Last movie you watched?

[jekylljuice]

Okay, I've waited long enough. Time for a back-to-back post, me reckons...

Wall-E

I finally got to see this the other night, and I just wanted to add my voice to its ever-growing and thoroughly-deserved crowd of admirers. As it happens, Ratatouille has yet to be knocked from its throne as my personal favourite Pixar movie, but Wall-E is definitely a worthy contender. The minimal dialogue was unusual, but worked beautifully, and put me very strongly in mind of Walt Disney's earliest, pre-WWII features - Dumbo, Bambi, Fantasia and the like - in which visual charm and expressiveness was always treated as the more important story-telling device. Sure, folks are thankfully still able to acknowledge the charm of those movies, but an age in which celebrity voices and endless wise-cracking are treated as capital to most (non-Pixar) animated films, very few seem brave enough to try it for themselves any more, which is a great shame...oh, thank heavens for Pixar. And, not only do they lead the way for innovation in contemporary animation, but it's nice that they also know when not to run a good idea into the ground - with the Incredibles, Ratatouille and Wall-E, there's been a definite step away from the previously quite high amount of self-referencing within their films, which was fun at first, but might have become a little intrusive had it continued.

I really need to get the soundtrack now too. I'd had no idea until the end-credits started playing that the mighty Peter Gabriel had recorded an original song for the film. When I recognised his voice, I whooped for joy.

Here's how I currently rank the existing Pixar movies, from favourite to least favourite:

1. Ratatouille
2. Wall-E
3. Toy Story
4. The Incredibles
5. Toy Story 2
6. Monsters Inc
7. Finding Nemo
8. Cars
9. A Bug's Life

[Imaginary Light]

The Dark Knight

Oh my gaaawwwd! So, I'm not really a Batman fan, and I didn't really like Batman Begins for some reason (I just couldn't keep my attention on it), but The Dark Knight...I was just on the edge of my seat!

And every time Heath Ledger came on screen I had to say, "Holy crap." He was just so good (and I've always found the villians and crazy people to be the most interesting characters in movies anyway ).

[Partymember]

Stepbrothers

amazingly funny one of the most vulgar movies ever made, i cried laughing.

[Medikor]

Pan's Labyrinth. I caught this film by chance on the movie network and was absolutely floored by how dark it was. It is a very good film and the imagery was fantastic. Now I really can't wait to see the Hobbit film(s) because between Del Toro and Jackson, it will be one spellbinding event!

[koosie]

Wall E

The Dark Knight

Yes Yes! The good that is in these fine movies has already been adequately expressed above so I'll restrict myself to favourite moments and the sort of observations that have led to a steady decline in the number of invitations I recieve to social occasions:

Spoiler Below

I loved the bit in Batman where the Joker has just blown up a hospital and he's kind of half-dancing as he walks, trying to contain his joy at this dastardly act. Christian Bale's raspy voice was a bit annoying but all the time he wasn't Batman, he was too much like Patrick Bateman. I suppose there's only one letter difference. Anyway all the acting was great and there was nice bit of a 'Prisoner's dilemna'. Is Harvey Dent dead then? Will the next movie have to be about Catwoman or The Penguin or something? Seems they've used up the best baddies already.

Spoiler Below

Wall E left a nice taste in the mouth. Favourite moment? Well his ariel dance with Eve was lovely and there was a paddleball moment too (yay!) but I really liked the bit where he meets the little robot who cleans up after his dirty tracks. There was a little bit of mischief there but not enough to stop them ending up as friends. Aw! Hooray also to John Ratzenburger from 'Cheers', potential Bond villain Peter Gabriel and was that Michael Crawford? I missed it in the credits because I was looking at all the little pictures. So why was Wall E the only remaining Wall E? Is there a prequal or a series based on this blind spot to come?

[frankie_fan]

Well, I just got back from The Dark Knight and... well, I really can't make heads or tails out of this (no pun intended). I really don't know whether to like this or not. But I will say that I did enjoy Heath Ledger as the Joker. Very dark, and I especially enjoyed his 'magic trick'. That was just unexpected.

[jekylljuice]

Hoppity Goes To Town

Long before A Bug's Life, Antz and The Ant Bully, there was Hoppity Goes To Town (actually, it was Mr. Bug Goes To Town originally, but Paramount clearly didn't think that the Mr. Deeds homage was worth having "Bug" in the title, which they saw as detrimental, and later changed it). This was the second of only two feature films to arise from the Fleischer Studios (extra points if you knew that the first was Gulliver's Travels in 1939), most famous for the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons - once serious rivals with the Walt Disney studio, to whom they apparently lost a multitude of employees, the poor box office performance of this particular film (not helped by the fact that it came out just two days prior to the attacks on Pearl Harbour) is sadly what finished their studio off for good. A shame, since it's quite a charming little film, if obviously now very antiquated.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it really measures up to any of the feature films which Walt Disney was producing at around the same time - while Snow White, Pinnochio, Dumbo and Bambi all feel like properly sustained features within their own right, Hoppity comes off a lot more as a heavily extended short cartoon, with some definite pros and cons. I wasn't particularly wild about the character designs - the vast majority of bugs here are human beings, more-or-less, with antenna and wings stuck on them...I guess at time this was seen as the most logical way of convincing audiences to identify with insect characters, but nowadays it just looks twee - though the animation was nicely fluid and colourful throughout. The strongest character by far was the villainous C. Bagley Beetle, who I really liked (his only fault, which is something he shares with a lot of Disney's antagonists, I guess, is his rather questionable taste in sidekicks - Aunt Sarah from Lady and the Tramp excepted, of course). The weakest character was very easily Honey Bee, Hoppity's love interest, who never amounts to much more than a dainty little thing for the male characters to fuss over (again, this was probably much less of an issue at the time). Hoppity himself is likeable enough, but doesn't get a great deal of character development (another reason why it may have been a little better suited to a short cartoon). Yeah, it's a mixed bag for sure, but all in all I enjoyed it, and Mr. Beetle's contributions were all brilliant.

[Partymember]

Originally Posted by Medikor

Pan's Labyrinth. I caught this film by chance on the movie network and was absolutely floored by how dark it was. It is a very good film and the imagery was fantastic. Now I really can't wait to see the Hobbit film(s) because between Del Toro and Jackson, it will be one spellbinding event!

they're making a Hobbit movie?

sweet

[Medikor]

Originally Posted by Partymember

they're making a Hobbit movie?

sweet

Two, actually. Part one being the first half of the book and part two being the second half.

[Mac-a-lacka]

Jurassic Park III.

My 3rd favorite.