I find that the Los Angeles Film Critics Association is truly one of my favorites because they tend to dare to be daring. Their choice for best picture of 2008? Wall-E! I can't emphasize it enough ladies and gentlemen, Wall-E is truly an important film. I remember seeing it on opening day over the summer and thinking to myself how different what I was watching truly was. I remember not hearing any dialogue at all for the first 40 minutes or so of the film and yet being utterly captivated. I remember receiving a clear warning message from Andrew Stanton, the director, about our irresponsible mass consumerism and our disrespect for ourselves and our environment. At that point I realized, like most Pixar films, that this is not a kids movie at all, but an important film for all ages. I wondered to myself if the children in the audience were getting the point. Even more so, I wondered if the adults were getting the point. As I left the theater that afternoon, I knew I had seen film history made. So many issues that are addressed in the series finale of this class are also addressed in Andrew Stanton's masterpiece Wall-E. It's rare that an animated film would be a pivotal reference in AP World History, but this one is. I must also say that the love story between Wall-E and EVE is absolutely beautiful in every way. Hollywood so often feels the need to be crude and dirty and condescending to the intelligence of both sexes in its love stories sadly. Wall-E actually never falls into that trap. I personally feel that so much of the relationship between Wall-E and EVE in the film is something that all of us can relate too. In fact, the scene in outer space with our two characters and the fire extinguisher is truly one of the most beautiful love scenes you'll ever see on film. I think the bond that develops between the two of them is something that we all desire to have with someone. The fact that we're seriously talking about animated robots here is evidence that Wall-E is a truly remarkable film. I salute the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for this daring choice. Keep in mind that the LAFCA has never awarded an animated film in its history, therefore proving this is not simply a cartoon. The rest of their awards can be seen below...Picture: “Wall-E”
Runner-up: “The Dark Knight”
Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, “The Dark Knight”
Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk”
Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
Actress: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Runner-up: Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Supporting actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Supporting actress: Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and “Elegy”
Runner-up: Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Screenplay: Mike Leigh, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, “Synecdoche, New York”
Foreign-language film: “Still Life”
Runner-up: “The Class”
Documentary: “Man on Wire”
Runner-up: “Waltz With Bashir”
Animation: “Waltz With Bashir”
Cinematography: Yu Lik Wai, “Still Life”
Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Production design: Mark Friedberg, “Synecdoche, New York”
Runner-up: Nathan Crowley, “The Dark Knight”
Music/score: A.R. Rahman, “Slumdog Millionaire”
Runner-up: Alexandre Desplat, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
So there you have it. Now we seriously have a race! Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Doubt, and now Wall-E all seem to be strong contenders in the Best Picture race. And where the heck is Reservation Road? I wouldn't be surprised if that film experiences a surge later, but it looks pretty flat at the moment. The appearance of Wall-E makes things very interesting all of a sudden. Could an animated film actually get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars? This has only happened once in the history of the award, and that was in 1991 when Beauty and the Beast was nominated. Since the animated feature category was added in 2001 though, it has appeared nearly impossible for an animated feature to get a Best Picture nod. Could Wall-E break the mold? Up next: the New York Film Critics Circle announces their awards tomorrow. They tend to vote a bit different from LA usually, so I'm interested to see what they chime in with.
29 comments:
I'm so happy Wall-E won!
That is definitely one of my favorite movies. Like I've said before, Ive seen it twice in theaters. I loevd how it taught such an important message at the time we needed it the most.
that's why film is such a beautiful art medium. it's a true reflection of society at any given time.
Wow prill when I read the title...I started getting scared that you might dis MY FAVORITE MOVIE but then I actually read the post and agreed with everything you said.....I also saw all of that when I watched it opening day too.
it might be the first animated movie to win LAFCA but I was wondering is it also the first movie in Prill history that you enjoyed that was DISNEY??!
That is great!
I just finished reading a book for my nonfiction L.A. project titled The Pixar Touch:The Making of a Company. It showed a history of computer animation as it chronicled Ed Catmull from garage to current. The book shows the complex relationship with the media giant, DISNEY, and how the two companies, which would later merge, clashed. It more importantly demonstrates that in order for change for the better we must perservere and INNOVATE ourselves even if others are dubtuful. Before Pixar made Toy Story, they were not well-known and they were not profitable. Steve Jobs, who owned the majority of Pixar stock, was more interested in making an Image Processing computer that would be able to render and print out 3-d images. The market just wasn't there, and the true intentions and dreams of the cofounders of Pixar were to make computer animated films, something which seemed unreasonable to most. Toy Story was a surprise hit, Disney did not expect it to do well and were taking a risk they thought by even supporting it.
Pixar seems to be able to make films for everybody, and they make films with powerful messages. I respect Pixar much more than Dreamworks, Shrek poopjokes doesn't deserve much respect I don't think. I was more impressed with Kung-Fu Panda with its Chinese style art and theme, yet the story was pretty flat. Months before release, the toy licenses to Toy Story had not even been licensed! Nobody wanted the license! And it was a movie about toys! A small toy company bought the license very late in the game. I can let you borrow it Prill, its a very informative read about the revolution of the film industry brought about by Pixar. Let me know if your interested and I'll bring it to school. It's by David A. Price, and he wrote another book Love and Hate in Jamestown.
miss beck, as long as disney stays away from history, i'm usually ok with their product. however, the real studio behind wall-e, and other classics like ratatouille, toy story, finding nemo, and the incredibles, is PIXAR. disney is merely their bankroll. pixar films are usually of high quality because they never insult their audience's intelligence. they realize that you don't have to have pop culture and fart jokes every 5 seconds and that the real key to good filmmaking is an intelligent script. that's why i like pixar and never miss a premiere.
thanks for the history mr. livaditis. i'd definitely be interested in reading that book over break. oh, and in answer to your question on my other blog, i plan on reading the rest of oracle bones during the break too.
