The Screengrab : andrew stanton

Precursors: Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Nick Schager — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Pete Docter will likely be showered with praise come Friday, when his newest film Up – my review appears later this morning – arrives in theaters. Yet the director also deserves kudos for his feature debut, Monsters, Inc., which despite being a financial and critical success upon its release in 2001, seems to have become something of a forgotten member of the illustrious Pixar club. It’s an undeserved fate, given the pitch-perfect blend of sweetness and wise-cracking comedy delivered by this tale of two monsters, shaggy blue Sully (voiced by John Goodman) and one-eyed Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal), whose lives harvesting human children’s screams for Monster’s Inc. – screams being the energy source that powers all of Monstropolis – are thrown for a loop when a young girl, affectionately dubbed “Boo” and thought by Mike and Sully to be, like all kids, toxic, crosses over into their world. Envisioning monsters as a humorous species who frighten tykes for a living is cute. Yet what sets Monsters, Inc. apart is the execution of its set-up, with Docter (working from a script co-written by Finding Nemo and WALL-E helmer Andrew Stanton) generating squish-free pathos by keeping the focus on his leads’ interpersonal dynamics – a rapport enlivened by Crystal’s expert vocal performance, and superb Abbot-and-Costello-ish chemistry with Goodman – while also spiking his material with the sharp, rat-a-tat-tat, anything-goes wit of a stand-up routine.

Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: Nominations (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:45:00 GMT

BEST DIRECTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

David Fincher got respectable with Benjamin Button. Gus Van Sant did the same with Milk. Ron Howard is always an Academy favorite, so he should be there for Frost/Nixon. Danny Boyle put on a show in Slumdog Millionaire. The final slot is up for grabs, but I think Christopher Nolan has the best shot for The Dark Knight.

WINNER
Danny Boyle

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Charlie Kaufmann (Synecdoche, NY)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

Charlie Kaufman will be nominated for Synecdoche, NY because it is a director's movie. However that will feel too forced of a winner, so Gus Van Sant will win for Milk. That is, unless the Academy goes with escapism in these trying times and Christopher Nolan wins for The Dark Knight. If the latter transpires, it will be one of those head-scratching moments when the reel of past winners rolls at future Awards shows. There is no way Danny Boyle will come in from left field and win for Slumdog Millionaire, but the Academy will want to show that they appreciate a good movie, so will nominate him anyway. Ron Howard will be thrown a nomination for engaging the Nixon presidency, a national trauma that we like to think seems timely.

WINNER
Gus Van Sant

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Andrew Stanton (WALL*E)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

It’s rare for a Best Director shortlist to double the Best Picture nominees five-for-five, and of the Best Picture nominations I’m predicting, Frost/Nixon feels the least like a “director’s movie.” But who takes Ron Howard’s place? If The Wrestler catches on with the voters beyond a couple of acting nominations, Darren Aronofsky might place here -- likewise The Reader’s Stephen Daldry and Happy-Go-Lucky’s Mike Leigh, both two-time directing nominees. As always, one shouldn’t count out Clint Eastwood. But I’m going out on a limb here and predicting WALL*E director Andrew Stanton, as a nomination here would give Academy members a chance to recognize the film outside of its inevitable Best Animated Feature win, thereby making him the first director ever nominated for an animated film. As for the winner, bet on Fincher to win even if the film doesn’t, as the epic scope and classically-inflected style of Button should prove to be right up the voters’ collective alley.

