Walleve: Like Brangelina, but lovable

WALL•E, this year’s summer behemoth from Pixar Animation Studios, is a bit green. Its story involves humanity’s temporary evacuation of Earth while solar-powered robots clean up the trash overrunning our planet. The plan — by a corporation so gigantic it serves as de facto government — is sending the global population on a five-year “luxury cruise” into space, during which guests are overfed, overpampered, and continue to be bombarded with ads encouraging them to buy, buy, buy.

But 700 years after the launch of the good ship Axiom, its occupants are plugged-in and zoned-out in their zooming recliners, not only oblivious to the concept of face time but too fat to even stand up to greet a neighbor. Their home turf is still covered in garbage and has been deemed unsustainable, the junkyard bots long out of commission.

But don’t worry about you and your little ones getting walloped with an issues-of-the-millennium message. Because the above details are considerably secondary to the main plot: WALL•E, the only robot who wasn’t powered down and has thus continued to do his job solo for hundreds of years, is quite blue.

As he tidies up an overgrown cityscape daily, the binocular-eyed, tank-tread-footed distant cousin of Short Circuit’s Johnny 5 — full name: Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth Class — isn’t entirely alone. He’s got a cockroach companion and an expanding collection of knickknacks, from a Rubik’s Cube to a hubcap. More important to him, however, is a VHS copy of Hello, Dolly!, whose soundtrack he hums during the day and moony romance he sighs over at night. So when the Axiom sends a sleek-looking research robot to scour the Earth for signs of life, naturally WALL•E falls hard.

If it all sounds too cute, it is — but in Pixar’s way of making adorableness relatable, and hence irresistible, instead of saccharine. Written and directed by Finding Nemo’s Andrew Stanton, the film is another Pixar triumph in storytelling. Before things can get gooey with the introduction of WALL•E’s crush, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), you’ll recognize in the wee machine a version of yourself: He delights over found treasure, relaxes in a makeshift apartment warmed by strings of lights and an iPod, spills from the shelf that is his bed whiny and uncoordinated when the alarm goes off. He’s highly organized, but when he brings home a spork — well, where does that hybrid belong, anyway?

As you watch transfixed, both by WALL•E’s daily routine as well as Pixar’s now-standard but still jaw-dropping photo­realistic animation, you’re hardly aware of the studio’s big risk — a nearly complete lack of human dialogue. The “voices” of WALL•E, EVE, and a host of other robots that populate the Axiom have been provided by Ben Burtt, the Oscar-winning sound designer behind Star Wars and E.T. And just like you somehow always knew what R2D2 was saying, here you won’t miss a blip, either.

It’s an especially incredible achievement as the relationship between WALL•E and EVE develops: With WALL•E’s saucer eyes and retro-toy shape, it’s a bit easier to inject him with a gentle, hangdog personality. But EVE — whose name her admirer mispronounces as “Eva” — is white and egg-shaped, with two LED ovals for eyes. Those blue peepers flatten to slits, though, whenever she’s annoyed — which, evidenced by her quickness to blow things up, is often — or amused, with Burtt even allowing her to giggle when she begins to give in to WALL•E’s advances.

A scene in which he takes her to his place is a heartwarming highlight, with WALL•E presenting EVE his collectibles (for instance, demonstrating the joys of bubble wrap) like a kid showing off his room and cajoling her to dance to Hello, Dolly! (with a floor-shaking, lead-bottomed bounce, EVE’s no Barbra Streisand). These droids may not technically say much more than “WALL•E?” and “Eva?” (with the “?”s sometimes replaced by “!”s), but there’s no mistaking their human emotion.

The script’s central conflict involves EVE’s completion of her “directive” when WALL•E gives her a plant he found, not knowing that the specimen would shut his girlfriend down and send her back into space. He follows, of course, which moves the film from Earth’s hazy, decrepit landscape to the Axiom’s shiny, bustling one, its assembly-line operation reminiscent of the offices in Monsters, Inc. Other nods to classics include Sigourney Weaver’s casting as the ship’s computer, a reversal of her good-guy Aliens role, a robot-repair room that may as well be called the Island of Misfit Toys, and a serious, slightly intense 2001-inspired plot turn in which it’s uncertain whether the Axiom will ever be allowed to go home.