Technically Wall-e is a Disney movie because Disney now owns Pixar, but Pixar made Wall-e. It is a Pixar film. In the book I was talking about, this was the basis on the feuds between Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney at the time , and Jobs. Jobs thought Pixar was not getting enough enough recognition for its work. Everyone thought Toy STory and Disney. Disney was the distributor, and without them Toy Story would not have been made. Jobs was threatining to never make a future contract with Disey, but Disney held the sequel rights and could make any sequels to Pixar movies without any Pixar involvement. So, I sort of cringed when you said DISNEY?!? While Pixar was bought buy Disney for a whole bunch of money, it signified John Lassetter, creator of Toy Story, coming in and reforming the company. What a lot of people don't realize is that Disney is a lot more than movies and Mickey Mouse, for example they own ABC. So I guess you could say Lost is Disney?
all quite true... but i always like to make sure that a clear distinction is made between pixar and disney. the reason for this being that disney still has it's own animation department and the films tend to be very sub-par, especially when compared to pixar. in my opinion, disney animation studios hasn't produced a decent film since the lion king. and yes, disney owns abc and a ton of other media outlets. disney owns espn actually. so i guess you could say that sunday night football game of the week is also disney?
Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at, when Ashley said "Disney!?!!?", I sort of cringed. You can see the difference in Disney and Pixar in their two movies out recently. Bolt vs. Wall-E. I didn't know Disney owned ESPN.
wow. i didn't know a deep message could come out of cartoon movie but I should go see Wall-e. I never saw it =[
omg. Ok, so i'm watching natgeo on tv and one of the historians used "disillusioned" to describe the crusades. How cool is that? someone other than Mr. Prill uses that! and to describe the Crusades.
I'm really excited that Wall-E won. I like how it taught such an important message. It helped me to really realize some of the major problems in the world. However, i went to see the movie with my five-year-old cousin and it went over her head and she didn't like it very much and did not understand it at all.
Yeah! Wall-E is such a good movie. Possibly my favorite. Its not just a kids movie, it has deep meaning behind it.
WOW. I think its pretty cool that Wall-E got best picture. When is the last time an animated film got compared to a live action film. I dont even think ever that an animated film has EVER got best picutre. It kind of shows the power of this photo. I havent seen this movie but i think this pic captivated me to go and watch this to see the message behind all this
WHOO!! Go wall-e. That's awesome that they won, and wow. I really didn't think about all the messages it did try to show us, historically. I got the environment messgae, but still, i love that Disney did that. And yeah!! Eve and Wall-e were so adorable. haha
due wale was a really good movie with a good message
I love Wall-e! I'm so glad that it won!
I really agreed with the message that its putting out there. Wall-e really touched me, and I think it is one of my favorite movies.
Oh yeah, and I also thought that that movie Milk looked really interesting. I think I want to see that too.
I remember watching the Spike TV Awards, forget the real name for it, but it was really awesome. Tim Burton flew in in a hot air balloon, freakin awesome! I think Heath Ledger also won for supporting actor for the role in "The Dark Knight" there too. So I definitely agree with both awards, that was an excellent role. Never saw Wall-E, but I've wanted to, I'll look forward to watching that in the future, and Slumdog Millionaire sounds like an interesting movie to watch as well.
yea wll-e was a cool movie but idk know you went saw that mr p
I have never seen wall-e, but i now plan on seeing it. Maybe that can be my christmas present for my sister. Hehe. I agree with everyone that Pixar films are much better than disney ones. I loved lion king when i was little, but now my favorite animated movies are ones made by pixar, such as the incredibles, finding nemo, and toy story. I'n not really sure how the movies are chosen for these awards, but I think it's interesting that an animated movie would win over other "adult" movies.
i've never seen Wall-E, so i didn't ralise it was political or whatever. i just thought people were making a big deal out of a cute robot, as they have with other cartoon movies. ok that makes more sense.
that would have been really sad though if it got best picture...and it was only about a cute robot...
I never actually got the chance to see Wall-E. I wanted to, but it was one of those movies that all my friends didnt want to, so i didnt really desire to see it by myself.
I will definatly try to see it, since it is of so importance refrence to world history! And that there is a message coming from it.
I think Batman should have won. Wall-e was a good movie, and it did make you think, but batman was much more entertaining. I'm so glad heath ledger won. Every scene he was in was amazing. He really brought the joker character to life.
I don't see how they are able to pick a single best picture. I don't get how people can compare a movie like wall-e and the dark knight to each other and then make a decision about which is better. The two movies are absolutely nothing alike and there is no way anybody can compare a kids animated movie and an action movie
ha. prill.
you remind me of an extra smart little kid with how you like these kinds of movies, but you take them more into perspective.
you like to find the inner story of it all.
but im glad this movie won.
it was adorable:]
its kinda scary to think of the world like the one in walle but it is a great film and i think it gave us humans a great insight into what will happen to the world if we dont take care of it
i dont think wall-e got the expected response from its intended audience (young kids), but got better reviews from more mature viewers because of its deep meaning. for instance, my little sister said she didnt like it b/c it was "boring" and she didnt understand it, but yet it will probably be what i get my dad for christmas (weird, i know but he liked it :)). it nice to see wall-e is getting credit for is truly genious storyline. plus the added hollywood romance was cute :)
i still have yet to see this as i have said in a later post.. but my sister seems to love it. i asked her and her resonse was they are so cute!! hah but reading this makes me want to make a blockbuster run! hah!
Post a Comment