Wall-E DVD review - part 1
I did not get sent a review disc, but saw this one in Morrisons on Sunday in a two for one offer on Disney films. There weren't many classics, but picked up Ratatouille which I could watch a fair few more times yet, and Wall*E. It's not just that I like to be able to watch it on TV but I have a vague idea that if I had grandkids one day it'd be great to be able to show them the box.. 'what, you have the original cardboard box! These things used to be physical! Wow!). And box indeed it is, packed in the weirdest cardboard container I've yet seen. It was partly the checkout guy who stuffed the DVD in the case in a strange way, which took me a few minutes to figure out how to unpack so as to get the DVD out without ripping the box. But then, joy!
Kind of. A collection of further pieces of cardboard with various promotional leaflets, and some strange folds to suggest you should be able to fold this into your own Wall*e or at least a DVD case. But the main interest is the discs inside.
The first one, disc two, (i know that's the second one, but it was the first one i looked at, :) had the extras, and was packed. on my tv with dodgy dvd player missing it's remote, i couldn't do much but choose the top thing on each page, which took me to an interesting documentary on how they shot the film and tried to emulate the 70mm Panavision lenses that space epics like 2001 were shot on. As British cinematographer Roger Deakins, who alonside Star War's DP Dennis Murren, was a consultant on photography on the film, says how after decades of trying to remove the slightest flaws in the lenses, the computer guys are busting to recreate the errors in a flawless CGI environment, so as to make it feel more real. It's certainly an incredible landscape, stunningly lit and shot, and makes a stark contrast with Pixar's other human-centric film - The Incredibles, from a director, Brad Bird, whose background was in 2D animation (with the excellent Iron Man). We get to see Deakins lead a lighting workshop, and we get into a discussion on the effect of pulling focus on 70mm lense to image proportions. Certainly not family entertainment, in the best possible way!
I then go to the Buy N Large shorts, which are for the most part disapointing. Having spent hours pouring over the fake Buy N Large website I was expecting great things - the Buy N Large site out-Jams Chris Morris, and out-sautés The Onion, with it's morbid yet hillarious look at a world where one company controls Absolutely Everything.
I mean this is the part of the tale that always made me extra excited about Wall*E - that here was a major mass market family blockbuster, whose central idea is that unfettered mass globallised capitalism will wipe out all life, and whose Happy Meal toys would one day be piled to the sky on an empty, devestated planet. It was brave and I felt signalled a change, or at least a recognition that a change was necessary, as evidence by the mass popular support and election of Obama.
Then there was an incredibly fascinating documentary - the near-feature length The Pixar Story,is Lesley Iwerk's in depth and wide ranging look at the history of Pixar, who are as significant technologically as well as creatively. There's everyone here - Lucas, Steve Jobs, Roy Disney and lots of inside video from Pixar, such as a monster paper aeroplane contest day, and Brad Bird's first day at work. It's a great story about what it feels like to be a pioneer in something, to battle against the odds, against orthadoxy and mistrust, and to create something special at the end of it.
Anyway, as I sit here now, ready to watch Disc One I am a little apprehensive. The last time I saw this film, it, well, it sent me a bit crazy. Sounds strange I know, but I left the cinema, so unable to cope with what I had just seen that I sat on the edge of a car park and debated whether or not I should go and check myself into a hospital or not. A while passed as I considered it - in the end I got the bus back to Glasgow, had a free mentor session at the brilliant Glasgow Culturual Enterprise Office, ate some Chinese and walked home in the sun. I took a nap and then got an email saying Netribution had received it's first ever public funding - a £15k investment in a resarch study by the Technology Strategy Board. After that I put such thoughts of asylums behind me and, well, jumped for joy.
So back to the film. I will, one day, I hope, explain the sequence of events and films, all watched at the Edinburgh FIlm Festival 2008, that led to me watching Wall*E last and considering such thoughts. But until then I must watch it so I can write my review.