natebell

Best Films of 2008 (Part 2)

natebell — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:42:17 -0800

Best Films of 2008

natebell — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:54:22 -0800

November Reviews

natebell — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

My latest batch of movie annotations, humbly submitted, and on time, too!

Ballast, a homegrown indie, observes the tentative attempts at human connection between three emotionally wounded working-class individuals in rural Mississippi. Almost defiantly (and certainly unfashionably) subdued, it draws its strength from the bleak expressiveness of the locale—overcast skies, muddy fields, rows of depressing trailer homes, and other such mundanities. Lance Hammer, the debuting writer-director, shows promise as an image-maker, taking some of the more annoying trends in low budget filmmaking (an unsteady camera, wobbly focus) and using them to his advantage. As a storyteller he is on less sure footing (a subplot involving a gang of drug dealers is awkwardly ditched), and the film turns out to be something of a mixed blessing. Better than no blessing at all.

Slumdog Millionaire is a rags-to-riches drama, very much in the style of a Bollywood crowd-pleaser, about a teenaged street urchin’s unlikely surmounting of the Indian Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? game show, in order to reunite with the love of his life. Part treatise on the horrors of Indian slum life, part pie-eyed love story, the film is flashily directed by the always-energetic Danny Boyle, who struggles to find an appropriate style to match his subject. A little more sobriety would have been appreciated, but a formula this surefire rarely goes awry, and it doesn’t.

Quantum of Solace is a watchable if uninspired addition to the undying Bond canon, which lately has insisted on an illusion of realism while serving up scene after scene of death-defying action. A little too edgily edited and mechanically plotted to be truly exciting, it nevertheless preserves the attractive image of 007 as a wounded knight, and Daniel Craig has the screen presence to back up such a conceit. Mathieu Almaric, too, has a moment or two of inspired treachery as the rodenty villain. Directed by Marc Forster.

Australia is a grand swing-and-a-miss for Baz Luhrmann, a two-and-three-quarters-hour epic covering a cross-country cattle drive, the plight of the “stolen generation” of aboriginal half-castes, and the bombing of Darwin, Australia by Japanese forces. Luhrmann’s unwillingness to work with the natural beauty of the landscape (a normal sunset won’t do; everything has to be enhanced with CGI) is the least of his troubles—he struggles with basic storytelling. (How do Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman ever get out of Never Never desert?) Through all the artifice, David Wenham makes a strong impression as a greedy rancher with a sadistic streak.

October Reviews

natebell — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It’s that time again.

Rachel Getting Married is a smallish drama about a black sheep in a fractured family of four, fresh out of rehab, who returns home to attend her sister’s wedding. Despite the ragged digital video, the film is actually a disciplined study in human brokenness, keen and discerning. Jonathan Demme, the director, is a filmmaker sensitive to fragile shifts in tempo, and he fully exploits his felicity with actors. (Notice how quickly a dishwashing competition turns sour.) Good performances are plentiful (especially by Hathaway as the returning sister and Bill Irwin as the father of the bride), though almost everyone is guilty of a little too much emoting.

City of Ember is the latest family-film from that veritable family-film factory—Walden Media. This costly adventure tale, set 200 years from now in a subterranean city lit by electricity, follows the attempts of two teenagers (Saoirse Ronan and Harry Treadaway) to find an exit to the outside world. Wrought with intelligence and feeling, and niftily designed as a network of pipes and tunnels, the film holds the attention thoroughly and honestly, without resorting to melodrama or sentimentality. Bill Murray has a funny role as a corrupt mayor, and there are a few nicely executed special effects including a beastly half-seal, half-earthworm creature destined to give kids nightmares. Gil Kenan (Monster House) directed.

Happy-Go-Lucky, an English import from Mike Leigh (now there’s a name you can trust), revolves around a single and singular character—Poppy, a loudly dressed, optimistic, unconquerable grade school teacher (played with total conviction by Sally Hawkins). A great deal of pleasure and fascination comes from watching this oddly endearing individual rub against various characters who in turn either succumb to her contagion of cheerfulness or are forced to confront their latent unhappiness. The encounters between Poppy and her perpetually irate driving instructor (the customarily excellent Eddie Marsan) yield the heftiest dramatic payoff, although they are merely parts of what constitute a whole philosophy, a whole outlook on life. Leigh, for whom human behavior is a source of constant inspiration, sees something beautiful in this character, and asks that we kindly do the same.

