Expressed without words

Wall-E is Pixar's greatest film yet.


The real beauty of it is the simplicity.

That so much can be expressed in a film where the two main characters say no words except for each other's names is an inspiring reflection on the human race.

Companionship, joy, surprise, dance, laughter, beauty, fear, purpose, love - all these things can be expressed without words. All these things can be shared across humanity, regardless of background, culture, language or preconceptions.

So this is not only a story about love; it is a story about humanity. More specifically, it is about our place on this planet, and what we are doing to ourselves as a society and as a world.


Wall-E is set 700 years into the future. Earth has been abandoned and the entire human race lives aboard a gigantic pleasure-cruising spacecraft. Everything is comfortable, every need is taken care of, every amenity is provided. Everything runs according to the pleasant and monotonous daily routine of "perfection".

But in that routine, life of course loses all meaning. If everything stays the same, and there is no challenge or surprise, then what's the point?

The sad reality is, right now, for many people, that kind of life is what they are striving for. We plug in our iPods, shut ourselves off on our daily commute, play our trivial games on our phones, go through our day’s work, eat our microwave food, watch our on-demand TV, absorb some advertising, then repeat. We spend far too much time on making trivial choices and enjoying completely superficial entertainment, slowly making things more and more comfortable and convenient for the next generation.

That can’t possibly be our purpose on this planet. That can’t possibly bring us real joy, fulfilment and happiness.

In the film, the real joy comes when humanity realises that no matter how difficult it will be, it must return to earth, cultivate the planet, take action, strive to become at one with the ecosystem of our world once more, and to reconstruct a society based on human passion and endeavour.

This is the real important message of the film: Joy doesn’t come from routine or comfort, it comes from seeking new adventure, challenging ourselves, finding a greater purpose, working together to achieve something that at first may seem almost impossible.

How am I not myself?

Finally saw I Heart Huckabees tonight! Been trying to persuade Lewis for about a year to lend me the DVD after catching a glimpse of it before Wee Steve rejected it on moral grounds in favour of Bill Murray in a blue wet suit.

Anyway, it was a great film (Huckabees, not A Life Aquatic). Very quirky and amusing and with lots of questions and possibly some answers about the meaning of life and other such nonsense. Very Kaufman-esque so you'll like it if that's your sort of thing.

Was home at the weekend for some truly scrumptious nosh made by my sister - a massive roast chicken with Spanish-style potatoes and green beans grown by my mum. Mmmm. Then on Sunday had another roast chicken! This time cooked by Matt and Mark (friends from Uni in Edinburgh) and served up with proper yorkshire puds. Two roast dinners in a weekend - not bad going at all. Also went to see an exhibition of Francis Bacon paintings at the Scottish Museum of Modern Art - lots of weird distorted faces, kind of interesting. But the best thing was this artist who had made a huge list of the names of everybody he could remember meeting in his life. There were about 1500 I think. Totally pointless really, but I quite liked it.

Met up with Andrew and Lewis on Monday for lunch in a "traditional" American diner on the Royal Mile, called The Filling Station. Not quite the real thing, but close enough and resulted in a traditional for me extended lunch break from work. We were discussing plans to go to Germany for Oktoberfest and came to the conclusion (not sure that I totally agree) that it's probably best to go later on instead, like December or something. Then we can get a bigger group together, plan it a bit better and it won't be in the first week of Uni. Sensible I suppose. And I could use the saved money to get a much-needed laptop for Uni. I can't believe I've lived more than a year without my own computer. You wouldn't have thought it possible. Anyway, it's led me to the conclusion that I definitely need to get one and stop scrounging off other people! Also, we finish for Christmas on December 2nd so that's loads of time for holidaying!! (and of course project work but not thinking about that just now)

Been discussing with Helen some plans for next summer when she'll be in the UK. We're going to do a little bit of a trip around eastern Europe - Czech Republic, Hungaray, Croatia, that kind of thing. Should be good fun and hopefully can rope a few other people into that too. Apparently the next Bay Area RoKS conference (AIESEC thing that got me and Wee Steve brain washed) is going to be in Lake Tahoe (well not in the lake itself, obviously). I wonder if they'll be able to live up to our legendary weekend trip there. Just as long as they be careful not to steal sweets and break torchiers! They won't have Steve running around naked in the snow so at least that's something, but I bet they also won't have power hours with fruit bowls full of very cheap wine. Which reminds me, I must see about getting involved in AIESEC Edinburgh and shake them into action. Get Golden UK (Get Pasty I think we were going to call it) needs to come about!!

Tomorrow - Tom back so it's not just me and some mystery person in the flat anymore (I swear they made a Kinder Egg toy and left it in the flat while I was at work today) So I'll have my sanity back. Actually, maybe not, it is Tom. We shall see. What fun is life without a bit of insanity anyway? You all know that.

Wah-Wah World Premiere

Richard E. Grant and co!!!!!

The Edinburgh International Film Festival began today with the world premiere of Wah-Wah - a mostly autobiographical film written and directed by the legend that is Richard E. Grant about his childhood in Swaziland.

And he was there!!! As you can so clearly see in this wonderful picture. He gave a nice little speech at the start introducing the other main members of the cast. Then he buggered off to probably go celebrate a great film, to much applause from us all.

The film was excellent. It tells the story of Grant, aged 12-15, trying to cope with his father who turned to alcoholism after his mother left them (superbly frightening drunk-acting from Gabriel Byrne. Now we know why Grant doesn't touch alcohol.) On top of that there's the conflict created by his father's second wife (played brilliantly by Emily Watson). Very, very moving (I was promised by the EIFF art directory that I would cry and he was right) but with lots of funny moments too (mostly Watson's brilliant mocking of British upper class, which is where the title comes from, her character describing it as a load of "Wah-Wah").

