Homecoming

Imagine a darkened room, permeated with the mouth-watering aroma of roast beef, warm ale, and pipe tobacco. Imagine a small, unassuming corner table next to a modest hearth just past the bar.

Then imagine a man in a heavy tweed coat bustling in from the street, beads of rain dotting his leather satchel and the glint of firelight reflecting off of the buttons on his ornate waistcoat. Already seated at the corner table is a man with a high forehead, his hands folded neatly in front of him and a small Bible lying open near his arm. Next imagine each of these two learned gentlemen acknowledging the other with a courteous nod and brief salutation.

"Morning, Tollers. Beastly weather, isn't it?"

"Morning, Jack. The wind practically ripped my coat from my shoulders during the ride down Banbury. But I've got some more of my nonsense to show you."

Then imagine the newly arrived man throwing back the flap on his satchel and drawing out a bundle of worn-edged papers. And on those coffee-stained pages...well, you can just imagine what immortal stories those florid, graceful strokes might entail. Such may have been a Monday morning meeting of the Oxford Inklings at the old Bird & Baby.

And I ate an Angus burger at that very table. Awesome.

The Reluctant Return

Much as Hadrian and Trajan before him (pictured here on the right) were compelled to relinquish control of their British province to their unworthy successors, I was compelled to come home from my foray overseas. Needless to say, I will visit the beauteous island of Britannia again someday, but for now, unfortunately, duty calls here in the boring ol' USA (aka "Wannabe England").

There will be much more to come in the way of holiday snaps, of course. Just at present, however, I'm rather knackered, so you'll have to excuse me for a bit while I have a lovely kip in me own bed. Cheers for now, mates.

Land of Hope and Glory

Well, blogblokes and blogbirds, the time has finally come. I will have my hands too full tomorrow to post anything legible and coherent, so consider this as my last broadcast for a fortnight. England beckons, and finally, I shall answer the call. I will be in contact with you Yanks via the Web, so feel free to send me your messages, questions, suggestions, and what not.

When (and if) I return, I shall plaster my photos all over my blogspace like an anglo-maniac. I will miss you all, and I sincerely wish you could all come along with me on this most life-changing of journeys.

God Save the Queen.

Oxford's Calling, Too

I'm going here . . .

And here...

And here . . .

And here . . .

And, most appropriately, here . . .

Where is this, you ask? Did you note the unobtrusive plaque on the wall above the hearth?

That's right. You may commence with the envious groaning.

London Calling: In Three Days

Lord & Lady Bibb of Eyrieville,

On behalf of oneself and the entire royal family, one extends to you and Lady Bibb the heartiest welcome our noble land can muster. May your stay exceed your expectations in every respect, and may the noble grandeur of London shine forth from every pavement stone as you two explore her limitless treasures. Should you want for anything while you tarry under British skies, please simply notify one of my guards posted outside of Buck House, and my staff shall attend to your needs posthaste.

Perhaps Your Lordship and Her Ladyship might do one the great pleasure of joining one for an afternoon constitutional along Birdcage Walk on Saturday. One shall strive to meet you both across from Anne's Gate at 15:30, provided one's schedule allows one to breathe the summer air for a few blessed minutes.

Your Humble Servant,

Liz II

Pixar's Foll-E

Psst!

Is it safe to write anything even remotely negative about Wall-E, the animation gods' annointed avatar? Will I be censured? Bull-whipped? Transported? Will I have my personality reassigned by Disney scientists, my currently cynical outlook replaced with unending happiness and a fervid desire to buy huge quantities of Wall-E merchandise? I don't know, and I don't care. Ladies and gentlemen, Wall-E is a preachy, disconnected, self-congratulatory, and perhaps most unfortunate, boring movie. That's right, fanboys & fangals, I said it. BOOOO-ring.

