Nov 14 2008 Pixar's 'BURN-E' Short Makes Me Want a Welding Robot as a Pet
Get it while it lasts: Pixar's new short, BURN-E, which is being included on the WALL-E DVD. The animation company is known for being able to inject personality, humor, and pathos into any character, but I think this takes it to a new level. I never thought I'd see a white box affixed to a wall so vividly, non-verbally communicate a "fuck you" (4:30 in particular).
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Jul 14 2008 'Hellboy' Heats Up Weekend, Because Hell is Typically Depicted as Very Hot
Weekend box office numbers!
1. Hellboy II: The Golden Army - $35.9 million, beating the first film's opening by over 12 million despite not using any of my brilliant advertising strategies.
2. Hancock - $33 million, but it could have been so much more if only "Big Willy" had made a bland rap for this one. Is he done with that?
3. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D - $20.6 million, surely missing the top spot due to its bigoted, cyclops-excluding marketing campaign. One should not need binocular vision to enjoy a film.
4. Wall-E - $18.5 million. Has the summer's cute robot bubble burst???
5. Wanted - $11.6 million. Wait a minute.... where's Eddie Murphy Alien inside Eddie Murphy Ship?
Oh...
7. Meet Dave - $5.3 million. Yeah, that's right. Eff you, Meet Dave.
Weekend Box Office [Box Office Mojo]
Jul 7 2008 Will Smith Shows He's Still Got It ('It' Being the Ability to Draw Crowds with Mediocrity)
It's weekend box office result time!
1. Hancock - In his version of a fireworks display, Will Smith dropped by once again this July 4th to deliver some primal entertainment to the waiting masses that ultimately left them saying, "Is that it?" ($66 million weekend, $107 million since Wednesday.)
2. WALL-E - $33.4 million as audiences flocked to see the riveting trailer to Fly Me to the Moon.
3. Wanted - $20.6 million for the Jolie-Pitt baby fund!!! (James McAvoy and Common probably also get a cut.)
4. Get Smart - A $11.1 million gross, finally earning back all the money spent on covertly adding mandarin orange artificial flavoring to Sierra Mist.
5. Kung Fu Panda - $7.5 million for the Jolie-Pitt baby fund!!! (Jack Black and computers probably also get a cut.)
Jun 20 2008 New 'WALL-E' Trailer Called 'Cities' For Whatever Reason
Pixar has released a new trailer for WALL-E titled "Cities," though I'm not sure why, because it neither focuses on cities or plays the Talking Heads song Cities. It does, however, indulge in lots and lots of robot screaming, so it sounds like you're living inside R2-D2's tortured psyche. Just what I wanted in a movie: hellish, digitized wheezing expressing constant robot panic.
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Jun 19 2008 Preview of 'Presto', the Short Airing Before 'WALL-E'
Still wondering if you should show up to WALL-E carefully-calculated five minutes late, thus avoiding the traditional Pixar short that precedes the film? Here's a tenth of it for you to judge and decide! And yes, the idea of a preview for a bonus short before a feature is as absurd as you're thinking it is. We're nearing the point of having commercials for commercials.
Continue Reading " Preview of 'Presto', the Short Airing Before 'WALL-E' "
Jun 12 2008 WALL-E Has the Cutest Fetishes
Only WALL-E could make brassiere-centric olfactophilia adorable. Pixar, you've done it again!
New WALL-E Posters [Empire]
Jun 4 2008 Meet WALL-E's Entire Robot Servant Class
Do you have some apprehensions about Pixar's latest, WALL-E? Fear that one adorable robot isn't enough to quench your insatiable desire for a post-apocalyptic future full of cute automatons? Worry not! This newest trailer will introduce you to many other charming droids in the WALL-E universe, such as: VAQ-M, the Roomba with enough sentience that you can hate it; PR-T, the amenities of a Korean beauty salon without the guilt of degrading a people; M-O, the only robot built around Marc Summers' brain; AUTO, the only automatic driving system that can comfort you when you're relegated to sleeping in your car; and EVE, a soil-evaluation robot that you'll eventually see as an object of lust. Meet them all, below the cut.
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Jun 2 2008 New 'WALL-E' Photos Leave You in an Ice-Filled Bathtub
/Film has eight new shots from Pixar's WALL-E, including the above image of the eponymous character adorably shuttling a black market kidney to parts unknown. Godspeed, WALL-E.
May 6 2008 'WALL-E' Teaches Children More Horrible Lessons in Trash Collection
The issue with Pixar's latest character, WALL-E--a robot that collects trash--is that videos like this one, in which he interacts with a pair of discarded headphones, teach kids that it's alright to play with refuse. How long until some kids pick up a set of headphones with a hypodermic needle inside, and instead of hearing a jaunty tune, they're greeted by the haunting voice of a psychopath: "Welcome to the world of cute robot AIDS," he says, before revealing he also has a hook hand.
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Apr 29 2008 New Short: WALL-E Plays with a Bygone Toy Fad
Part of a series of shorts in which WALL-E f***s around with various objects (such as a magnet and a vacuum), Pixar's latest 22-second cute-fest shows how the robot interacts with a newly-found hula-hoop. The little guy is so adorable goofing around with the plaything, it's easy to forget that a found, discarded toy usually means a recently-kidnapped child.
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Apr 23 2008 'WALL-E' Meets an Enemy Lodestone
What happens when the adorable robot from Pixar's WALL-E runs across a randomly-placed magnet while traversing a white void? Comedy! That fella just can't get that sombitch off him! He's just too made of metal! A 23-second short, below the cut.
