Posted on 06/29/2008 5:43:02 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
I saw WALL-E with my five year old on Saturday night. It was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of over consumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment.
All this from mega-company Disney, who wants us to buy WALL-E kitsch for our kids that are manufactured in China at environment-destroying factories and packed in plastic that will take hundreds of year to biodegrade in our landfills.
Much to Disney's chagrin, I will do my part to avoid future environmental armageddon by boycotting any and all WALL-E merchandise and I hope others join my crusade.
Art doesn’t work that way?
I think, insofar as literature or film are considered art (let’s not get carried away calling this movie “art”), it absolutely works that way.
If the NY times savaged “Passion of the Christ” I would be very interested in WHY they savaged it - what they did not like about it - and I would take note.
If they loved “Letters from Iwo Jima” I would do likewise.
When I read liberal commentary on Maya Angelou I know I can skip her. Likewise I have familiarized myself with their attacks on one of my favorites - Rudyard Kipling - so as to be better prepared to defend him.
And that CAN also be extended to other non-literary forms of art.
There is a bronze statute of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin outside a restaurant in Atlantic City called RED SQUARE. It is certainly art and the libs love it it. The world famous photograph of Che Guevara is, actually, a stunning bit of photography artistically speaking. Ya won’t find replicas of either of these in my home.
So when I read a review from NRO and somewhere else (I must admit I forget at the moment) which call the movie WALL-E watermelon dreck (green on the outside - red on the inside) and I read about libs at Kos or DU drooling over it, my desire to see it becomes something less than “I don’t think so”.
We can throw in for good measure the non-ideological fact that, based on the plot, it is the ballsiest piece of cinematic hypocrisy in a long time (a commercal movie, from DISNEY(!!!), with gazillions in kid-targeted marketing potential, lamenting consumerism and corporations).
Just making a point.
It’s a bit different when the propaganda is aimed directly at children who have so little discernment. Bruce Dern’s character in Silent Running was for an adult audience of SciFi folks, and they generally have some degree of discernment with which to reject propaganda. Children just soak it up and incorporate it into their world view ... and that’s precisely why lieberals make movies like Wall-E and Happy Feet.
Fighting for what you beleive in is not.
The humans shown here have been lied to from the get-go. Until they were shown the truth, they didn't know what was going on. I actually saw a pretty conservative message (self-reliance vs. relying on someone/something else) come out of it at the end.
BINGO
Love, friendship, take care of your trash, get off your butt and DO something with your life, DON’T be a TV-screen/PC-screen addict, interact with people face to face...
...these are BAD messages?
I agree. I could just as easily have seen Lenin/Stalin behind that corporate logo.
Loved it.
Ditto
This film is absolutely Art and as are all great films. I tend to seek out good critics as opposed to those who’s opinion I don’t esteem. The NYT has exactly one good film critic and he reviews DVDs mostly of classic films.
It certainly doesn’t seem to be a preachy, as say “Happy Feet” was. Now that movie was preachy.
People who were surprised by ‘Happy Feet’ should’ve been aware of who made a film. Australian filmmaker George Miller is known for the pessimistic ‘Mad Max’ films and ‘Baby: Pig in the City’ which was another children’s film most people found too disturbing.
Art is in the eye of the beholder. I doubt it’s art but you think it is so we’ll leave it at that. Maybe it is. As I said, Che’s photograph is art as well. “Birth of a nation” is considered art by some (as is “Gone with the wind”).
Like you I too look at multiple sources for a film review. I go to Rottentomatoes which I’m sure you have heard of and read a variety of reviews.
All I am saying is that often I will read reviews from those who did not like the film to see what their complaints are. There is an awful lot of wisdom and insight to be found in listening to a personals critiques - whether it be film or politics or relationships.
BOAN is Art. The definition has nothing to do with morality. Anyway I didn’t say avoid those with whom I disagree but only those who’s opinion I don’t esteem. There are way too many good sources for film criticism to spend time at the Daily Kos.
I would say much that could be called “art” definately wanders into the realm of morality or immorality (or at the very least ideology). “Piss Christ” for one. The poetry of Amiri Baraka for another.
And you’re still missing my point and focusing way too much on KOS.
Forget KOS. New example.
My in-laws are total hippie, atheist, greens - and professional poets ta boot!
They love Amiri Baraka and consider him a great “artist”.
He is no such thing. He is an anti-semitic, anti-American, communist pig. His words are not art, they are sewage.
Their opinions on LOTS of other “artistic” expressions runs in a similar vein and the fact they they themselves are “artists” means I am always getting their views on the subject.
So if they told me they “loved” a movie and that it was “art” it would take a whole lot of convincing from other sources to make me want to see the film.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth displayed by moon-bat libs over other movies I have seen (Red Dawn, Passion, Tears of the Sun, We were Soldiers, etc.) we’re very instrumental in me WANTING to see them. Any movie that gets a lib apoplectic must be pretty good. Any movie they kvell so
over might be one to avoid - especially when it involves young, impressionable children.
You can judge people by the company the keep no? You can often judge other things in life - like the quality or message of a movie - by the company they keep as well. Or, more accurately, their world view.
I meant that you don’t have to accept the moral worldview of a film/book/play to appreicate it. I don’t like the tone of petty snobishness in The Great Gatsby or the general socio-political tone of The Grapes of Wrath but that doesn’t mean I don’t like them overall.
In order to tell us it deserves a boycott someone first has to see it- and then pass around the message.
The libs running Disney love this. They pull a lever, and we reflexively lap it up.
Everyone take their Soma Tablet and relax at the Feelies!
If you don't know the implications of that reference by heart then you are part of the problem.
wtf is your problem?
Nice reply!
wtf is your problem?
57 posted on 7/1/2008 6:59:18 AM by Mr. K
Indeed. Such a rude tone it is.
I saw Wall-E last night and did a search to see what other FReepers thought. I thought the film was B-O-R-I-N-G, preachy and too drawn out. Yes, there was spectacular animation in parts but that didn’t make up for the dull predictable story line. Nothing made me sit on the edge of my seat or made me want to cheer. The children in the theater were fidgety — a sure sign they weren’t entertained.
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