If the standard's this high for all the festival films I want to see at least one a day!!

Flat-moving in tomorrow though!!!

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Awesome. They've done it.

Lewis and I last night went to see the final episode of the Star Wars saga (for the time being anyway). We saw it at the Metreon in San Francisco on one of their massive digital projector screens. Being opening day there were of course huge crowds and queues, although not as many costumes as I'd liked to have seen. Maybe the 12.01am showing would have been better than the 7pm showing we were at for that, but alas it sold out too quickly. So we got their at about 6pm to join the line of about 500 people. Understandably, this led to us sitting smack-bam in the front of the theatre (Lewis got his leg-room anyway!). It just made the film even more immersive.

They have done it right this time. This is what Star Wars should be. It was awesome. Emotional and nerve-racking. Massive dazzling space battles, lots of one-on-one light sabre duels, inner struggles, crushed friendships, the rise of Darth Vader, and then of course some occasional comedy from R2-D2 and C-3PO. The story is of course absolutely solid. Everything just fits into place so well and there are some great strokes of genius in how it plays out. Despite knowing what is going to happen, the amount of tension and emotion the film instills is just incredible.

Anakin's fall to the dark side is tragically painful to watch, portrayed superbly by Hayden Christensen. Both him, and Ewan McGregor in the role of Obi-Wan have seem very comfortable in their roles and the chemistry created between the two characters throughout the film is just perfect. The relationship between Padme (Natalie Portman) and Anakin is now believable and sincere, rather than the cringe-inspiring form it took in the previous films. These two relationships make watching Anakin's betrayel of everything he knows overwhelmingly upsetting to watch, just as it should be.

I am so happy about this film. There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the great Star Wars films, up there with the originals. You don't even need the first two. George Lucas, you have redeemed yourself. This is what it is all about. It is an absolute joy to lose yourself in the Star Wars world again. Thank you!!

Film Review: Robots

Oh dear.

I knew outright this was going to be bad (after seeing some pretty un-funny trailers) but somehow Lewis convinced me to go. I thought I'd give it a shot.

And I didn't like it from the very start. The jokes were mostly unfunny and mostly crap one-liners which I suspect were taken from other films. The story was very predictable and offered no surprises or suspense. The whole film just didn't flow very well and I found it kind of annoying. OK, some of the contraptions they came up with for Robot City were pretty cool and there were occasional funny bits (the lampost death scene springs to mind) and Robin Williams added a bit to the film, but overall I'd say it was very poor (much like Ice Age). Maybe it's just targetted too much at young children. Nowhere near the same league as any Pixar film. I feel bad even comparing it to them.

Anyway, the trip to the cinema wasn't entirely wasted. Not at all. Because I got to see *the best* trailer for Star Wars: Episode III. It looks absolutely incredible. This is what Star Wars is all about. This will piece everything together. Anakin turning to the dark side, the Republic turning its back on the Jedi, the formation of the Empire. It looks totally stunning. I am *extremely* excited. I've got that feeling back from when I saw the first trailers for Episode I. When I saw the words scrolling up the screen again. When yoda unveiled his light sabre. When we saw the clone army marching onto the ships. Whenever I hear the Star Wars music. I really am a sucker for the Star Wars universe. Hmmm. I wonder if I can get a Storm Trooper costume for the premiere in LA? :-)

WOW - this was actually the movie theatre premier of the full-length trailer!! (today, before Robots. NOW I am really glad I went to see Robots) It was first shown yesterday on TV during the OC. It can be downloaded from www.starwars.com but you have to pay. It will be available to all on March 14th!!! MY BIRTHDAY!! WOW. Although the large screen version will still only be available for members. I expect it'll be all over the net though.

Sorry. Enough about Star Wars now. I'm going to get carried away.

Pixar

Entrance to Pixar Studios

Pixar Animation Studios. Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles. They are the best animation studio in the world. And Lewis, Declan and I visited them on Friday.

It was an incredibly cool building. Upon entering the building, which is styled like a huge warehouse, you are greeted by a giant model of The Incredibles characters fronting a spacious central area for meetings, games, paper aeroplane competitions and free food and beer on Fridays. The building is split in two by this space, with creative work on one side and technical on the other (funny how they segregate them!) and a state of the art cinema at the back. Then there are people wizzing about on scooters all over the place, and artwork and storyboards all over the walls.

With around 700 employees, Pixar currently have 3 films in the pipeline, the only one to be announced being Cars, coming out next summer. They are very secretive about the other films. Any reference we saw to them was simply "JLP Project" (JLP being the director of one of them) and most of the building was cordoned off with signs saying "Closed production area. No visitors except with permission of the director." They really weren't giving anything away.

We saw their "Renderfarm" - a huge supercomputer with around 2000 Intel CPUs running their Renderman software on Linux. They used to use Sun stuff, but Intel+Linux is more cost-effective for them now. Each frame of animation takes around 5 CPU hours to compute (so that's 120 hours per second!!) Interestingly, Pixar's Renderman software is used in just about every film that includes animation or special effects and has won a technical Oscar. It's even sold to ILM for the Star Wars films (who Pixar originally spun off from). You can buy it for about $5000 per CPU.

It looks like an amazing place to work, with lots of hugely creative people and a really great company spirit.

Much thanks to Martin Reddy for showing us around!

P.S. And thanks to Stuart for setting this up.