WALL-E

WALL-E and cockroach buddy. (Disney/Pixar)

If you are planning some family time this 4th of July weekend, there's actually a film that might make everyone happy - the latest Pixar/Disney venture WALL-E (opened June 27 throughout San Diego). The story is simple and sweet enough to keep the youngest family members happy yet the animation and storytelling is sophisticated enough to impress the adults. And, if I'm to go by what the KPBS Teen Critics have to say, WALL-E serves up a love story that teenage girls AND boys can both embrace. Now that's no easy feat.

WALL-E: Goes 3 for 3 with Teen Critics

WALL-E (Pixar/Disney)

By Raymond Mai

I'll honestly say that I walked into WALL-E (opened June 27 throughout San Diego) not knowing what to expect. I looked at the trailer and I read a little about the movie, but not even that provided much information. So I sat in my seat at the preview only knowing that this movie was really hyped up. But after 103 minutes, I applauded along with the rest of the audience.

Pixar's WALL-E starts off in a New York-like city on a deserted earth. You figure out soon enough that a company called Buy 'n Large has developed WALL-E machines to clean up the earth while all the humans have flown off in a giant spaceship called the Axiom to escape the mess. Sadly, you'll also figure out that there is only one functional WALL-E (voiced by Ben Burtt) and he goes through a daily routine of collecting unique items and stacking cubes of trash until they become, well, a skyscraper. One day, a spaceship enters the trash filled atmosphere of earth and lands not far from the city. A robot comes out of the machine by the name of EVE (Elissa Knight), though Wall-E pronounces it EVA. A series of events happen and EVE fires her cannon at WALL-E while he tries to get closer to her. This stubborn robot never gives up and eventually he makes friends with EVE. This leads to WALL-E showing her a plant he has found. Because it's her directive to find plant life, she stores the plant and then shuts down. WALL-E goes out of his way to protect EVE yet she doesn't come out of this state. Soon the same spaceship from earlier comes to pick her up and WALL-E grabs hold of the spaceship and follows her back to the Axiom. There, you find out what has happened to the people of earth 700 years later and how their body mass has increased dramatically. The captain (Jeff Garlin) is soon faced with the decision to stay with the original plan of coming back to earth or follow the override orders and stay on the spaceship. He is soon attacked by AUTO (A Mac Speech Recognition Voice) and it's up to WALL-E, EVE, the captain, and the people of earth to get back to earth.

While WALL-E was on earth, I literally whispered to my brother, "The graphics are pretty nice." Though it kind of let up when you are in the spaceship sequence, the animation was done well. As you might have realized from my past reviews, I'm a sucker for character development. I like to see the personalities of all the characters develop. This movie does exactly that and I even fell for how WALL-E was so innocent and lovestruck yet he gets himself caught up in an adventure. The love story was a great addition to the movie. It stuck in my mind -- I wondered if WALL-E would ever get EVE as they tried to save the people of earth. I also liked seeing EVE express no interest in WALL-E, but as he goes out of his way to be with EVE she starts to fall for him as well. I also had a lot of good laughs in the movie. To top it off, this movie had a good message to send to the people of earth. Basically, it says, "If you keep up screwing with the earth by dumping trash everywhere, the earth will turn on you and become uninhabitable." Along with that, "you will live on a spaceship for the rest of your life, gain 300 pounds, and your bones will start to shrink." I have no problem with this movie though some people might not like the fact that there is not much dialogue. Out of all the movies I've seen this year, WALL-E (rated G for all audiences) is definitely my favorite one. This very entertaining movie deserves a 5 out of 5 stars from me.

Raymond Mai is a soon to be sophomore at Mount Miguel High School where he's on the football and baseball team. When he is not studying or playing a sport, he loves to have fun, whether it's watching movies or just kicking it behind the TV with his Nintendo Wii. He enjoys the opportunity to voice his opinions about movies.

WALL-E Spreading More Joy

Another Teen Critic falls for WALL-E (Pixar/Disney)

By Candace Kavanagh

For the past month I along with others have used the trailer of WALL-E to cheer us up. With his cute robot eyes and his cute incoherent voice he has cheered us up and made us feel a certain anticipation for the day the film would come out. I know I've been waiting to see WALL-E for a while and that feeling strengthened when I knew this movie was going to be tale of romance. But I didn't know what was going to happen in between. So I was mildly surprised when this movie offered a comment on our society.

