WALL-E Reviews and Mega Link Collection

A little robot called WALL-E rolls its way into movie theaters tonight at midnight and then into the hearts of millions. This post will be a clearing house for all the news, reviews, and great links I can find on Pixar’s feature animated hit WALL-E.

But before all that I want to thank Ken Bautista & Chad Kerychuk of Luxo: The Pixar Animation blog for their four plus years of amazing coverage of all things Pixar. They both decided it was time to close the blog and move onto other things. They were the first to cover exclusively cover Pixar in the blogosphere and always wrote some of the best informed posts of anyone. I already miss their coverage.

On that note, The Disney Blog is looking for a Disney-Pixar Animation beat writer. If helps if you’ve written on the subject already and can point me to some of your writing. But it’s not absolutely required. You just have to have a love for the subject.

Alright, now onto the news and reviews for WALL-E. I plan to keep this entry updated with whatever I can find.

News

• As I type this WALL-E is scored a mega-high 97% on RottenTomatoes. That’s 58 positive reviews to 2 negative ones. The first negative guy was also the first to pan Ratatouille. So take that with a grain of salt, as it were.
• Popular Mechanics has a look at why Pixar is the Apple of Hollywood. It’s not just because Steve Jobs is the head of both. It’s more like a cult of perfection permeates both.
• Chris Thilk has a look at how Disney’s marketing machine has positioned WALL-E to be the number one hit of the summer. One thing Chris may have missed is this EVE ‘Gift’ on Facebook today promoting WALL-E.
• O-Meon has a look at WALL-E’s Carbon Footprint. Apparently, Hollywood finds it hard to be green even when the movie focuses on the need for it.

Interviews with Director Andrew Stanton:

• Jeffrey Overstreet: “I was not prepared for this film. It caught me by surprise. You really took the audience out of the Pixar ‘comfort zone,'”.
• OC Register: Stanton Says “I remember once sitting around with Pete Docter drawing Buzz Lightyear and trying to come up with a name for the character. It was funny to us that whatever name we came up with would end up on a T-shirt worn by some guy walking down Main Street in Disneyland.”
• Ain’t It Cool News has a spoiler filled interview that also has news of John Carter of Mars, Stanton’s next project.
• FirstShowing.net has an long interview with Stanton.

Reviews

I’ve been told that Roger Ebert’s review contains a huge spoiler. Therefore I won’t read it until after I see WALL-E. Consider yourself warned. But here’s a video review from the Ebert and Roeper show (still without Ebert, sadly)

• NY Times (A.O. Scott): “We’ve grown accustomed to expecting surprises from Pixar, but “Wall-E” surely breaks new ground.”
• Chicago Tribune (Michael Phillips) – Four Stars: “The latest achievement from Pixar Animation Studios is the best science-fiction film so far this year, the best romance so far this year and the best American studio film so far this year.”
• Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan) – “Pixar’s adventurous new film, the one-of-a-kind “Wall-E,” shows how it’s done.”
• Orlando Sentinel (Roger Moore) – Five Stars: “with images and sound effects alone, it touches, it teaches and it tickles. It’s the best Pixar film since Finding Nemo.”
• SF Chronicle (Mick LaSale): “Philosophically and emotionally, this is probably the most profound animated film ever made or attempted.”
• Hollywood Reporter: “This is getting to sound like a broken record: Pixar Animation Studios has just topped itself.”
• Cincinnati Enquirer (Bill GoodyKoontz) A- : “Where “WALL-E” stands out is in its storytelling”
• Kalamazoo Gazette (James Sanford) A- : “WALL•E” is also a romantic comedy, and a tremendously effective one at that.”
• Washington Post (John Anderson): “the idea that a company in the business of mainstream entertainment would make something as creative, substantial and cautionary as “WALL·E” has to raise your hopes for humanity.”
• Onion AV Club (Tasha Robinson) A : “It’s Pixar’s most daring experiment to date, but it still fits neatly into the studio’s pantheon: Made with as much focus on heart as on visual quality, it’s a sheer joy.”
• Cinematical (Erik Davis): “most romantic film yet — a beautiful sci-fi tale complete with all the feel-good vibes and fantastic, cutting-edge visuals we’ve come to expect from a film wearing the Pixar name”
• WIRED (Jenna Wortham): Some Spoilers in this review. “the film is a shining example of what Pixar does best: Create a visually stunning animated landscape and populate it with easy-to-love anthropomorphic characters.”
• Kevin Reape – “WALL-E is simple a Masterpiece”
• The Pixar Blog – “WALL-E is an amazing piece of art. Pixar’s most mature and compelling picture yet, it captures the essence of good filmmaking, and more broadly, storytelling.”

Cool Links

• Virtual Tours with Quicktime VR. Enjoy these three virtual environments from WALL-E you can explore online.
• There’s a new Trailer called “Day At Work” over at Apple.com. It’s about 1:17 seconds worth of glorious WALL-E fun in HD Glory.
• /Film has another 4 minute Featurette showing the behind the scenes making of WALL-E at Pixar.
• I love this flickr set of a WALL-E made out of LEGOs. There’s also Origami WALL-E complete with a pattern so you can try and make this cute little fellow yourself.
• There is already WALL-E Fanart over at DeviantArt.
• Of course there’s also the original viral site for WALL-E Buy N Large.

More to come. Please send me (email, twitter) any interesting links you find .