Changeling is Clint Eastwood’s reenactment of an 80-year-old news item—the disappearance of a small boy, followed several months later by the appearance of similar boy claiming to be the lost child. This reunion turns out to be a source of deep distress for the mother of the missing lad (Angelina Jolie), especially since the police keep insisting that she’s off her rocker. This is an intensely involving scenario, especially in the capable hands of a director like Eastwood. But as it goes deeper into darkness, the screenplay takes so many unbelievable twists and turns (including a heavy-handed stay in a loony bin operated by merciless Nurse Ratched types) that the film emerges as something of an ordeal. This, however, doesn’t mitigate the nagging desire to know What Happens Next. L.A. buffs will take special interest in the careful reconstruction of the downtown milieu, with its City Hall and corrupt police force.

Synecdoche, New York is the directing debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, a christened auteur whose busy, buzzing intellect has a tendency to short circuit the emotional content of his films. With no higher power to mold and temper the free-form messiness of his ideas, the indulgences run wild. In summary, the labyrinthian narrative concerns a depressed, hypochondriac theater director who embarks on an epic autobiographical production, a decades-spanning project that includes casting actors to play himself, his wife, the box office lady, and others. Layers give way to layers. Some of the ideas stick, but Kaufman makes unreasonable demands on audience participation, and the final expected epiphany never comes.

Let the Right One In, a Swedish indie, chronicles the romance between a towheaded 12-year-old and the dark-haired object of his affection, a child vampire who just moved into the neighborhood. The fantastical premise is handled with an admirable bent toward realism by director Tomas Alfredson, at least until a CG cat attack and a gore-drenched conclusion. A subplot involving school bullies resolves messily, if not satisfyingly. Still, the snowy, woodsy settings are photographed with elegance, and the kids (one fair, one dark) are believable and affecting.

Several of France’s most respected graphic artists collaborated on Fears of the Dark, an omnibus of six black-and-white horror vignettes bound together by a common theme of fear. This particular brand of animation—stripped-down, supple—may well prove dangerous in the hands of a depraved director, and indeed a couple of them go beyond horror into sheer unpleasantness. There is nevertheless a high degree of technique on display (so much is apparent as early on as the opening credits, which owe a debt to Saul Bass), and an innate understanding of the mechanics of horror—the last and best episode deals credibly with the challenge of having to find one’s way through a pitch-dark house.

September Reviews

natebell — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Harvesting the first of what will hopefully be a bounteous fall crop:

A Girl Cut in Two is a coolly distanced, mischievously closed-off French thriller from a man who knows the territory: Claude Chabrol. As director and co-writer (splitting screenwriting duties with step-daughter Cecile Maistre), Chabrol frugally reveals insight into the desires of his heroine (Ludivine Sagnier), a young woman who must choose between two equally dangerous men (Benoit Magimel and Francois Berliand). Since this is a Chabrol film, it’s not until the very end that you realize you’ve been watching a thriller. By holding back until the very end, Chabrol is able to convey a sizable amount of impact with a single act of violence—a neat trick.

Momma’s Man is a micro-budget comedy about a young man (recently married, lately upgraded to father) who swings by his parents’ New York loft for a brief visit and can’t bring himself to leave. The premise has a touch of Bunuelian absurdity, but Azazel Jacobs’s film flowers into a sublime tribute to the agony of growing up. The term “personal film” is given special meaning by the casting of the director’s real-life mother and father, longtime avant-gardists Ken and Flo Jacobs, but the deep well of emotions into which the film taps are for anyone who’s every agonized over adulthood. The loft itself, a spontaneously arranged jungle of artsy bric-a-brac, is an off-kilter space that continually rewards attention.