Yes as WALL-E begins his journey to see the rest of the human race (that has escaped earth and it's toxic, unlivable environment), he notices that people have lost interest in anything that is not two inches in front of their faces. This results from their whole lives being controlled by computers. Every time someone needs to send a text or someone needs to play their video game, instead of being with an actual person and using their own hands, a computer does all teh work for them. It seems that we get closer to this reality all the time. When I got back home from watching the film I saw almost my whole family practicing this lifestyle right now. Now this theme may be slightly adult for a movie that was advertised as a robotic and romantic version of E.T., a movie that had no real social content.

But fortunately for all of us WALL-E lovers the cuteness of this movie is not smothered by its social satire. Instead WALL-E's ultra cute stunts, and the beautiful animation used during the film give the children in the audience something to drool over as adults begin to swallow the more serious comments on our society -- or just ignore them. Of course I spent my time enjoying WALL-E's sweetness and sincerity as he simply wishes to hold the girl robot and share with her something he hasn't been able to share with anyone before -- his favorite song in Hello Dolly.

So WALL-E (rated G for all audiences) is a great movie to watch with your kids or your friends. I might even call it a date movie. Just as long you don't mind watching a movie where you can't understand what most of the characters in the movie are saying. Kind of like watching an episode of Pokemon.

-- Candace Kavanagh just graduated from Mount Miguel High School. She spends her life absorbing celluloid images. She loves every type of film from so-called "chick flicks" such as My Fair Lady and Legally Blonde, to mind bending thrillers like Mulholland Drive and Hard Candy -- with every zombie movie, action flick, musical, and comedy in between.

WALL-E is Out of This World

Pixar scores another hit with WALL-E says our KPBS Teen Critic (Walt Disney)

By Vikram Bhoyrul

Over the last couple years Pixar has delivered some fantastic animated movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. All of these films were entertaining for all age groups and were definitely re-watchable. So it goes without saying that WALL-E (opening June 27 throughout San Diego) had a lot to live up to. I was skeptical at first. The trailer wasn't anything spectacular and all in all it just seemed very childish. Now after watching WALL-E, I can honestly say that Pixar has given us another fantastic animated movie. It may have even topped its predecessors.

WALL-E is far more entertaining and deep than the trailer lets on. What looks like a good kid's movie full of slapstick humor is in fact a phenomenal movie with a love story slipped in. When you feel happy for a two-foot, trash collecting robot you know that there is something special about the movie. WALL-E starts off hundreds of years in the future when mankind has finally exhausted all of Earth's natural resources and filled the world up with too much junk, making Earth unsustainable for life. Conditions have become so bad that all of the humans have left Earth to live on luxury space cruises where their every need is catered to by robots. They become so dependent on technology that they do absolutely nothing and after 700 years have become morbidly obese. I saw this as a nice commentary on man's current mistreatment of the environment and the obesity epidemic that has hit America.

After all the humans leave Earth, all that is left behind are clean-up robots that pile trash thousands of feet high in order to clean up the planet. The last of the robots left is the main character WALL-E. WALL-E suffers from loneliness and although he has the world literally to himself all he wants is someone to hold his hand. Although the movie may have started off a little slow by the time the female robot was introduced into the story, things really picked up and so began WALL-E's incredible adventure through the final frontier in his search for love.

WALL-E (rated G for all audiences) was very entertaining and is a great movie for all ages.

Vikram Bhoyrul is a senior at The Bishop's School in La Jolla. For years film has been a passion of his. Besides Star Wars, his favorite movies are Children of Men, Cinderella Man. Life of Brian, and without question The Lion King. He would also like to become a journalist when he grows up. His goal is to become an influential network anchor. In his free time he likes running, singing, watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and cooking. At high school, he is the editor of his own school newspaper, and in college he wishes to major in journalism.

