A Film Affair

For a film that requires little dialogue and covers a topic that should scare mankind, Pixar has created another lovable, funny and thoughtful animation, Wall-e.

Wall-e and Eve watch the sunset.

Director Andrew Stanton has created a fluid animation to suit all age groups, which has an eye opening message about friendship, love and our fragile Earth.

Wall-e is set over 700 years into the future, when the world is void of human, plant or animal life, overrun by garbage and waste. It tells a bleak tale of the hundreds of years of environmental damage done by humans, their greed and consumerism.

Surviving humans have driven themselves off their native planet and are living on a holiday ship, the Axiom. Now obese and confined to hover chairs permanently, these super-sized humans lives are now controlled by computers. The ships useless caption (Jeff Garlin) even knows nothing about his home planet, in a scene where he uses the principles of Google to look up ‘Farm.’

Back on Earth, a small dented robot named Wall-e (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class), voice by Ben Burtt, zips about compacting the waste that has been left. Wall-e and his best friend, a cockroach that he has trained, roam the desolate city collecting Zippo lighters, spare parts and even a green plant that he places in a shoe.

Wall-e spends his nights alone, protected from the dust storms in his home, the back of a truck with his possessions watching “Hello Dolly.” This isn’t the only not-so-sneaky movie reference during Wall-e. Throughout the 95 minute feature film, Sigourney Weaver makes a voice cameo and hilariously there are several references to “2001 – A Space Odyssey” and “Wallace and Gromit.”

The little robots life changes when Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), voice by Elissa Knight, lands on Earth sent from the Axiom. Eve is brand new, sleek and silent robot with a capacity to kill. Her directive is to seek out plant life on Earth. Wall-e finds her beautiful and they soon meet in a oddly cute display of beeps and broken English.

Wall-e unwittingly shows the now playful Eve the plant he had found earlier, she grabs it and falls silent. Her directive is now complete. Wall-e follows Eve back to the Axiom and directly to possibly danger, hundreds of light years away in a display of love and loyalty.

Through animation, Wall-e takes the doom and gloom out of real world topics that the audience is faced with daily. Wall-e doesn’t need death, violence or other Hollywood devices to shine the light on obesity, climate change and gross over-consumerism. It simply uses a friendship to intelligently and humorously prove its point.

Burn After Reading is the latest film from the notoriously brilliant Cohen brothers, who have brought together an all star cast for this witty comic thriller.

The Cohen brothers have utilised the best of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand to create a film that pulls in four different directions at once.

Opening with a Google style map of the US, the camera moves in on the CIA HQ where we quickly meet our angry, isolated and grimacing Osbourne Cox (played by the hilarious John Malkovich). Oz is being demoted from his analyst job with the CIA for his apparent drinking problem. After a Malkovich style rant, where every syllable is properly enunciated (“you-re fuck-ing fir-er-ing me!!”), he quits.

Upon arrival home he declares to his ice queen of a wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton) that he will write his memoirs. Her dry, lack lustre reply of, “Who’d read that?” clinches the scene.

Katie is having a one sided love affair with the sex toy loving, Internetdating and married Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) and has started divorced proceedings. The federal agent, who consistently quips throughout the film, “I could get a run in,” is a pet peeve of Osbourne Cox and just another thing on his hit list.

When a CD of Cox’s seemingly explosive memoirs are found on the floor of HardBodies gym, we are introduced to the films greatest comic reliefs; Chad FeldHeimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand).

The super wannabe cool Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading

Linda is a self-obsessed wannabe, pining for a man and plastic surgery that isn’t covered by her HMO. Chad is a Lycra wearing, pepped, exercise freak, constantly bobbing about to a silent iPod beat. The two best friends believe the memoirs to be “top secret sensitive shit” as Chad so often and eloquently puts it, and try to sell it back to Oz AND the Russians.

The plot throws another spanner in the works when Linda, another serial on line dater, finds herself on a date with Harry. Both are pleasantly ignorant about the paranoia and death that they will soon cause.

The Burn plot is continually checked by scoreless scenes with CIA directives (where the film began). The boss, played by JK Simmons, is amusingly carefree about the shootings, beating and sex that plagues this small group of fools. When it is declared as “no biggie”, the audience begins to notice the Cohen brothers underlying tones. 

Notable performances come from Brad Pitt, who creates a dimwitted character, blissfully ignorant of the web that his equally inept BFF Linda is weaving and from the slightly deranged George Clooney who creates a sleazy, needy and  paranoid out of his dildo wielding character.

This stellar cast produces some food for thought in this typical Cohen brothers film that has a storyline lurches, quick fire editing, relatable characters and dry black humour. The attention to detail is incredible in the film, down to Brad Pitt’s red lyrca skins and the American flag bed sheets and pillow cases that Harry and Katie have sex on.

The film essentially revolves around a small group of needy and deceitful people, that all compensate by sleeping with each other (in a sense). 

The Cohen brothers obvious stab at main stream America, paranoia and national knowledge is funny, dramatic and always just that little bit weird.

Will Smith’s latest Hollywood film, Seven Pounds, is his second collaboration with director Gabriele Muccino to create a powerful human drama. This two-hour film has more than a linear plot, creating a complexity of stories and characters that immerses the audience.

The presumptuousness of the director in this film has turned away many viewers, but for others has created a beautiful insight into the lost art of kindness. 

Seven Pounds weaves external stories into its plot with ease. The plight of protagonist Ben Thomas (played by Smith) and the confusion surrounding his character is evident from the opening scene when he croaks, “In seven days God created the world and in seven seconds, I shattered mine.”

The audience is able to engross themselves in the growing love that forms between Emily Posa (played by Rosario Dawson) and Ben. Short scenes, edited with cuts to candles, rain and the anguish on their faces create an atmosphere of fragility around this secondary storyline.

During Seven Pounds, Will Smith again proves himself as one of Hollywood’s best actors. The 40 year-old has grown immensely since his trademark role as the elastic, fluoro and slapstick Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Smith creates layers to his audacious; charming; kind yet deeply troubled character, Ben. As widely hateable as Ben can be at times, Smith gives him true unforced emotion across his unshaven, lined face.

The relationship that slowly forms between the chronically ill Emily and Ben is nothing short of unrestricted and unquestioning. Their eventual love embraces the audience and leaves them wanting more. Their love is pure escapism for watchers. The stilted piano score that follows their love scenes is perfect in its uncomfortableness. The pianist trips over the keys to reach the next note and eclipses the fragility of their relationship. 

Sometimes a dark and sombre film, Seven Pounds uses flash backs, light and shadow and its title to create a subtle reference to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. As Ben tries to regain his sanity after killing seven people in a car accident, he sets out to dramatically transform seven individuals lives. The film is a beautiful reference to the complexity of human emotion and drama.