pilots struggling to regain control, headed for the ground.
• Here’s somebody who definitely speaks the truth about the iPhone, and the users it has. Personally, I’m one of those rare middle-ground folks. I think it has some cool aspects and some dumb aspects. It’s not the phone for me, so I really don’t care. But this guy is so right in this article about it all.
• An interesting article on the human body - in the world of relational, dimensional, historical data.
• So, Joost has left their previous invite-only status and gone public. I’ve played with Joost a handful of times over the last few months. It’s an interesting platform, with some good aspects and some bad. The content is a bit limited still, and the quality still leaves a good amount to be desired. But, the interface is very nice and the system has been quite responsive. Perhaps the quality will improve as the system is streamlined and expanded.
• The joke will be on all of us when Tom’s right…
• Betavoltaic, huh? I’ll try one once they get to a release candidate version.
• Check out what Amazon really recommends
• Or how about the freaky world of anomalous motion illusions?
• A $5,000 baby bond? Are you crazy, Hillary? (OK, don’t answer that) Why must those of us who have less than zero interest in ever having a kid pay for every one of them that the brilliant folks who can’t figure out the notion of self control or contraception drag into existence? Give me a break. I’m not even going to respond to Ohio’s Rep Stephanie Jones’ comment, “Every child born in the United States today owes $27,000 on the national debt, why not let them come get $5,000 to grow until their 18?”
• Whoops
• Talk about subtle advertising techniques.
• Oh, and I meant to include this insane story in a previous Ponderings post: Boy survives two hour flight inside a commercial airliner wing.
• Don’t forget the debut of Pushing Daisies on ABC this Wednesday.