WALL•E

Pixar has done it again. WALL•E is the film studio’s ninth major picture. All of its films have been commercial successes, and most of them this reviewer has thoroughly enjoyed. (In the interest of full disclosure: I was not impressed with Cars [it was an alright film but I didn't feel it was up to Pixar's standards.] and I thought Antz’s storyline was more complex and interesting than A Bug’s Life.)

I was eager to see the film, of course. A few days before I went to the cinema I read some of the reviews from rottentomatoes.com. Most of the reviews were positive, but I made sure to read a few negative reviews. The negative reviews complained of the dark vision the film has of earth’s future. (Although one complained that while WALL•E has an environmentally-minded message, it ends with gratuitous optimism as the environmental problems are ‘magically wiped away’.)

When I saw the movie with my wife on Independence Day, I was very impressed. Andrew Stanton does a great job of telling a story with sparse dialogue. This is one of the many similarities the film shares with 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Among others: one character is a nod to HAL, and the piece Also Sprach Zarathustra plays at a pivotal moment.) Much of the story is told through visuals and music, reminiscent of the silent films of yore (although with much better computer graphics). The robots communicate to each other in tones which surprisingly convey meaning well. The film also playfully interacts with today’s technology; as the solar-battery within WALL•E becomes fully charged, the audience hears the familiar Apple start-up sound.

The plot is a love tale between two robots in a post-apocalyptic world, who go to great lengths for each other and end up reuniting humanity with earth. WALL•E is a wonderfully-told, redemptive story. The movie lauds such virtues as sacrifice, community, and love. So poignant is the tale that my wife at one point was moved to tears for the protagonist.

WALL•E is great cinematic art. Everything recommends it: its visual style, story, and characters. It is well worth the money to go see the film in cinema, and I’m sure I will be purchasing the DVD when it comes out.

Well I don’t feel it’d be right to end the post without saying something about the short film that preceded the film. ‘Presto’ is a fun short depicting the antics of a magician’s rabbit. Like many Pixar shorts, the film is entirely without dialogue. The short was evocative of Bugs Bunny and his antics. ‘Presto’ was entertaining and served as a good prelude to the full-length film which followed.

The Riddleblog

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Kim Riddlebarger’s blog. After perusing the site, I have found it a valuable resource for Reformed doctrine, especially eschatology (the study of final times/things). And for us former dispensationalists he provides us charts of different eschatological chronologies.

Especially helpful are his sermons on the Book of Revelation and resources on amillennialism. Having rejected dispensational premillenialism, I became an amillennialist by default, but did not really know how to explain the belief.

But not all of his blog deals with end times. He has a series on the Belgic Confession (Which I haven’t fully checked out yet; I need some Belgian beer to imbibe with the Confession.) and is a series in process discusses the cannons of Dor(drech)t. An interesting (and amusing) part of the website are his humourous captions on news. Recent groupings included a list of ‘things you won’t see in a Reformed Church’. Dr Riddlebarger’s ‘Who said that?’ section provides a chance to guess the author of a (usually) controversial quote.

As a final note, some excellent print commentaries on Revelation are Hendrickson’s More than Conquerers and Græme Goldsworthy Gospel and Revelation available as part of the Goldsworthy Trilogy.