All Coen brothers incline toward comedy, but few are as unforgiving as Burn After Reading, their C.I.A. farce set in Washington, D.C. The perennial theme of man’s enduring stupidity in the midst of an unfeeling universe is given perfect expression in the story of two slow-witted gym instructors (Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand) who ineptly attempt to blackmail a retired analyst (a superbly enervated John Malkovich). The unflattering portrait of humanity on display might well be intolerable if the film weren’t so well acted, so well modulated, so well done. But Joel and Ethan Coen, expert plot-thickeners and consummate shot-makers, keep the tensions mounting and laughs coming. They also allow plenty of opportunity for us to consider the unusual shape of Malkovich’s skull, and the inimitable way in which he enunciates his lines. (Notice the way he articulates “memoir.”) Viewers might expect more from the Coens after the meat-and-potatoes of No Country for Old Men, but they shouldn’t overlook the care that went into this comedy, bitter-tasting as it may be.

Sukiyaki Western Django is a nearly unwatchable western-horror pastiche that numbs the brain with an overbearing mixture of blood, sex, and superficial splurges of “style.” The director is Takashi Miike, an underground filmmaker with no visible plans to come above ground, but who is nevertheless audacious enough to have earned the respect of Quentin Tarantino, who chips in with a supporting role. (The less said about his atrocious performance the better.) The film features a lot of preening, pretty Asian actors speaking mostly incoherent English as a sort of tribute to American Westerns, while the title derives from a 1966 Italian horse opera.

Appaloosa is a legit western from Ed Harris, who in addition to starring and directing, sings over the closing credits. Built solidly on tried and true notions of justice, personal integrity, moral courage, etc., it’s additionally well dressed and well decorated. (The sets have an authentic, lived-in look.) The lawmen played by Harris and Viggo Mortensen, hired by the timorous mayor to protect the township of Appaloosa from a gang of outlaws led by Jeremy Irons, are so intimate as to be perceived as different parts of the same person. (Mortensen is always finishing Harris’s sentences, a woman played by Renee Zellweger falls in love with both.) As such, they make an interesting and compelling team. The gun battles are both realistic (when one of the characters gets shot in the knee, he doesn’t get up right away, and so on) and brief, so that you end up wanting more, not less. If the film leaves a little something to be desired, that’s because it has no delusions of grandeur. Its main fault is hardly a fault at all: an excess of modesty.

Miracle at St. Anna is an overstuffed, overbearing, over-everything WWII movie, distinguished only by a few low-to-the-ground tracking shots—a Spike Lee trademark. Biting off more than he can chew, Lee attempts to wrangle themes of racial discrimination, faith, myth, and miracles, but lacks the focus or conviction to do justice to any of them. The mystery plotline is weakened by a rambling, random structure that keeps the audience grasping at straws. Occasionally, the film rises ferociously from its catatonic state to deliver a powerful action sequence, but only after we’ve well given up on trying to make meaning out of the chaos.

August Reviews

natebell — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Truckin' through August, rounding up summer's dying embers:

Brideshead Revisited is a luxuriously heavy exercise in passionate glances and tacit emotion from the other side of the pond (think of last year’s Atonement and you’ll be in the right neighborhood) directed by Julian Jarrold. By muting the Catholicism of Waugh’s novel, the film doesn’t have a compelling reason to exist—the class struggles are no longer relevant, and the “enlightened” depiction of a gay character, while tactfully handled, is a touch self-congratulatory. Emma Thompson easily dominates her scenes as Lady Marchmain, and Patrick Malahide is grossly convincing as the protagonist’s unfeeling father (first glimpsed playing chess with himself).

Pineapple Express is a likeably scrappy (or scrappily likeable) stoner comedy, at least for a spell. After a promising start, the freewheeling plot turns transparently formulaic, culminating in an overlong gun battle in a lone warehouse. The inspired pairing of Seth Rogan and James Franco (with Danny McBride shuffled in as a wildcard) reaps modest rewards, but it’s Craig Robinson’s performance as a sissyish hired goon that pries open the barrel of laughs. Produced by Judd Apatow (who else?) and directed by David Gordon Green, who once possessed something approaching a personal style.

