Our first production assignment in film school was to film and edit together a silent short, then give it a sound­track that completely altered the emotional response of the viewer. It was a demon­stration of the equally-​​​​matched emotional power of picture and sound. It was a chal­lenging exercise. Today, I present you with two videos, both of which use nearly the same sound­track, but with different pictures. This inverts the exercise. Watch them both, then tell me how each made you feel. Don’t think too much, and don’t try to limit yourself by thinking which is better. Just watch and observe your automatic response to each. [ . . . ]

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Being unem­ployed, I can go to the cinema on a Tuesday morning and see three pictures in a row. This is precisely what I did this week. I saw three films. The theater was also playing Michael Moore’s latest barf-​​​​fest, but I decided that I’ve had nothing to say about Michael Moore for years now and wouldn’t want to ruin a good thing. Zombieland I’ve never liked zombie films much, mostly because they are within the post-​​​​apocalyptic survival genre I could never get into, since they invariably involve some self-​​​​sacrificing dipshit who gets himself killed in order to save the others, or “hero­ically” gets himself infected so he’s [ . . . ]

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Beware Spoilers! My sister and I went to see wall·e this afternoon. After the extra­or­dinary success of Ratatouille, I had high expec­ta­tions for Pixar. Pixar has consis­tently offered excellent films with lovable char­acters, engaging stories, and exquisite imagery. When Disney bought out the studio, I was seriously worried that their inde­pen­dence and creativity would suffer — Disney’s in-​​​​house animation projects had been famously bad up to that point. Home on the Range and Brother Bear come imme­di­ately to mind. I was worried. Ratatouille started production before the acqui­sition. I believe wall·e is the first Pixar film produced fully under Disney ownership. When I saw the early [ . . . ]

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