WINNER
David Fincher

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

We made our Director predictions before the announcement of the DGA awards, so we’re all flying a little blind in this category. Ron Howard was Opie and Frost/Nixon was good, so he seems like an even-money bet. Christopher Nolan will surely ride The Dark Knight wave, and folks seem enamored of the creepy old man baby (and, I suppose, the swoony, melancholy romance) of Benjamin Button, so I reckon the powers-that-be might finally be ready to forgive David Fincher for Alien³. Whether or not his film receives a Best Picture nod, Danny Boyle will probably get nominated...because if directing means wrangling a zillion elements (including half the population of Mumbai) into a coherent, entertaining auteurial vision, then Boyle certainly directed the shit outta Slumdog Millionaire. And finally, I guess I have to go with Gus Van Sant for Milk, even though it means I just basically wound up parroting all the predictions in Entertainment Weekly. As for the actual winner...hmm. Though I think Dark Knight’s gonna win Best Picture, it’s still basically just an action film (no, really...it’s just an action film, people). Howard, Fincher and Boyle did fine work, but Van Sant has passion on his side and managed to get a labor of love to the finish line (after many failed attempts by previous players) so: him.

WINNER
Gus Van Sant

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS

Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married)
Clint Eastwood (Changeling)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road)
John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)

Clint’s gonna get nominated for something, and please God don’t let it be for the damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn disaster Gran Torino. Demme gets the ‘year of the comeback’ nomination for Rachel Getting Married, and Shanley will pick up a nom since the Academy has a weakness for directors who aren’t really directors. It’ll come down to a slugfest between Mendes and Howard, who’s finally made a movie worth nominating, and I think, in a year that won’t see any big sweep winners, that Revolutionary Road will get Mr. Kate Winslet the big prize. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Hollywood isn’t quite ready to welcome back Gus Van Sant, and Benjamin Button is the least David Fincherish movie David Fincher has ever directed, so they’ll get passed over.

WINNER
Sam Mendes

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
DANNY BOYLE, DAVID FINCHER, RON HOWARD, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, GUS VAN SANT

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
GUS VAN SANT

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four & Six

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

The Best of 2008: Leonard Pierce's Picks for the Best Movies of the Year, Part Two

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:45:00 GMT

5. WALL*E (Andrew Stanton, dir.)

Pixar has been on such a roll of late that if they were a single director, they’d be getting mention in the same breath as the golden age greats. But they’re not; they’re an aggregate of many clever, talented folks who make computer-generated cartoons that are at least partly intended for children. I’m not going to argue that this isn’t sometimes a weakness; in WALL*E, the environmental message only seems fitting and appropriate because I happen to agree with it, and the crypto-Objectivism in The Incredibles only bothered me because I don’t. But regardless of the heavy-handedness of the moral, it can’t be denied that WALL*E is flat out the most wonderful film of the year, hopeful and funny and romantic and bittersweet all at the same time, and wrapped up in a package so beautiful to look at you wonder why anyone ever questions the potential of CGI. And if this astounding motion picture spawned an obnoxious marketing empire, one can only shake one’s head and say “Damn kids don’t know how good they’ve got it.”

4. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (Jonathan Demme, dir.)

If you ever want to flummox a music critic, ask him to describe one of his favorite new bands without comparing them to another band. Of course, Rachel Getting Married proves that the same can occasionally be said for movie critics: it seems impossible to talk about without referencing something else. It’s got the dysfunctional family dynamics of Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime; the comeback-kid story of The Wrestler; the hateful-misanthrope-as-vehicle-for-joyous-redemption jawn of a Wes Anderson film (only better) and the structure and form of the late Robert Altman’s best work (only different). With all of these elements at play, though, it never seems derivative of anything else, only reminiscent in the best possible way. In the end, Rachel Getting Married is its own film, familiar yet new and impressive, and carried along by some of the finest acting of the year, most especially from Anne Hathaway and Bill Irwin.

3. CHE (Steven Soderbergh, dir.)

Steven Soderbergh keeps on making great movies, and never the same one twice. His latest is getting lots of what child care experts call “good attention” and “bad attention”; it’s certain that Soderbergh intended it that way, with its rigid formal structure, back-spasm-inducing length, difficult tonal shifts, and…oh, yeah, it’s a biopic about one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century. It’s just as hard to figure out how much of the negative reception is due to political and moral judgment of the revolutionary Che Guevara as it is to figure out how much of the positive reception comes from those who valorize him, but taken purely as a movie, Che is hard to beat: it’s formally daring, adventurously directed, risk-taking, well-made, and held together by a powerful performance that shows its subject neither as a heroic rebel or a vicious murderer, but simply as a man so consumed by his cause that he didn’t know what else to do than keep fighting for it.

2. WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt, dir.)

There have been a number of exceptionally well-done documentaries in recent years about ordinary people dangling from the precipice of financial ruin in economically uncertain times, but successful narrative films dealing with the same subject have been few and far between. That’s largely because it’s hard to approach the topic in fiction without becoming didactic, maudlin, or treacly – and those challenges are certainly, and perilously, evident in Kelly Reichardt’s story about a young woman in brutally limited circumstances who loses her beloved dog while pursuing a slender chance at a decent job. But the miraculous thing about Wendy and Lucy is that it toes that line from its first frame to its last without ever tumbling down and making a mess of itself. That’s a testament to the top-notch script, the surprisingly deep direction, and the beautiful performance by lead actress Michelle Williams. No one could ever have predicted that an heir to the Italian neo-realist tradition would emerge in 2008 from America’s Pacific Northwest; that it happened is one of the year’s greatest surprises.

1. SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK (Charlie Kaufman, dir.)

There are so many things that could have gone wrong with Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut. I first heard him talk about his desire to direct way back in 2004, when I interviewed him for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and when Synechdoche, New York was finally announced, I was full of dread. The video stores of America are choked with mediocre-to-bad movies by talented writers who decided what they really wanted to do was direct. I needn’t have worried: Synechdoche, New York is easily my favorite film of the year. Kaufman approached directing with the same meticulous, self-searching approach that he does writing, and the result is nothing short of astounding. The best movies, for me, are the ones that seem to completely rewire my head – that are so profound and well-crafted that they redefine my basic approach to their subject, form or content. Charlie Kaufman accomplishes that his first time out of the gate, and that’s the mark of a major talent.

ALMOST MADE IT: The Strangers, Doubt, Iron Man, The Wrestler, Bigger Stronger Faster*.

DIDN'T SEE THEM: Entre les Murs (The Class), Standard Operating Procedure, Lat den Ratte Komme In (Let the Right One In), Dear Zachary: A Letter To His Son About His Father, Trouble the Water, Full Battle Rattle, Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge (Flight of the Red Balloon).

PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler; Bill Irwin, Rachel Getting Married; Kristin Scott Thomas, Il y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime; Viola Davis, Doubt.

MADE IN 2007, BUT GREAT IN 2008: 4 Luni 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days); Paranoid Park; My Winnipeg; Une Vielle Maitress (The Last Mistress); Auf der Anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven); Encounters at the End of the World; Chop Shop.

OVERRATED: Waltz with Bashir; In Bruges; Happy-Go-Lucky; Slumdog Millionaire; Kung Fu Panda.

Click for Part One

Screengrab Salutes: The Top 20 Animated Feature Films (Part Five)

Phil Nugent — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:00:00 GMT

FINDING NEMO (2003)

Among the animation directors whose names are on the Pixar Hall of Fame, Andrew Stanton's may not have quite the same degree of luster as that of John Lasseter (who made the Toy Story pictures and A Bug's Life and who is now, oh yeah, the fuckin' head of Disney animation) or Brad Bird (who even before directing The Incredibles and Ratatouille for Pixar had distinguished himself with The Iron Giant and the classic Amazing Stories episode "Family Dog"), but that can only be because his titles have been piling up slower. This year's Wall-E confirms that the wit and warmth of his little-lost-fish story were no fluke, and also that his plan seems to be to keep getting better. (Mention of his forthcoming Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation John Carter of Mars has been known to cause Screengrab writers to flap their front flippers together and lie down on the floor and spin around while going "Whoowhoowhoowhoowhoo" in merry anticipation. Is it any wonder that we don't get a lot of dates?) In director Eduardo Coutinho's remarkable documentary Playing, there's an amazing scene where an educated, middle-aged Brazlian woman tears up a bit while discussing the movie before cogently explaining that she sees it as a metaphor about her relationship with her own grown daughter.