Tropic Thunder lacks the bitter edge of great satire, but it’s hardly a waste of time. The problem is that director Ben Stiller obviously loves what he lampoons: big budget Hollywood action filmmaking. Still, those seeking deep chuckles will not go away empty-handed. The presence of Robert Downey, Jr. (as an Aussie actor with an identity crisis) sees to that. The trio of joke trailers that heralds the film and introduces the main characters are also choice—Stiller and co-writers Justin Theroux and Etan Coen have clearly done their homework, sending up a Sylvester Stallone-like action franchise, a fat-suit fart fest (Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence take note), and a pompous Oscar contender called “Satan’s Alley.” One more good reason to see it: Tom Cruise’s epic scenery chewing as a bullying producer with a bald pate, a padded belly, and hairy, meaty hands.

Vicky Christina Barcelona is Woody Allen’s buttery-smooth but still bitter comedy about two American girls (Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall) who get romantically entangled with a brooding Mediterranean painter (Javier Bardem) and his beautiful, neurotic wife (Penelope Cruz). The same hurried quality apparent in Cassandra’s Dream is noticeable here (witness the alienating omniscient narration, apparently there to streamline the busy storyline), but that’s merely an indicator of the director’s ferocious work ethic. Allen’s eternal theme, the impossibility of happiness in human relationships, is given enough force to see you through a solid hour-and-a-half.

In The House Bunny, Anna Faris is endearingly dippy as an aspiring centerfold who finds herself managing a sorority house full of gawky girls, but the surrounding movie is chock full of those horrible, sentimental payoffs we’ve come to expect from factory-assembled comedies (particularly those that bear the name of Adam Sandler).

Trouble the Water is first and foremost a subjective experience. A documentary about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on a small New Orleans family, it trades a broad view of the disaster for a more immediate, you-are-there approach. Mixing horrifying home video with footage shot weeks afterward, directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin structure the film for maximum emotional impact. The tone is properly outraged, yet also lightly humorous in its generous depiction of decent folk trying to persevere in the face of catastrophe. The main subject, Kimberly Rivers Roberts, is a salty, engaging character—the scene where she performs a self-composed rap song directly to the camera is one of the many highlights of this important, and upsetting, historical record.

New Beverly Cinemania!

natebell — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

And now for something completely different…

One of my favorite spots in L.A. is the New Beverly Cinema, a hole-in-the-wall establishment that’s also one of the oldest revival houses in town. They’ve been showing double features—good, original, interesting double features—since 1978. Quentin Tarantino hosted his Grindhouse Film Festival there last year.

Anyway, I went to see a double feature a few nights ago with a couple of pals, and decided to take a camera along for the ride. What follows is an abbreviated document of the evening, which I hope you’ll find amusing.

July Reviews

natebell — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

More quickie reviews, cooled from weeks of neglect:

The simple appeal of the first Hellboy can be found in its paradoxical protagonist: a demon with a gentle spirit who fights on behalf of the good guys. In Hellboy II: The Golden Army, director Guillermo del Toro does almost nothing with this conceit, showing little interest in the interiority of its characters while fanning his obsession with elaborately designed monsters. Like his overrated Pan’s Labyrinth (whose fairy tale atmosphere was patronizing), there is a lot to distract the eye, but little to engage the head or heart. Briefly, fleetingly, the film will seduce you with its majestically dark vision of a supernatural underworld, but this vision is undermined by the silly comic book plotting, which basically comes down to a lot of martial arts-style skirmishing. Still recommended for the memorable appearance of a legless Irish troll, a butt-ugly creation that finds the right balance between humor and terror.

Tell No One is a tricky thriller from France, drawing its scenario from an American suspense novel, about a doctor who learns, eight years after losing his wife to a serial killer, that his wife may in fact be alive and well and nearer than he thinks. Under the patient hand of director Guillaume Canet, the film is evenly paced, meticulous, engrossing, and maintains a mood both suspenseful and sensual (or “suspensual,” as a friend of mine might say). As the doctor and husband, Francois Cluzet gives an intensely focused performance—his muted anguish and steely determination is so deeply felt that it nearly atones for the incredible convolutions that come to light during the final scenes. Still and all, the last few shots are genuinely moving—the benefit of all the patient craftsmanship.

Meet Dave is a sugary comedy for the young and/or undemanding, concerning a man-sized extraterrestrial robot in the shape of Eddie Murphy, and the tiny crew inside the robot, including a doggedly courageous captain (Murphy again) determined to save his dying planet. More silly than funny, the film doesn’t assault the senses or upset the stomach like Norbit—it’s merely pleasantly mediocre.