It’s this second half of the film that trots out the ideas of obesity, technology-induced isolation, consumerism, and disregard of the planet. But it all feels like passing commentary to bolster a more important story, one of a seemingly impossibly human connection that can be summed up in two of the script’s mere handful of words: WALL•E and Eva.

Ferris Bueller’s Vegas Bender

In some markets, Finding Amanda has already found its way to cable, with Magnolia Pictures having made a pay-per-sneak-preview available starting two weeks prior to a limited theatrical release. But don’t let the film’s inauspicious roll-out sour your opinion: Though writer-director Peter Tolan’s feature directorial debut is far from flawless, saddled with an occasionally uneven tone and stars no splashier than Matthew Broderick and Brittany Snow, this story about a compulsive gambler and his prostitute niece is funny, touching, and original enough to warrant a look.

Broderick plays Taylor, a washed-up television writer who has managed to stay sober for two years but can’t quite give up playing the ponies. To do so, he lies and steals checks from his wife, Lorraine (Maura Tierney), whenever his debts outweigh his income from penning a sitcom everyone hates. When Lorraine discovers that her sister’s 20-year-old daughter, Amanda (Snow), has taken up drugs and hooking after moving to Las Vegas – as well as finds out that Taylor’s been betting again – Taylor sees the crisis as a way to redeem himself. The family wants Amanda in rehab, so Taylor heads to Vegas to find her…and maybe win back some dough.

The interplay between Broderick and Snow ultimately make Finding Amanda more enjoyable than it should be. Snow’s hooker doesn’t have a heart of gold, nor of ice – Amanda’s bubbly, sharp, and matter-of-fact, pleased as punch that her new profession has bought her a home she considers a sanctuary and quick to point out that Taylor’s more in need of rehab than she.

Taylor, meanwhile, can be infuriating whenever he refuses to come clean to his wife or allows himself to further relapse, vice by vice. But he’s honest with Amanda, and the character is imbued with Broderick’s usual low-key likability and dry humor. (When a male bartender mistakes Taylor’s request for some company by offering his services and saying, “I’m superhung, if it makes any difference,” Taylor’s answer is a quick, “It doesn’t.”)

Romantic issues plague both of their lives, too, allowing the film to blossom beyond a gimmicky setup that makes good use of the standard perv line “I’m her uncle!” into a rumination about flawed people — know any? — and the relationships that can be so crucial to keeping someone prone to bad choices from, in Taylor’s words, “just spinning off the goddamn planet.” Tolan not only refuses to pass judgment on his characters, he makes sure to highlight their good qualities, as well. Even if your greatest transgression is leaving the cap off the toothpaste, it’s a comforting approach.

We want our 10 dollars.

Somewhere between the bombast of Southland Tales and laziness of Military Intelligence and You! lies War, Inc., an Iraq satire being released past the point when discussing the occupation has become wearying and parodying it a slow-target yawn. With John Cusack producing, co-writing, and starring, it’s a bit surprising that this film tends toward Southland Tales‘ hit-’em-over-the-head approach to lampoonery, its uninteresting characters and general lack of humor ensuring the gambit gets old fast.

Cusack plays Brand Hauser, an assassin sent to one war-torn Turaqistan to disappear a local businessman who plans to dip his drills into America’s oil profits. The hilarious twist? Corporations, not the government, maintain militia now, and a company run by a former vice president (Dan Aykroyd, introduced sitting on a toilet) has monopolized the rebuilding of the very country it destroyed. So Hauser, in the guise of a trade-show organizer, arrives in the Middle East to find a war zone plastered in billboards shilling products such as Democracy Light cigarettes or goodwill assurances such as “We’re building happiness!” while screens project morphing images of American icons.

Hauser is aided by operative Marsha Dillon (Joan Cusack, flailing to inject life into her character with odd, twitchy gestures and monsterishly tight expressions worthy of a Botox junkie), dogged by left-wing reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei, a relatively calming presence), and flummoxed by his uneasy reaction to meeting “the Britney Spears of Central Asia,” Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff, actually sporting a decent accent). He’s supposed to help organize Yonica’s wedding to a gangsta-wannabe prince while simultaneously hunting down his target, Omar Sharif (Lyubomir Neikov) – yes, the shots are that low – guzzling hot sauce all the while, because Hauser wouldn’t be a Cusack creation without some sort of eccentricity.