Mar 12 2008 Full-Length 'WALL-E' Trailer
Pixar has upped their effort to blanket any fading, hazy memories of Short Circuit with images of their smaller, cuter model, today releasing a third and final trailer to WALL-E. Unfortunately, this was also the preview that made me suddenly realize, wait a minute, this would be incredibly stupid if it weren't being acted out by an adorable droid.
How had I never before realized the wacky, slapstick humor over a shallow love story--that seems so charming when animated--is the same schlock that fills the scripts of Rob Schneider movies? And I'm pretty sure the joke where WALL-E is thrown to the back of the shuttle, only to be slammed to the ground when internal gravity is regained, was already done by Harland Williams in Rocketman. Would I still chuckle as WALL-E's hand is crushed by his stronger female companion if the robot were Jack Black, his fingers squeezed between the meaty paws of Gwenyth Paltrow in a robo-fat suit?
Have slick computer graphics tricked the public into falling for what's truthfully a pretty stupid script? Or is the point that these kind of jokes should be reserved for animation, and Pixar knows that? I don't know what to think anymore, but the film definitely got harder to enjoy once I started picturing Will Ferrell playing the part in the naive style of Elf.
'WALL-E' Trailer [Apple]
Feb 28 2008 Yet Another 'WALL-E' Poster
Yeah, Pixar, we get it. You've figured out how to make Johnny 5 cuter: making him smaller, and not accompanied by a racist caricature.
'WALL-E' Poster Premiere! [Cinematical]
Feb 26 2008 'WALL-E' Plays With Rubik's Cubes
First he mimicked the look of Short Circuit's Johnny 5, now he's pilfering the Rubik's Cube antics of Michel Gondry. What will WALL-E steal next? Our hearts, of course (and eight to twelve dollars).
Feb 8 2008 'WALL-E' International Trailer is Infatuating
As much as this trailer would have you believe it's a horrible tragedy when WALL-E's first and only love is taken from him, it's time to face the facts: WALL-E is old, dirty, and desperate; she's a slick young model, way out of his league. We all knew it couldn't last (unless WALL-E was also rich). And if ol' WALL did some self-examination, he'd probably realize it was just infatuation, birthed from the wretched loneliness of his solitary life. Seriously, what are the chances his one true love happens to be the only lady-bot he's ever met? It's that mentality that gets you a miserable marriage right out of high school.
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Feb 4 2008 'WALL-E' Superbowl Spot by Pixar, the 'Toy Story' Guys
When Jurassic Park was coming out, I don't remember the trailers beginning with E.T. entering a movie theater, and, likewise, the commercials to Schindler's List didn't begin with Indiana Jones thoughtfully gazing into the distance as he recalled the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Besides not making any sense, it would have been completely unnecessary given the brand power inherent in the name Steven Spielberg. Similarly, I would have thought that after the huge success of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles Cars, and Ratatouille, the Pixar name would be enough of an endorsement without whipping out Buzz Lightyear and Woody for the Superbowl WALL-E commercial. I guess it's sort of cute in a "Wink-wink! Remember Toy Story?! That was us!" sort of way.
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Dec 27 2007 'Wall-E' Has Its Claw on Pulse of Today's Photoshop Techniques
God, lens flares: so hot right now.
WALL-E Stills [Ropes of Silicon]
Dec 18 2007 'Wall-E' Jumps on Viral Marketing Bandwagon
Pixar has merged viral marketing with high school-level Wal-Mart critique to create a website for Buy n Large, the fictional mega-coporation from their upcoming Wall-E. Buy n Large is buying-out the cardinal direction of north, changing its name to "Buy n Large North", according to one story on the site. Another claims BnL has made a new drug to make shopping more euphoric. The robotics page says humans shouldn't have to make political decisions, leaving it instead to machines.
Dude, that's totally like the shit these pro-consumerism conglomerates do, man. If pharmaceuticals could make a pill that makes you shop, they totally would. They'd probably create one that makes you like Bush, too, and I definitely do not. Pixar totally gets me. I wish they ran Fox News, but don't even get me started there.
Thanks for the tip, Metzger.
Dec 18 2007 'Wall-E' Trailer is Impossibly Charming, As Expected
When I want a Coke, I buy a Coke. I know from the label exactly what will be in a Coke, how refreshingly cool it will feel in my mouth, how sweet the high fructose corn syrup will taste on my tongue. No need to dump gallon after gallon of it over my head to remind me exactly how great Coca-Cola is.
Similarly, I don't need another precious trailer to Pixar's Wall-E. Yes, Pixar, I know you've "done it again," creating another expertly animated, ridiculously adorable world sure to delight children and adults alike with its humor and heart. So you can stop rubbing my face.
And, you know, it wouldn't kill you guys to make something shitty every now and then, remind us that you aren't necessarily evil androids appeasing the human masses until our destruction. The same goes for Radiohead.
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Nov 19 2007 AM Poster Post: 'Wall-E' is Cute, Predatorial
It's interesting how, knowing Wall-E is Pixar's latest outright attack at dominating your child's mind, heart, and Underoos with overwhelmingly adorable characters, this image of the titular character looks cute and unassuming. Whereas, say it came with the tagline "Sexual predation has a new face... and it's made of metal," the robot suddenly expresses a new look of desperate wanting and confused lust that reaches out of the screen and finds your child on the playground, grabbing him or her with his powerful pincer grip.
At least I think it's interesting.
WALL.E Poster [IGN]