I’m a bit relieved to report that The Dark Knight no longer occupies the #1 spot on IMDb’s chart of the greatest films ever made (it currently rests at #3, between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II). While Batman Begins marked vigorous steps toward realism and dramatic heft within the superhero genre, The Dark Knight overdoses on terrorist spectacle and moral ambiguity. This makes it great for post-movie discussion but agony to sit through (can a film suffer from too much gravitas?). A gripping opening scene depicts a bank robbery in which the participants are whittled down like the Ten Little Indians from the famous nursery rhyme, but the remainder of the film is surprisingly talky (although perhaps not “surprisingly,” considering Nolan’s penchant for verbiage). The scenes with the Joker are good for a disgusting, creepy thrill (Ledger’s whole hog performance is galvanizing), and there’s at least one altercation between him and the caped crusader, photographed from low angles for maximum impact, in an emptied city street that gets the adrenaline pumping. On the whole, though, a step backward for the Batman franchise. Its orgiastic reception by the culture at large speaks less of the film’s quality than of the impressionability of the moviegoing public.

June Reviews

natebell — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Trying to keep up with yesterday's news:

Once upon the early ‘70s, Italian director Dario Argento excelled at fashioning elegant, sinister, psychologically unsettling horror mysteries (“giallo” films, as they were often called), but a steady decline into sadism drove him underground and out of critical esteem. Three decades later, he’s still up to his old tricks, only now the violence has escalated to new extremes while his filmmaking has atrophied, perhaps even taken a few steps backward. Mother of Tears (the ostensible final entry in a series of three, following Suspiria and Inferno) feels obsessively depraved, even for an Argento film, with plenty of eviscerations and exposed brains to offend the eye. It’s unquestionably degrading (for audience and filmmaker alike), but also unexpectedly hokey—a coven of punk rock witches inspires more sniggers than shivers, and Mater Lachrymarum herself is nothing more than a lascivious model in a skanky tee shirt. It seems very unlikely that the trilogy will become a tetralogy.

Kung Fu Panda is a lively, likable Dreamworks animation that satisfies itself with the tired theme of following your dreams and fulfilling your destiny. A perfectly suitable message for kids, but can’t we be a little more creative? The scenes of stealth and attack, aided by the kind of slow motion that only computers can accommodate, are playfully amusing, as are some of the facial expressions (including that of a dentureless old turtle), but Panda’s sudden prowess in the martial arts field is cheaply earned. Dustin Hoffman’s subdued voice performance as a masterly raccoon remains the best reason to see it.

Despite a breathtakingly stupid scenario (plants release deadly toxins causing humans to self-destruct), The Happening is a mildly creepy botanical horror film that takes an apocalyptic scenario and shrinks the scale down to a small group of bewildered characters. The lack of any visible menace allows for some unusual suspense scenes, and although the domestic subplot is insufficiently fleshed out, the basic humanizing message is lumberingly, insistently pedaled. M. Night Shyamalan is a director in search of a screenplay; his words may fail him, but his visual sense never errs.

The Incredible Hulk is more of a do-over than a sequel, effectively sweeping Ang Lee’s bizarre 2003 attempt at comic book mythmaking under the rug. Graciously dispensing with gratuitous exposition, the film still skimps on characterization, possibly the result of a compromised screenplay co-authored by star Edward Norton. The chase-fight-flee, chase-fight-flee redundancies of the narrative grow tedious quickly, although an early steeplechase through a crowded Brazilian shantytown succeeds in quickening the pulse. Though played by a sympathetic Norton, Bruce Banner seems like one of the more problematic of recent superheroes—the filmmakers are unable to make his virtuous self-control interesting.

Encounters at the End of the World is a Werner Herzog documentary shot in Antarctica, and the German director continues to amaze with his ability to find eccentric characters wherever he goes. (Or do they find him?) Among the many arresting sights are a live volcano, a multitude of octopi living under the ice, and a lone penguin inexplicably hurtling toward the horizon (and certain death). As much as there is to occupy the eye, Herzog revisits old thesis statements about the futility of existence a little too frequently, though as is often the case with the director, his camera makes the most eloquent argument.