Directed by documentarian Joshua Seftel, War, Inc. doesn’t quite know what story it wants to tell: The focus shifts from commentary on American arrogance to Hauser’s dark past to the commercial whoring of Yonica, with the latter two eventually converging. (Ben Kingsley, always fascinating, is part of Hauser’s secrets, but his presence is unredeeming.) Considering that Yonica’s character is actually the most interesting here, that’s not in itself a bad thing. But when the denouement includes Duff enthusiastically laying waste with a machine gun, the film is no longer a political comedy but merely an obnoxious one.

Me love you REALLY long time

Robotics professor Hiroshi Ishiguro may believe he’s helping humanity with his development of artificial life forms so advanced you could soon find yourself closer to them than your neighbor or family dog. But in Phie Ambo’s Mechanical Love, all he seems to be doing is seriously freaking out his daughter.

Ishiguro first traumatized the young girl when he made a “geminoid” — basically, a replicant – of her and introduced them. Result: tears. But he goes further, creating a serial-killer-looking ‘bot in his own image and shutting the poor kid alone in a room with it, as his piped-in voice insists through weird rubbery lips that the thing is her father and they’re “talking normally.” Verdict: She fidgets, is adamant that this is not normal at all, and won’t go near the Big Wonder.

More successful is Paro, a fur-covered, baby-size robot seal that squeals and bats its eyelashes at a German nursing-home resident who’s reluctant to go anywhere without it.

Despite its fascinating subject – can people really bond with machines? — and 79-minute run time, the film is often as lifeless as a geminoid’s eyes. There are too many lingering (and creepy) shots of the robots, a repetitive debate among nursing-home staff about the sometimes-disruptive Paro, and way too much self-serious, not-always-coherent philosophizing about the nature of being from Ishiguro, who isn’t exactly a charmer.

Still, the technology shown is jaw-dropping, and when Paro’s elderly owner holds him and coos, “You’re the greatest joy that I ever had,” it is a nice moment.

You might want to cancel that camping trip after watching Under Our Skin, Andy Abrahams Wilson’s candid and frightening look at Lyme disease.

Though Lyme is the most common (and increasingly widespread) vector-borne illness in the U.S., it not only doesn’t garner the hysterical press of West Nile, there’s controversy in the medical community over whether the multi-symptom, often crippling disease is even a chronic ailment – which leads to debate about treatment, which means a lot of sick people getting denied insurance coverage and, more alarmingly, doctors who believe in aggressive, long-term solutions losing their licenses.

The film profiles six Lyme sufferers, including Mandy, a pretty young woman prone to fits of involuntary movement and can’t-stand-up exhaustion; Elise, a wannabe mom who’s miscarried because of the tick-spread infection; and Dana, a mid-30s event producer for U2 whose youthful looks and love of her job helps hide the fact that she’s in constant pain, though she says it can be frustrating that “everyone thinks I’m normal.”

One of the movie’s heroes is pathologist Alan MacDonald, whose research is helping the case that the disease is truly chronic and not, as many believe, psychosomatic. But you can see it for yourself, most startlingly in Mandy, whose years-long antibiotic treatment reverses her from a near-vegetable back to the functional, articulate person she was before a mere bug bite torpedoed her life.

Surprisingly, the tragedy of Song Sung Blue isn’t the sight of audiences going apeshit over a cheesy Neil Diamond tribute act named Lightning & Thunder.

Yes, you imagine the dudes babbling about how much they love Mike (Lightning) and Claire (Thunder) Sardina are probably drunk. And it’s definitely cringe-inducing when the husband and wife bring out a game but slightly embarrassed-looking Eddie Vedder to sing “Forever in Blue Jeans” with them at Milwaukee’s 1995 Summerfest. But as much as you may find Mike a little creepy (just wait for the torso shots of him stumbling around in gigantic, not-so-tightie-whities) and both of them delusional (he may be a decent impersonator, but she’s far from the advertised second-coming of Patsy Cline), you can’t help but feel for these people as they doggedly struggle to make it big well past the age when anyone usually does.

Throughout eight years of filming, director Greg Kohs captures an unfathomable amount of setbacks in the couple’s lives, including accidents, addictions, money problems, and a household (they have two kids) in which screaming is the predominant form of communication. Kohs isn’t great about context, and the film’s biggest failing is the distracting lack of a timeline – it’s not until later in the doc, for instance, that we find out the year of the couple’s Vedder encounter.

