MUST SEE WALL E

Last night my son mentioned going to see Wall-E, always ahead of us in music and film but his choices not necessarily always in the realm of our interest, or vice versa. Then reviews this morning from Frank Rich of the New York Times sealed the deal. My husband is an artist and loves Pixar films, but I'm only thinking CARS was fun because I was with my two grandsons. But no, Pixar has come up with a film that as Frank Rich today in the New York Times, states is an enormous box office Independence Weekend success, similar to Farrenheit 9/11 which prior to this had the largest summer weekend success. 2004, Rich points out, looks like the good old days compared to now: Today Oil is $140/barrell compared to $38/barrell then; The June 2008 stock market has taken its greatest dive since the depression, there are layoffs and forclosures across all income line and no end in sight. WALL-E, Rich describes as a robot meets robot lovestory set in the smoldering and abandoned earth of the year 2700; he observes the effect on the young audience predominantly under 12 with the film featuring visual and musical similarities to the film 2001:A Space Oddysey; he points out that it's a story not about good over evil but an awakening, an inspiration to take care of the world as we know it before time runs out.

Rich began the article talking about getting away from the 24/7 coverage of the presidential campaign, it's clatter and crass filling our lives claiming to represent the real world, but his take on WALL-E is this is where we can find more reality about the world, any semblance of truth. Further he thinks Obama and McCain should see this film, as they have both slide into the complacency of their candidacies looking to dodge and weave their way into the white house. Who doesn't find it alarming to consider Obama using Mark Penn and other Clinton staffers and directing his campaign towards the middle to pander votes.

It's hard not to see I have noticed since Obama's candidacy nomination the deft oppotunistic moves away from his stand on government snooping, and conditions on ending the war using the "the generals to inform his decisions when I am President". Trying to be everyman's man just never has really worked, just like Lincoln said: " You can fool some of the people some of the time..." Impossible to tolerate it seems to me. It's like the Safeway/Clintons or Bush moved out of the shopping center and Albertsons /Obama or McCain moved in and life goes on. Trying hard not to notice but can't help but see the Vice Presidency issue is huge this time around.

Nora Ephron today in the Huffington Post had a column on Gore as the Vice Presidential candidate with all the attributes Obama needs, especially his strong immutable stake in all the important issues of our times. He wouldn't change jerseys no matter what was required of him I'm thinking.

But back to Rich who had somethings to say about McCain that rang true also. The real problem with McCain is not his age in terms of number of years, he says, but his rigidity and the fact that he is willing to not do as much as develop computer skills to engage with the rest of the world, and remains in fixed position where flexible and creative thinking is the very least we can have with the new leader of the Western world.

So we will be off to WALL-E and what I'm wanting from the film is that there is the renewal of spirit to buttress people to withstand the campaign propoganda to determine their own information and action to take to back that up. The cable network is selling us on news while they sell cars, drugs and other network shows. Back to the Safeway analogy, when we go to the store, we decide on the product we want that suits us and know all the clerks are there making a living and don't know what we need or want. We'd hardly be looking to them to guide our decisions or pocketbooks; same is true for all of the self important newscasters with their opinions and selling points toward some position that has a lifespan of 5 minutes till the next thing comes along. We're on our own here.