CHICKEN RUN (2000)

This parody of The Great Escape and other military POW films (with gray, overcast English skies that serve as a memento mori) was the first feature from the mighty Aardman Animation studio, best known for Nick Park's films featuring Wallace and Gromit and other claymation shorts. (Park co-directed Chicken Run with Aardman co-founder Peter Lord. The project was reportedly seen as a test run for the more recent Wallace and Gromit feature The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: a way for Park and company to see whether their talents could sustain a full-length feature without taking a chance on tarnishing the W & G brand.) Not surprisingly, the jokes are stretched thinner here than in the shorts, which pop like firecrackers from beginning to end, but the project demonstrated that the sheer beauty of the visual craftsmanship of the claymation masters was enough to make up for that. The movie has a special historical interest now as the last recorded evidence of a time when Mel Gibson's brain cells were still happily alive and arranged in the desired order.

TWICE UPON A TIME (1982)

This experimental cut-out animation film, a sardonic sort of fairy tale with a cast that includes such improvisational comedians as Marshall Efron, Lorenzo Music, and Hamilton Camp, was executive produced by George Lucas in one of his periodic attempts to throw a lifeline to the independent filmmakers he'd known as an aspiring director and since moved past on the career ladder. It was directed by John Korty, whose '60s indies (The Crazy Quilt, Funnyman) once had a frisky reputation and are now very hard to find, with an assist from Charles Swenson, who credits as an animator include a section of Frank Zappa's 200 Motels and a movie version of Bobby London's scabrous underground comics character Dirty Duck. At its best, Twice Upon a Time is one of the rare movies that captures some of the termite-gnawing wisecracking feel of Jay Ward's TV cartoons, but it ran into problems getting seen at all: first the Ladd Company, which had the distribution rights, went bankrupt, and then Korty and producer Bill Couturié got into a pissing match over which dialogue tracks to use, which ended up costing it a steady life on cable TV and delayed its release to home video. It was finally issued on videocassette, but at this time no DVD release has planned. However, clips and audio tracks are all over the Internet, the movie's cult status having been greatly enhanced by both its unavailability and the fact that there are so many possible versions from which to choose, and to argue over. (The war over the dialogue tracks stems from the fact that the cast members were encouraged to make up their own lines, which resulted in some versions that are less family-friendly than others.)

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (2003)

Sylvain Chomet's wildly funny, outrageously cariactured farce about an old woman's efforts to rescue her grandson from the clutches of the villains who use his bicycle-hardened calves to power their gambling den is the most imaginative animated entertainment to emerge from Europe in recent years. Grand in scale, meticulously detailed, weirdly suggestive, and deranged in the friendliest way possible, it's that rare picture that makes you wish that people still went to midnight movies. Chomet's next film, The Illusionist, an animated feature inspired by an unproduced screenplay of Jacques Tati's, is eagerly anticipated: Tati is something of a presiding spirit here as well.

SPIRITED AWAY (2001)

Rumors that this would be Hiyao Miyazaki's final film before retiring have since turned out to have been premature, but that doesn't make it any less of a career apotheosis and a superb capstone to his career. This ever-expanding fantasy about a little girl's passage to maturity while serving time in an alternate spirit world and looking for the opportunity to be reunited with her lost parents brings together elements from his previous epics (Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke) and his smaller scale classics about the magic that co-exists with the beauty of regular life (Kiki's Delivery Service, Totoro). As a puny Westerner, there are nuances and touches here whose full meaning I suspect that I will never fully grasp, and God knows that's my loss, but Miyazaki delivers more to audiences that can only half-understand his work than most filmmakers who draw you a scorecard while sitting in your lap.

