My partner and I saw Wall-E on Sunday and both really liked it (although it’s hard not to like everything made by Pixar).

At its core, the film says something deep and moving about the power of love. I have to say, though, that the love it evoked was more akin to that between man and dog, than romantic love between humans.

Why?

• it’s clear that after 700 years of almost complete loneliness, Wall-E was starving for companionship more than anything else (I suppose the cockroach didn’t cut it)
• Wall-E became enamored of EVE almost instantaneously, simply because “she” displayed some sentience (again, the poor cockroach)
• except for playing around (with his toys and a fire extinguisher), Wall-E’s sole interest is in getting attention from EVE; he’s oblivious to just about everything else
• his only intimate contact with EVE was by holding her hand; a dog lapping up his master’s face is, frankly, more affectionate

I’m not disparaging the movie at all. I’m just wondering if adults are seeing what they want to see. I’d imagine children imagine an entirely different relationship between Wall-E and EVE, one that probably doesn’t involve the sort of activities that would lead to EVE’s pregnancy and nursing baby robots from her USB port.

I think what capture’s adult imaginations so strongly is Wall-E’s cheery innocence, his dedication to duty after hundreds of years of solitude, and his loyal sweetness towards a robot normally defined in terms of its “directive” rather than its essence. This is a robot that has taken his share of punches from everyone and still has the irrepressible curiosity and playfulness of a newborn puppy. And seeing a pet melt the heart of someone hardened by reality always pulls at our heartstrings, and, likewise, it’s seeing EVE’s transformation that surprises us and warms our heart; after all, Wall-E doesn’t change at all.

Here’s the trailer. If Pixar movies make your heart swell, you won’t be disappointed by Wall-E.

M. Night Shyamalan - you either love him or you hate him. I belong to the former category. Sure, we all loved The Sixth Sense. But true fans also enjoyed Unbreakable, The Village, and The Lady in the Water. I loved them all. (I passed on Signs - oh, how I loathe Mel Gibson).

I think the premises of his movies since Sixth haven’t been quite as surprising, but there is still sweet magical quality that he imbues to all of his movies that resonates with me, and probably with many of his fans that have stuck with the director even when the tomatoes went rotten. No one seems to make dark and eerie feel so compelling, either; he has a great sense for lighting, timing and score.

Harmony Korine (Kids, Gummo) has said we tend to remember characters in a movie long after we’ve forgotten the plot, which explains why his later films tend to be meandering and plotless, but provide deep studies into the main characters’ temperament. I would go a little further and say that great movies will leave a lasting impression of a feeling or sensation, either adrenaline-infused terror from a great horror flick (my boyfriend’s hands still get sweaty at the mere mention of 28 Days Later) or the warm, sunny optimism of a sanguine feel-good flick like As Good As It Gets, long after you’ve forgotten the nuts and bolts of the storyline.
Shyamalan’s new apocalyptic thriller, The Happening, opens at the end of this week (Friday the 13th). Here’s a trailer:

I’m embedding but not watching - I need for this to be the surprise that The Sixth Sense was when I watched it (I was living in Eastern Europe at the time, so I was thankfully sheltered from the buzz around it.) I also studiously avoided any trailers and writeups about his later films and thanked myself later.