The Sword in the Stone: 45th Anniversary DVD

The once and future king... The Sword in the Stone (Walt Disney)

Although Disney tends to incur more wrath than praise from me these days, I have always had fond memories of its animated film The Sword in the Stone (1963). I think it was the last animated film from the studio that I fully embraced. I had always been interested in the legend of King Arthur so the film was immediately appealing to me as a child. Today (June 17) a new 45th anniversary DVD and Blu Ray Disc come out and they are well worth picking up. Artist, writer and longtime Disney employee Bill Peet found inspiration for the film in the 1938 T.H. White novel The Once and Future King. White's book provided all the necessary ingredients for a classic children's tale - a young hero, knights, magic, and the stuff of legends. Peet could have stayed a little truer to White's book to deliver a richer tale, but Peet's adaptation is appealing nonetheless.

The story focuses on Arthur before he becomes king, when he was a scrawny lad known only as Wart. As the story begins, England is without a king, and is living in a dark age. The prophecy promises that whoever can pull a sword that has been embedded in an anvil will become the next king. But so far no one has been able to do it. Then along comes Wart, and Merlin, a magician, senses that he is destined for greatness. So Merlin takes it upon himself to educate the boy and his lessons make up much of the film.

I know that people have complained about the animation style of The Sword in the Stone, and while it may not be as lush as such early Disney films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Fantasia, it has a charm all its own. Earlier Disney animated features were made either by multiple directors or by a team of sequence directors working under a supervising director but The Sword in the Stone was helmed by one man, veteran animator Wolfgang Reitherman (one of Disney's famed "Nine Old Men"). The animation style of this 1963 feature reveals some of the cost-cutting techniques that were now being implemented after the 1959 Sleeping Beauty failed to deliver the kind of box office returns the studio was hoping for. The characters in The Sword in the Stone are rather angular and there's not a lot of detail in the frame, plus Merlin is animated in a more comic manner than one might have liked for this great wizard -- yet despite all this, I enjoy the film and the character of young Wart. I love the way Wart is allowed to be such a kid but not in a smartalecky or cute way. He's curious, a bit goofy, a good but sometimes reluctant student, and visually his youthfulness is emphasized by clothes that leave the lad swimming in the excess space. But the clothes that are too big also foreshadow what Wart will eventually grow up to be, a King.

I've never been a fan of the musical interludes in the Disney films (live action or animated) but at least the songs here are minimal and not too annoying. You can, if you choose, watch with the lyrics on screen -- if you feel the need to sing-a-long. Surprisingly, a bonus feature about the song-writing brothers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman proves quite interesting. Their discussion of how they approached writing the songs and the inclusion of two songs that were cut from the final film is well worth checking out. One of the deleted songs is called Magic Key and has Merlin explaining how knowledge is the key, now there's a lesson people could still learn from.

Most of the other bonus features are unimpressive. A gallery of sketches and concept art is enjoyable to scan through but the "All-New Merlin's Magical Academy Game" is pretty lame as it tries to be fun, educational and not to labor intensive for the studio to have produced. There are a pair of shorts included: the so-so Knight for a Day with Goofy and the delightful Brave Little Tailor with Mickey facing a giant (I love the sign at the beginning that warns "Giant at large").

The Sword in the Stone 45th Anniversary Edition (rated G for all audiences) remains a charmer and I'm glad to replace my old VHS with this new edition.

Companion viewing: Excalibur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Camelot, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Shia Le Beouf: If the Jacket Fits…

Teen Critic Candace Kavanagh has been watching Shia Le Beouf's career with interest. (Paramount)

By Candace Kavanagh

(note this post contains spoilers)
Do the words Last Crusade mean anything to George Lucas? Apparently not, since the creator of what was supposed to be the Indy trilogy has now put out a fourth installment for us to sink our teeth into. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has had more hype surrounding it than any action flick of the last five years. The film's websites hovered over the production, trying to catch glimpses of Indy's latest adventure. The hottest topic being the return of Marion Ravenwood played by Karen Allen. The character of Marion Ravenwood originated in the first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark as Indy‘s love interest. But of course it is not her alone that has caused all this buzz. Instead it was the combination of her old face and a new face to the Indiana Jones' films and the big screen overall. The arrival of Shia LaBeouf -- and the implications that come with him -- had filled the movie chat sites for months. Movie geeks everywhere were constantly asking the question, "Is LaBeouf's character truly Indy's and Marion's love child?" If you don't already know the answer... he is. Yes apparently Indy gave life to Mutt, a typical rebellious greaser of the fifties. A tough guy character we haven't really seen from LaBeouf - he usually plays the goofy kid. Unfortunately this seems to be a role he can‘t really pull off.