Click here for Part One, Part Two, Part Three, & Part Four

Half Measures: Paul Clark's Favorites of the First Half of '08

Paul Clark — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Last week, Screengrab’s Andrew Osborne shared with you his favorite movies from the second quarter of 2008, so I figured that I might as well get in on the act as well. Unlike Andrew, I’ll be writing about my favorite releases dating back to the beginning of the year, mostly because I didn’t write one of these back in April. But I’d like to concur with Andrew’s statement that the moviegoing year, like so many others, started slowly but quickly improved in quality as it continued, with both big-budget blockbusters and limited-release arthouse fare making strong showings thusfar.

My top five:

1. The Duchess of Langeais- had Jacques Rivette not made a film called L’Amour Fou forty years ago, he very well might have given his most recent film that title. Based on a novel by Balzac, Duchess often plays like a mirror image of The Age of Innocence- only this time, the knowledge (and flouting) of propriety only serves to drive an emotional wedge between the two lovers. The Duchess (Jeanne Balibar) and her officer (Guillaume Depardieu) must play games with each other in lieu of an actual relationship, and almost imperceptibly their innocent courtship spirals out of their control. All the while, Rivette’s formal boldness remains intact, resulting in his best film in over a decade- no mean feat for a master of Rivette’s standing.

2. WALL*E- speaking of masters, was anyone really surprised that Pixar’s latest turned out as wonderful as it did? In perhaps their most experimental gambit to date, much of WALL *E is practically dialogue-free, as director Andrew Stanton and his team make most of their points visually. And what visuals! So beautifully-rendered is the dusty Earth future of the film’s first half that the more traditionally eye-popping second half (with its interstellar mega-mall) looks almost chintzy by comparison, like all the life and heart was drained from it. Which is of course the point, as WALL*E’s message isn’t so much anti-corporate as anti-complacency, celebrating the industriousness and determination of its robotic protagonist while despairing of those who would content themselves with having their decisions made and lives lived for them.

3. Stuck- like The Duchess of Langeais, Stuart Gordon’s latest film tells the story of a man and a woman locked in a tragic, fateful duet. The difference is that this one is about a guy who gets stuck in a windshield. There’s nothing pretty about Stuck, from Gordon’s grimy visuals and grayish color palette to the behavior his film portrays, as the film’s anti-heroine (played by Mena Suvari) hides the accident victim (Stephen Rea) in her garage rather than risk jeopardizing the insignificant promotion she supposedly has coming to her. Stuck is a film born of its working-class setting, in which the poor fight over the scraps the rich give them, with little regard for the lives of those who get in their way. It’s ugly, harrowing stuff, but it’s also thrilling like the best exploitation films are, and Stuck is one of the best movies of this kind to come along in ages.

4. Paranoid Park- for years, Gus Van Sant has specialized in films about outsiders, but this is the closest he’s come thusfar to seeing the world through an outsider’s eyes. Much of the credit goes to the subjectivity inherent in Van Sant’s favored style, which he perfects with this film, as he follows a marginalized teenager (newcomer Gabe Nevins) who views his world- his parents, his peers, his girlfriend- from a distance, even before the killing he may or may not have been responsible for causes him to sever emotional ties from them altogether. He would sooner escape into his own mind as find a place for himself in this world, a point Van Sant makes most vivid in the scene where the protagonist takes a shower as the soundtrack becomes overrun with rainforest sounds. Simultaneously nightmarish and poetic, Paranoid Park is a major work by a filmmaker who remains as experimental as ever.

5. Speed Racer- yes, really. I sort of wonder if the overwhelming critical drubbing that was afforded the Wachowski Brothers’ adaptation of the animated series was due to the directors’ key inspirations- comic books, video games, Saturday morning cartoons- not being part of the critics’ pasts. Granted, I too was skeptical about the film going in, but it didn’t take long for it to win me over. I’ll be damned if I can find a subtext, but with its dazzling array of eye-popping colors, deliberately unrealistic effects, and snazzy edits (Ang Lee could take a lesson in the latter from the Wachowskis), that scarcely matters. The racetrack scenes alone gave me that rush that all big summer movies promise but which few deliver, playing like the Day-glo daydream of a Pixie Stick-fueled kid racing and smashing up Matchbox cars. Plus there are ninjas, and as any young boy can tell you, ninjas make every movie better.

