Tree of life

PG/G double feature

Kung Fu Panda

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Well, the dragass bus driver on the O2 managed to get me to the mall 12 minutes late despite early-morning holiday-light traffic on the Post Road, so if the answer to why the titular panda's father is a goose occurs in the opening titles or the first couple of minutes, I missed it.
What I saw was perfectly OK, perfectly formulaic kung fu kartoon shtick, with a good message for the kids (and for a lot of grown-ups, for that matter: don't expect a deus-ex-machina bailout; the secret ingredient is nothing [faith, really]).
One question that might fairly be asked of animators these days: what's the point of showing gravity-defying martial arts sequences involving cartoon animals when CGI can give us seemingly flesh-and-blood humans doing the same stuff now?
Favorite moment: when fat panda asks master, "How are you going to make me into the Dragon Warrior?" and master admits, "I don't know," but the small insistent voices of Matt and Trey sing, "You gotta have a montage!" Well, I heard 'em, anyway.

WALL·E

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Jesus, what a chilling scenario to submit small children to, but by god, we should scare the shit out of the little rugrats and tell them: "This is what your parents and grandparents are leaving you; sorry, but it's gonna be yours to fix."
This is without question the best new studio film I've seen this year, and while I'm not going to scroll back through the year's posts to confirm it, it may well be the best new film I've seen this year, full stop. It is also without a doubt the best and most chilling futuristic dystopia I've ever seen; and it contains one of the most heartwarming/breaking love stories I've ever seen on film; and it may be the funniest film I've seen this year--and certainly the best use of slapstick I've seen in ages. And somehow these disparate parts fit into a nearly perfect whole. (Nearly perfect--no film that has you humming tunes from Hello, Dolly! can be considered perfect.) Oh: and one of the best narrative end-credits sequences ever, too, with one of the most emotionally satisfying climactic images.
There's a lot here that the littlest kids won't have a clue about (they're certainly not going to notice the sizable debts to Minority Report and 2001, e.g.), but there's so much going on visually that even the smallest would probably enjoy it, and while there were a lot of kids at my show, and while they made as much noise as kids must, at the saddest moment, there was zero sound from the seats--everybody got that part.
Oh, and an aside to anyone who may have recently become resigned to the proposition that human life as currently operating is insupportable, and we are all imminently doomed: please see this film. It won't offer any evidence to the contrary, but it will remind you that nonetheless, faith and hope and love are so powerful that even humans can't destroy them.

Trailers

• Fly Me to the Moon--flies on Apollo 13; looks pretty cloying; 2
• Beverly Hills Chihuahua--good god, no; 2.
• Saw three others, but I didn't take notes: there's another one about a dog, a TV superhero who thinks he really has superpowers; and one about a stubbornly fearless French mouse (from a famous kids' book, I gather); and then there's one about humans, but I don't remember anything else about it.
• Oh, right: the human one is John Cusack voicing Igor, a mad scientist's assistant who wants to invent his own stuff.
• And IMDb helps me find Bolt--TV dog voiced by Travolta. Still can't find the fearless French mouse, though.
• Found it: The Tale of Despereaux. Looks promising, by the way.