Driven by a voluptuously probing camera and an insistent, strings-based Ennio Morricone score, The Unkown Woman dives into its complex narrative headlong, barely pausing to catch its breath. The story is an unusually seedy thriller involving a prostitution ring presided over by a bald tyrant (a terrifying Michele Placido), but director Giuseppe Tornatore (the sentimental Italian who brought us Cinema Paradiso) provides just enough human interest to engage the heart. His secret weapon is Kseniya Rappoport, who plays the shady nanny whose designs on an affluent middle class family aren’t clear until the very end. Displaying both quivering vulnerability and steely determination, hers is the kind of performance that critics like to call “fearless,” and one of the few that actually earns that distinction.

The Pride of Pixar

natebell — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The folks at Pixar have created a filmmaker’s utopia. Working almost entirely without obstruction, they’ve established a work ethic in which artistic integrity is of primary importance, and where a personal vision is given room to flourish. It is an auteur’s paradise—never before has a studio placed so much faith in individual imagination. Each new film has a different feel compliant with the quirks of its director. (Hence, The Incredibles, though clearly the handiwork of many talented craftsmen, is distinctly Brad Birdian both for its aggressive nostalgia and its emphasis on the nuclear family.)

Pixar’s latest project also bears the unmistakable stamp of individuality. The writer-director is Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), and he’s fashioned an entirely worthy hero-cum-artistic-foil in WALL·E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), a lonesome robot with binoculars for eyes and the soul of a romantic. To see him is to love him.

Along with a resilient cockroach, WALL·E is the sole inhabitant of a parched Planet Earth some 800 years in the future. Completely inundated with trash, the human populace has retreated into deep space aboard massive luxury ships while a mechanical maintenance crew (of which WALL·E represents the last) labors to tidy the mess. An acceptable apocalyptic scenario, and a teasingly plausible one.

When he’s not compacting mounds of garbage into small, rectangular cubes, WALL·E is building up his collection of discarded knickknacks and reviewing a battered copy of Hello, Dolly! (apparently the only movie he could dredge up, poor guy). When another robotic visitor, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), descends from the heavens looking for signs of life, WALL·E is entranced. He’s a shopworn PC, all rusty hinges and boxlike limbs, and she, with her smooth alabaster body and sky-blue eyes, resembles nothing so much as a sexy Mac. Together they embark on a corny romance that takes them out of earth’s orbit and into a less interesting movie.

The first 40 minutes or so are an example of what some critics might lazily refer to as “pure cinema.” To wit, a reliance on intrinsically filmic devices (framing, editing, etc.) rather than expositional dialogue to push the story forward. (Only a cameo by a live-action Fred Willard, as a Bush-like world leader, constitutes a cheat.) And the diamond-hard, lustrous, obsessively detailed visuals are equal to Pixar’s impossible high standards. Taken as distinct from the rest of the movie, this enthralling opener ranks with the best work they’ve ever done.

But it’s not to last. The second half reveals the film’s biggest secret—the human race has regressed into a tribe of corpulent, terminally lazy couch potatoes, forever glued to their recliners (which prompts the question of how they manage to procreate). The consumerist nature of their lifestyle (the spaceship is monopolized by a Wal-Mart-ish corporation called Buy n Large) allows for several broad swipes at contemporary society, like one of those Twilight Zone episodes that finds Rod Serling in a preachy mood.

And so WALL·E loses a little something in impact. As satire, it’s not pointed enough to pierce the conscience, and as sentiment, it falls back on the old cliché of having the nonhuman characters more charitable than the human ones. The film is not calculatedly condescending, yet, in attempting to “show the way,” one fears the Pixar people have become a tad didactic.

That said, I still recommend the film highly. From beginning to end, WALL·E runs along with the smoothness of a well-oiled assembly line. There isn’t a single lazy or poorly rendered frame to be found. One only hopes that in the future, the filmmakers would resist the urge point a bony finger in the direction of the audience.

It’s also worth noting that WALL·E is preceded by another fine Pixar short, Presto, about an arrogant magician and his neglected pet rabbit, who exacts vengeance on opening night. Exuberantly violent, it resembles Tex Avery’s cartoon Magical Maestro in both premise and execution.