I must confess to a certain degree of confusion about the ridiculously egregious praise this film has received already. Just as a sampling, take a gander at the following review blurbs I chose at random from several "top critics" on Rotten Tomatoes. I haven't seen this much unwarranted gushing since The Departed opened in '06:

Peter Travers, The Rolling Stone: "First reaction: WALL-E, directed with a poet's eye by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) from a whipsmart and shrewdly accessible script he wrote with Jim Reardon, is some kind of miracle. Talk about daring. It's Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot mixed with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Terry Gilliam's Brazil, topped with the cherry of George Lucas' Star Wars and Steven Spielberg's E.T. , and wrapped up in a G-rated whipped-cream package. What could have been a mess of influences is instead unique and unforgettable. Tons of movies promise something for everyone. WALL-E actually makes good on that promise. It's a landmark in modern moviemaking that lifts you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance. Want proof that animation can be an art form? It's all there in the groundbreaking WALL-E."

Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal: ". . . the film stands as a stunning tour de force. The director has described it as his love letter to the golden era of sci-fi films that enchanted him as a kid in the 1970s. It is certainly that, in hearts and spades. Beyond that, though, it's a love letter to the possibilities of the movie medium, and a dazzling demonstration of how computers can create a photorealistic world -- in this case a ruined world of mysterious majesty -- that leaves literal reality in the dust. I'll write more about this in Saturday's Weekend Journal, but for now I must drop my inhibitions about dropping the M word -- especially since I've already used magnificent -- and call "WALL-E" the masterpiece that it is."

A. O. Scott, The New York Times: "Rather than turn a tale of environmental cataclysm into a scolding, self-satisfied lecture, Mr. Stanton shows his awareness of the contradictions inherent in using the medium of popular cinema to advance a critique of corporate consumer culture. The residents of the space station, accustomed to being tended by industrious robots, have grown to resemble giant babies, with soft faces, rounded torsos and stubby, weak limbs. Consumer capitalism, anticipating every possible need and swaddling its subjects in convenience, is an infantilizing force. But as they cruise around on reclining chairs, eyes fixed on video screens, taking in calories from straws sticking out of giant cups, these overgrown space babies also look like moviegoers at a multiplex. They’re us, in other words. And like us, they’re not all bad. The paradox at the heart of “Wall-E” is that the drive to invent new things and improve the old ones — to buy and sell and make and collect — creates the potential for disaster and also the possible path away from it. Or, put another way, some of the same impulses that fill the world of “Wall-E” — our world — with junk can also fill it with art."

I'm sorry, but WHAT?! Were you shemps watching the same movie I was?! I believe it was the inimitable Oscar Wilde who once wrote, "Remote from reality and with her eyes turned away from the shadows of the cave, Art reveals her own perfection, and the wondering crowd that watches the opening of the marvelous many-petalled rose fancies that it is its own history that is being told to it, its own spirit that is finding expression in a new form. But it is not so." So the very fact that you dweebs think this film's clumsy, frantic attempt to teach us all about love in the time of environmental tribulation is a form of "art" demonstrates exactly the opposite. True Art doesn't trip over its own didactic agenda. True Art doesn't try to mask said agenda with "feel-good" allusions to old musicals (and since when is Hello, Dolly! "half-forgotten," Mr. Scott?) and cheesy rhetorical appeals to pathos, appeals like the musty old "lonely and awkward outcast" chestnut. No, true Art doesn't seem like art at all. And the simple fact is that Wall-E is trying WAY too hard to be art.