I have seen Shia LABeouf in action with movies like Tru Confessions. This Disney Channel original movie whose over all quality lacked tremendously, excluding only Shia LaBeouf's performance, which shined above any of his other Disney Channel colleagues. He portrayed a mentally retarded twin brother to the main character, a role that is hardly ventured. His success at this launched him into more eye opening roles like Disney's Holes, a movie based on everybody‘s favorite novel from the fifth grade. Lucky for him this served as doorway to a world completely separate from the Disney world. After he escaped the clutches of the modern day Mickey Mouse Club, he found himself in beautiful movies ranging from Transformers, which opened the door to millions of teen girl crushes, to Bobby, where everyone got to see him experimenting with acid and a kitty litter box. Then came profound movies such as A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, a film that showed Shia LaBeouf‘s depth as he played a young man trying to escape from his hometown of Brooklyn so he could realize his dreams. So we have all seen greatness from this young actor. But in Indy 4, Shia proves that the leather jacket is just too big on him. It's as if this jacket was some kind of demon that possessed him and caused him to shoot off corny lines and play out horribly predictable scenarios. The only happiness coming from the way it reminded me of the Happy Days TV show. Maybe his role was some kind of attempt at combining his trademark goofiness with Johnny Depp's character in Cry Baby. No matter what it was his role in this film bored me to tears. In fact everything else about this film made me wish that the whole thing would be replaced with a marathon of Young Indy, a series filled with more originality than this film, and with Patrick Flannery being much more entertaining than Shia LaBeouf‘s over used act.

But since many of the stars of this film have already obtained stable careers (long live Cate Blanchett), I worry mostly for Shia, whose career is still in its green stage. Although he has already jumped over the biggest obstacle for young actors of today by escaping the realm of the Disney channel, he still has a long way to go before he can be recognized as a well-rounded actor. Recently magazines began labeling him as the Tom Hank's of the younger generation. So at this point it seems that he has met a fork in the road: One way pointing towards Tom Hanks and the other pointing to Harrison Ford. Though Ford's career and reputation may be one of extreme glamour and adventure, maybe the best way for Shia to choose his road would be to look at who still has a respectable career. Let's all hope Shia LaBeouf chooses wisely. Will he work with a mermaid and sports equipment or will he work with an ominous ancient building that may leave you looking for your head? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

-- Candace Kavanagh spends her life absorbing celluloid images. She loves every type of film from so-called "chick flicks" such as My Fair Lady and Legally Blonde, to mind bending thrillers like Mulholland Drive and Hard Candy -- with every zombie movie, action flick, musical, and comedy in between.

Enchanted on DVD

Amy Adams as the formerly animated Giselle in Enchanted. (Disney)

Every time a admit to a personal bias, I get in trouble. But being a film critic does not mean that I go into every film with complete and utter objectively. That would be impossible. Just like everyone who goes to movies, I've got my own personal baggage that I carry around. But since I still believe honesty is the best policy I will confess to a general dislike of modern romantic movies. My idea of a good romance is Shaun of the Dead or The Matrix, or maybe a classic with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Or something by Wong Kar Wai. But anything today that gets promoted as a romantic comedy and features oh-so-cute dimpled stars, makes me shudder in fear. I can't help it, it's just in my DNA. My dad let me watch King Kong and old Warner Brothers gangster movies when I was little and that has forever colored my taste in movies. So when Enchanted (coming out on DVD March 18) came out last year I was relieved when I couldn't fit a screening of the film in. But now it's out on DVD and I have no excuse not to see it.

The Game Plan on DVD

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson serenades Madison Pettis in The Game Plan (Disney)

Since I missed reviewing The Game Plan (out on DVD and Blu-Ray January 22) when it opened in theaters, I thought I would catch up with it on DVD. After all we’re in the midst of a Super Bowl fever that just got deflated for San Diego this past weekend. If the Charger’s play-off game had been a Disney movie, LT would have leaped off the bench in the final reel to lead the team to victory in the closing seconds of the fourth quarter. So for any Charger fans licking their wounds, maybe a football movie with a guaranteed happy ending will serve as consolation.