Youth In Revolt

For a while I was a big Michael Cera fan. If you didn't like Arrested Development, then you have no sense of humor. Then there was Juno and Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.

However, Cera's stock is now going down. Super Bad - too many F-bombs. Paper Heart - stinker. Now we have Youth in Revolt.

I saw the previews from another movie. Seemed like a pretty funny movie. A nerdy young kid named Nick Twisp falls for a girl and his devilish side comes out - only in a real human character. The only problem is - the previews pretty much showed all of the funny parts, a common problem with today's comedies.

Youth in Revolt also stars Portia Doubleday as the attractive young love interest of Nick Twisp. Adding comedic value are Ray Liotta who plays the love interest of Nick's mother, played by Mary Kay Place, and Steve Buscemi as his father, Justin Long as his pot-smoking neighbor, and Fred Willard as the awkward family friend.

Directed by Michael Artera, Youth in Revolt is Rated R for sexual content, language, and drug use. The movie is 90 minutes long.

The movie definitely has its funny parts. Had I not seen the previews I would have been much more entertained. For rating purposes, we'll assume I didn't see the previews. That will get it up to 3 stars.

WALL-E

Hyped as one of the best PIXAR movies of all-time, this movie generated over $485 million in the theatre. After I got through the first 20 minutes of previews and the musically fancy and important production and ownership logos flashing across the screen, we finally made it to the actual movie.

WALL-E is a little robot, similar to Short-Circuit, but a little dumber. WALL-E appears to be living in a lifeless world in the future. His primary objective is to scoop and compact trash into tiny neat squares and stack them into tall buildings. He is cleaning the Earth. Unfortunately, though, it appears he is the only WALL-E type machine left to do the cleaning.

EVE is introduced to the Earth by a probing robot to determine if there is any life left. WALL-E falls in love, robotically, of course. EVE leaves Earth and WALL-E is determined to go with her. He wants her to stay. He is the robot with a personality who wants companionship, sort of like weak-minding salesmen.

EVE is sent back to the mother ship where all of the Earth people are living. WALL-E is now trapped, but wants to find EVE and get her back to Earth. There is the subliminal, or maybe not so subliminal, struggle between man and robot as read in Isaac Asimov's I Robot, not much unlike Will Smith's I, Robot. There are the 3 Laws of Robotics that help govern the relationship between man and robot. PIXAR did a good job of incorporating this.

You'll notice the voices of several people including John Ratzenberger (Cheers), Sigourney Weaver, and Fred Willard.

Overall, I thought the movie was okay. It wasn't great, though I heard a lot of acclamation for the movie and it was really hyped by the over-caffeinated movie critic crowd. My wife, the science-fiction detesting loving wife that she is, said that this was the worst movie she ever saw - worse than Star Wars. Take that as you may.

Upon informing a friend of my wife's comments, she replied, "Mrs. Eludius does not have a heart." That's not a logical statement. My wife has no mechanical electrodes that detect the emotional presence of other mechanical beings.

The movie is about 1:38 minutes long and is rated G, which means there's not too much to look forward to in the movie if you're over 12 years old. WALL-E wasn't horrible, but I'm in no hurry to see it again. I give it a 3.