This summer I have been teaching science at CV's Summer Reading Academy (a.k.a. *summer school*). The focus is strictly on reading and language arts. This is my fifth summer teaching science. Science has been split into two classes, and my partner teacher, Karen, and I, have organized our classes into a lecture followed by a lab. Last week was an introduction to the Scientific Method and this week in Earth Science we're studying weather forecasting (yesterday) and today's subject, fossils.
When Clay Sings, tells the story of Indian pottery lying in the sands of the desert of the American Southwest. This pottery cries out with stories from the lives, customs, and thoughts of the people. The legacy of their lives are wrapped up in the art. The beautiful Indian artwork on each page matches the lyrical, imagery effect of the text. A great book for introducing children to Indian heritage or pottery in general.
This afternoon, I suggested that we (Claire and I) head to the theater to catch a movie. We both wanted to see Disney-Pixar's latest offering, Wall-E. Claire's foot is still a bit tender from last night with the stitches and all, and with our crazy neighbor, hanging around the apartments just didn't sound like such a great idea. So off to the movies we went.
We stopped at the mall on the way to browse the toystore and see what toys from the movie were out. Surprisingly, not many. And I found out at the Information desk that the Disney Store was no longer in the mall. Is that possible?!? Anyhow, we found a small display for the movie with just a few toys and Claire picked out one that had both the main characters (Wall-E and Eve).
From the mall we drove to the theater and showed up just as the previews were underway. The movie turned out to be great! Not much dialogue, but a real heartwarming story. I was a bit skeptical about this movie, but I left impressed. If you're able, bring your kids or just enjoy a date at Wall-E.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-07-01-wall-e-breaks-the-rules_N.htm
'WALL-E' Turns Animation On Its Head
Forget Isaac Asimov's famous Laws of Robotics. WALL·E's biggest accomplishment may be defying the Laws of Computer Animation.
In a medium that has become formulaic — mix furry critters with celebrity voices, add a dash of pop-culture snark — the Disney/Pixar film has been praised for taking new risks.
MORE: Is Oscar within WALL-E's reach?
Much has been made already of the film's lack of dialogue, communicating its robot love story largely through pantomime. Here are some other ways WALL·E may surprise:
•It's the end of the world, kids. Few family-friendly films can claim a post-apocalyptic wasteland as a setting. In WALL·E, Earth is a cinder, humans are gone, and the trash-collecting robot does his futile duty in a vast landscape of destruction.
"What makes it different is that it has a much darker vision than it looks like on the surface," says Annalee Newitz, editor of the sci-fi website io9.com. "Some of the dystopian elements are between the lines, but if you watch carefully, you realize that all the humans on Earth are destroyed, implicitly."
WALL·E filmmaker Andrew Stanton says that was a way to make the little robot lonely, so he'd be excited when the sleek vegetation-seeking probe EVE arrives to see if the planet is habitable again for the humans still alive aboard a distant space cruiser.
"I didn't think it was scary. I thought it was sad," Stanton says. "To me, the ultimate definition of futility is some machine doing its job for centuries and not knowing it was all a waste of time. As a storyteller, that's gold."
•Real man, computerized world. It used to be novel to add combine animation to live action (dancing penguins in Mary Poppins). Now, it's surprising to see a flesh-and-blood Fred Willard, seen in video footage from centuries before, when the world was just beginning to die out.
Willard, known for Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, says he's proud to be a live-action trailblazer, the first in a Pixar film. "I'm so glad it's very successful. Then everyone is happy and they don't second-guess what they could have done: 'Maybe we shouldn't have had Fred in it …'"
Casting a real actor helped balance out WALL·E's other pastime — watching a video of Hello, Dolly!.
"It was born out of necessity," Stanton says. "I had WALL·E watching an old movie, which forced me to show footage of real human beings, and it set a precedent: Any time you look at old footage, it should be regular human beings."
When WALLE encounters the spaceship humans, they are big blobs from a combination of laziness, overeating and zero-gravity. "I made that the dividing line," Stanton says. "They've changed 700 years later to look like big babies so I can make them CG."
Newitz of io9.com says the classic-movie-musical bit is yet another way the movie surprises. "WALL·E is able to tell you this horrible, awful scary story about humans dying off but has a hopeful feel to it. It defies the usual human vs. robots story, where the robots are usually the bad guys," she says. "Terminators were not watching Hello, Dolly!."
•Jettisoning the celebs. Curb Your Enthusiasm's Jeff Garlin supplies the voice of a tubby human ship captain, and Pixar regular John Ratzenberger (Cheers) turns up as a doughy passenger, but those are supporting roles.
While many animated movies boast a roster of A-listers, often used mainly as a marketing tool.
"That can easily be used as a crutch," says Stanton, who used Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks in his Finding Nemo. "It's not a bad thing in general, because there's a reason they are famous — they're entertaining and talented. The thing that bothers me is that it's mandatory."
•Eliminating anti-gravity. What could the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of No Country for Old Men and O Brother, Where Art Thou have to say about bringing WALL·E to life?
Stanton turned to acclaimed Roger Deakins for advice on realistic camera moves, such as adjusting focus instead of switching shots to create a sense of intimacy, in such scenes as WALL·E showing EVE his collection of bric-a-brac.
Deakins also explained how to make the shots more realistic by adding restrictions — the laws of physics that usually don't apply to animation.
"I don't like putting the camera in a situation where the viewer couldn't be. It puts the audience out of the film," Deakins says.
"On WALL·E, they wanted what is natural. In other animation, you can do anything you want, but there are restrictions in the real world," he says.
Stanton says Deakins' advice was critical for making a different-looking computer-animated film: "It's how we got intimacy out of two metal boxes falling in love on a dystopian planet."
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