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: June 28-July 4, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Hey gang, we're taking the day off to roast some weenies and blow a few bottle rockets off the roof of Screengrab headquarters. But that's no reason you can't celebrate your independence by catching up on the week in Screengrab!

Do your patriotic duty and check out America the Beautiful: 15 Movies That Show What's Right with U.S. (Parts One, Two and Three)

Celebrate your Independence Day with, er, Independence Day. Either that or cheer on our national pastime with The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.

Here's an All-American Gal for ya! OK, a South African All-American Gal, but still: Charlize Theron Is a Sexual Creature.

If you have the day off, why not catch up with Wall-E? We investigated director Andrew Stanton's Retro-Futurism and pondered whether Wall-E and Silent Running were Separated at Birth.

When I'm grilling my burgers, I like to crank up the Superfly soundtrack, especially if it's a Long Hot Summer.

No celebration of what makes America great would be complete without The Joker, The Smokers and The Midnight Tokers. (At least, we assume they were toking something to conceive a sequel to 300.)

You know who wasn't American? Derek Jarman. However, Don S. Davis was.

And finally, we hope you all are taking a much-deserved Requiem for a Day Off.

Andrew Stanton's Retro-Futurism

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Tasha Robinson at the AV Club brings us a brief but very engaging interview with Andrew Stanton, longtime studio pro at Pixar and the director of WALL-E. In a wide-ranging discussion, he talks about the lunch meeting that produced a decade of the best animated films in history, the development of Pixar from a handful of like-minded creatives to a massive Hollywood studio employing hundreds of people, and his unconventional approach to writing a script in which the main character has no voice. "I remember reading the script for Alien," he recalls; "It was written by Dan O'Bannon, and he had this amazing format where he didn't use a regular paragraph of description. He would do little four-by-eight word descriptions and then sort of left-justify it and make it about four lines each, little blocks, so it almost looked like haikus. It would create this rhythm in the readers where you would appreciate these silent visual moments as much as you would the dialogue on the page. It really set you into the rhythm and mindset of what it would be like to watch the finished film. I was really inspired by that, so I used that format for WALL-E."

One of the fascinating things about the interview is the discussion of how the most high-tech movie studio in history uses some positively primitive methods to actually make their movies. Starting with the standard lament that computers will always take up all the time you allocate them to solve a problem ("Once you've got more memory, you just want to do more with it. And you end up feeling it takes just as long to do now the 16 things in five minutes instead of the one thing you used to do in five minutes"), Stanton notes that Pixar always views its films as storytelling challenges, not technical ones (how do you make a cool movie about monsters, as opposed to how do you solve the fur problem in CGI). He also notes that, with WALL-E, they were attempting to tell a story almost entirely visually, and so looked back -- way back -- for cues: forsaking Chuck Jones' Warner Brothers cartoons as overly familiar to geeks like themselves, they instead prepared for each day's work by watching a Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd silent short every day at lunch for a year and a half.

By the way, I can't be the only one who thinks of Wally Gator when this film is discussed, can I? I can? Okay, never mind.

Trailer Review: WALL*E

John Constantine — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:15:00 GMT

As buzz has had it for over a decade now, Pixar really is the true successor to the Disney animated feature dynasty. They’re fast approaching their silver anniversary as the most critically and commercially adored animation studio in the Western world. With the exception of A Bug’s Life — which is pretty standard kiddie-picture fluff despite being beautiful — their reputation is flawless. From the look of this trailer for WALL*E, Andrew Stanton’s directorial follow-up to Finding Nemo, it looks like Pixar’s poised to make their most exciting work yet. It isn’t that their quirky subjects du jour are mechanical, that territory having already been covered by Cars. It’s that it looks like the movie is going to be largely devoid of dialogue. The studio’s no stranger to silent animation but this would be their first full length feature to forego an imminently quotable script voiced by recognizable celebs. Ballsy stuff. Color us excited.

You can check out Empire’s exclusive trailer here.