From the moment I saw the "clever" autopilot helm-bot's plagiaristic red eye, plucked from the archetypal Hal's cold, robotic face, I knew we were in for a perpetual "wink" of a film. Like J. K. Rowling and the Indulgent Fifth Book, Pixar's Stanton badly needed an editor on this project, someone to provide the check and/or balance to his endless parade of cleverness. How many times did we need to hear the laboriously knowing line "I didn't know we had a pool!" aboard the cutely christened starship Axiom? Seriously, I counted at least three repetitions. Like my esteemed blog-colleague Forky has already asserted, repetition itself is a major problem in the film. The movie's anxious, eager-to-please, clamoring reiteration resembles a four-year-old child begging his distracted father to "Watch me! Watch me, Daddy! Daddy, watch me! Are you watching? DADDEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

And as an avid reader of nineteenth- and twentieth-century children's literature, I must own up to an intense distaste for ponderously didactic narratives. Stories packed so full of noble morals for their potentially innane and drooling audiences (I do concur with at least one of Scott's points; the big floating babies definitely represent Pixar's, or at least Stanton's, view of the movie-going public) usually wind up confusing their less intelligent viewers, dazzling their trendy left-wing groupies, and annoying the s#!t out of their moderately savvy critics. But the truly frustrating thing about the latest Pixar pic is that none of the savviest in the latter group seem to be doing their jobs in discussing it. Honestly, Mr. Morgenstern. Did you really just write that the CGI-scape of the abandoned planet Earth "leaves literal reality in the dust"? Shall we order up a hoverchair for you? Go outside once in a while, Mr. Morgenstern.

And as for my little fit of pure ennui brought on by this film's supposedly brilliant opening sequence, I can only shake my head and wonder if I've finally gone insane. When I say bored, I don't mean a trifle disinterested. I was yawning and checking my watch. Go ahead, blogosphere. Write your snide comments about how insensitive I am, about how I have no sense of taste when it comes to highbrow cinema (yeah, they'll be changing to limited releases at arthouse cinemas for the next Pixar product).

But you know what? I like silence in films, so my boredom cannot be fobbed off on a simple lack of dialogue. After all, I loved No Country for Old Men, and that one contained huge sections of wordless action. No, blogpals, the problem lies in the film's smug sense of self-justification. I was bored because, from the opening credits with their tired "song-in-space" gimmick to the closing scenes depicting happy hippies dancing with birdies, I felt like I was being winked at. The film seemed to say, "We're fu(#ing Pixar, bitches. Everything we touch turns to fu(#ing gold. Did you see what we just did there? We played a showtune in outer space. Did you see all the satellites and space junk around the planet? We'll show it again, just to make sure you felt the hammer blow to the head. Did you notice that the massive shapes at the opening are actually piles of trash, not skyscrapers? We'll run those by you one more time. C'mon people, you have to admit we're the shiznit."

Let's all just take a deep breath, step back from our praise-pulpits, and qualify our universal endorsement of this film as the chosen one. Admittedly, it's not crap. Just as Finding Nemo was not crap. But when compared to the other titles in Pixar's portfolio, Monsters, Inc. and The Incredibles, for example, Wall-E belongs at the bottom of a rather large heap.

London Countdown: T-Minus 1 Week

Ok, folks. Enough with the "Stardate" crap. I'm seriously going to England in one week. Less than that, actually. I'll be within walking distance of Buckingham Palace. I'll be able to see the Thames from my hotel window. I'll hear Big Ben chime the hour all day long. Crikey.

At this stage, I no longer know whether all this is a dream or some kind of horribly cruel cosmic joke. Will I arrive at the airport only to hear the raucous laughter of all of the staff, clutching their sides and howling, "You thought you were going to England? What a maroon!" I've actually visualized this scene in a recent dream sequence. The lady at the X-ray machine shakes with huge guffaws as she tears up my boarding pass. All of the other passengers hoot with joy and toss their half-empty Starbucks cups at me as I am unceremoniously escorted out of the terminal by two chuckling security guards. Gosh, I'm neurotic.

But I suppose those are just dreams. I really, really am going to my favorite country in the world. Will I weep? Will I fall to my knees in Heathrow International and sing "God Save the Queen" at the top of my lungs? I don't know. But I know one thing for sure. When Bibb returns (provided that Mrs. Bibb can drug him and drag him to the plane), he'll have a gaggle of photos to share.