Everybody Going Wacky for Wall-E

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mojo-photo-walle.jpgI posted about the viral web site accompanying the new Pixar project Wall-E back in October; the site, a parody of corporate propaganda, was amusing, but even back then I said the movie looked like it would be “another cutesy romp with big-eyed creatures on some sort of quest.” (Yes, I just quoted myself). By now we’ve seen actual clips and trailers, which have only confirmed my suspicions that this is Short Circuit 3: cute bleepy robots with big googly eyes! But shut my mouth: word around the intertubes is that Wall-E is the greatest thing to get projected onto a screen since Citizen Kane. A.O. Scott in the NY Times says the film is “a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in,” and that’s just the first sentence, while Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune calls it “the best American studio film so far this year.” New York Magazine‘s Vulture blog has even started a campaign to get the film nominated for “Best Picture” (although they did also champion that Cavemen TV show). Sure, it turns out that Wall-E‘s cute little robots mask what is apparently a horrifying vision of humanity’s future, with Earth abandoned to garbage and humans devolved into moronic blobs. Serious stuff. But we’ve seen dystopian visions before, even ones with mountains of garbage, and that doesn’t necessarily a good movie make, Mike Judge. Little robot Wall-E even has a love interest called, um, EVE; this whole thing sure seems like a compendium of movie clichés.

Everybody loved Ratatouille, too, and I thought that was pretty underwhelming; the animation was appropriately warm and glowy, but similarly to Finding Nemo, the anthropomorphism was inconsistent and disorienting, and often kind of creepy. Plus, as we saw in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, having too much money and too many animators can make your hyper-realistic backgrounds a little overwhelming. Computer animation tends to forget that great cinematography, like in, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey, has a graphic simplicity; just because you can draw every blade of grass doesn’t mean you should.

Well, anyway, Pixar, I’ll at least give you my matinee ticket price, and if it turns out to be spectacular, I’ll eat my words. Riffers, if you catch Wall-E this weekend, post your thoughts in the comments: Oscar-worthy examination of humanity’s downfall and the dark side of consumerism, or the robot E.T.?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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