Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

With a 9.3 rating on IMDB, 96% on rottentomatoes, and 93% on metacritic, Wall-E is Pixar’s big summer hit. I just got back from seeing it yesterday with Wendy, and it’s as good as the hype says it was; touching, humorous, and critical of consumptionary lifestyles.

Wikipedia’s summary is excellent, so I’ll just reproduce it here:

Around the year 2118, the company Buy ‘n Large supplied almost every service on Earth, from food to banking to transportation. The company has such a monopoly on every service that it simply becomes the world government, with a “World CEO” in charge of all humanity. Overrun by consumerism, humanity abandoned the planet aboard luxury spaceliners such as the Axiom. Thousands of WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) units were left behind to convert the garbage into a disposable form. The recovery plan failed, however, and 700 years later in the year 2815, Earth is completely devoid of life and still covered with trash, with only one WALL-E (the protagonist, voiced by Ben Burtt) still operational.

Go see the movie. Tell your friends to see it. And check out the Apple page for trailers, clips, and more. $62,500,000 the first weekend isn’t enough, Wall-E deserves more!

Directed by Sin City director Zack Snyder, 300 is a real treat. I had the pleasure of viewing it about two weeks ago, and I was visually impressed. The plot is quite simple, based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Xerces is coming from Persia to conquer Greece, and Sparta must stand against it. They attempt to drabble palace intrigue, prophecy, love, and betrayal onto the canvas of the plot, but it fails. 300’s true power isn’t in the story itself, but the brilliant saturated way it’s told.

In this massive picture post I’m going to try and tell some of the story of 300 in linear order. If you haven’t seen the movie go away now because it will spoil the glory of seeing its scenes for the first time!

There’s plenty of boyhood flashbacks and children in the movie, enough to make you wonder about the innocence of humanity.

But then the Persians come, make their demands, and are thrown into a well in this climactic, but expected scene. After all, they used it as a clip in their previews.

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There are some initial skirmishes; of course the Greeks slaughter them. The imagery is mundane to prepare you for the next tumultuous scene:

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GLORY!!!!!! This is maybe the best battle scene I’ve seen; it’s almost like a dance. The style is identical to the fight scenes in the Matrix, but less artificial and more visceral.

Here there be dragons. And other monsters. For some reason, having killed large numbers of Persian soldiers, 300 decides to throw nightmares at the Greek force.

300 also has a small tragedy. Father and son shouldn’t fight together; it’s a recipe for sorrow.

The emperor of Persia is evil, has a voice which is too low, and effeminate facial features. He can’t be more scary.

But he gets what he deserves…

Especially when 10,000 SPARTANS decide to join the fight!! GO!

I went to see Pan’s Labyrinth today. I didn’t have any expectations for the movie, and it blew me away. From the start the fact that it was a movie entirely in Spanish was almost unsettling, except that I speak Spanish. I had expected it to be in English, but somehow the pain and suffering in the movie was more poignant for the fact that it was foreign.

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, of Hellboy fame, the movie has garnered an amazing 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.5 on IMDB, and six academy award nominations. John Wirt for the Advocate wrote:

Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth brilliantly melds the realms of fairy tale and brutal 20th-century history. Beautiful, horrible and deeply affecting, it’s the 21st century’s first film masterpiece.

Here are a few of the movie posters, to pique your interest:

The plot, without giving too much away, is about a young girl who’s lost her father. Her mother has married a Spanish military officer to escape her loneliness, but they both hate him. The girl is swept up in magic and prophecy as the real world around her plunges into chaos and violence. At the end of it all, you’re struck with two options–to believe that what the young girl experienced is true, and redeem the story, or to deny it to her imagination, and realize the stark reality of the world. There’s no way to choose between the two because the story is told in such a way as to make both equally possible.

If you want to see more, Apple has a trailer you can download! While unsettling, the movie’s grandiose themes and visions overcome its horrors. I highly recommend watching it.