But though the narrative is imperfectly told, Kohs achieves the nearly impossible: Eventually, you stop snickering at the Sardinas’ trailer-trashiness and empathize with the humanity beneath their glitter.

Witnesses who caught Philippe Petit’s high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974 gushed about the beautiful act and thanked him for giving them “a gift.” But even if what the very idea of such a stunt gives you is a knot in your stomach rather than a lump in your throat, James Marsh’s account of Petit’s caper, Man on Wire, is pure delight.

The nuts-and-bolts of preparing for what the compulsive climber/boundary-pusher referred to as “le coup” is compelling enough, with everyone from his girlfriend, Annie, to his old crew recounting every detail of the project – how on earth does one lug up all the equipment needed without anyone noticing? — as if it just happened. (Petit’s wingmen are sometimes introduced with conspiracy-cool titles such as “Rock Star” and “Inside Man.”)

What really makes Man on Wire shine, though, is Petit himself. To call the Frenchman charismatic is like saying water’s wet: Whenever the slight Petit’s onscreen, both in old footage showing him, say, scurrying around France on a unicycle or practicing for the big day as well as current interviews with the now-59-year-old, words such as “scamp” and “sprite” come to mind. Still youthful-looking and bursting with energy, Petit’s quick, thickly accented speech and unchecked exuberance make even his description of an elevator ride to the top of the towers seem like the most exciting story ever.

Of course, “le coup” is le thing, and though there isn’t any film capturing the deed, the doc offers plenty of jaw-dropping photographs of the near-hour Petit spent taunting police 1350 feet above the ground. As for the nuttiness of the challenge, Petit was determined but not delusional. “If I die, what a beautiful death,” he remembers thinking. “To die in the exercise of your passion!”

For anyone who remains unconvinced that George W. Bush may be the worst chief executive in our country’s history, here’s a factoid from I.O.U.S.A., Patrick Creadon’s film about the state of the economy: “It took 42 presidents 224 years to run up a trillion dollars of U.S. debt held abroad,” says Kent Conrad, North Dakota senator and chair of the Senate Budget Committee. “This president has more than doubled that amount in just six years.”

Of course, our financial woes didn’t start in 2000; the doc shows presidents going back to Eisenhower making pretty speeches about how they’re going to start putting dents in the deficit. But the problem is just getting worse – the word “unsustainable” is used a lot here, while another senator claims the only threat more severe to the U.S. than our compulsive borrowing is if terrorists got their hands on a nuclear bomb.

Creadon’s managed to turn dry material into engaging cinema before with the nerderiffic Wordplay, and though I.O.U.S.A. lacks that film’s narrative tension – this time, we know who loses – it still sugars its medicine: There’s lots of graphics, personable, plain-speaking financial experts and folks-on-the-street, and a recent Saturday Night Live skit featuring Steve Martin and Amy Poehler. You may even get an exasperated laugh from its parting message: “While you watched this film, $86 million was added to the federal debt.”

Fidelis Cloer is a bit like Tony Stark before he went all Iron Man on the terrorists using his supplies. The German armored-car manufacturer profiled in Bulletproof Salesman is blunt about his interests: “Peace? Go away. I want war,” he says. “To me it doesn’t matter who creates the demand.”

Of course, protecting people – regardless of whom or under what circumstances – isn’t exactly the same as selling weapons, so Cloer probably won’t be adopting a superheroic attitude over his profiteering off a global mess. Yet co-directors Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker capture hints of melancholy and maybe even a little regret in interviews recorded over five years with their charismatic subject as he details his trade.

There are a few Big Bob’s Used Car Lot moments here — “We definitely sell a good feeling,” Cloer says, and frequently invokes his company’s superiority to the competition – repetition in the film’s stretched 70 minutes, and an irritating use of headline-style text to highlight what someone just said.

Still, Bulletproof Salesman offers an interesting look at a little-thought-about facet of the war. It’s impressive when Cloer agrees to sit in one of his vehicles while a potential customer shoots at it. And footage of further testing demonstrates that he indeed sells a high-quality product. But the tragedies of the larger picture are addressed, too, such as when Cloer talks about how security companies tend to cheap out when it comes to protecting their employees or confesses what keeps his vehicles on top: “People have to die to improve the product.”