Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Natey & Katy are two friends who love movies and love talking about them. Join them on their cinematic journey!
Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Love, Robots, and Recycling: A Wall-E Review
Ever wonder how a seemingly simple animated film could hold so much charm and emotion? Join us on a nostalgic journey as we celebrate the magic of Disney's WALL-E. Natey and I, Katy, recount our first experience watching this enchanting tale during its midnight release in 2008. We discuss how the initial silent sequences, reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin, captured the hearts of both kids and adults, including our own children, who found delight in WALL-E's quest for love and companionship. Despite the film's subtle political themes, which might fly over the heads of younger viewers, it's WALL-E's humor and heartfelt journey that truly leaves a lasting impression.
Looking forward, our next cinematic adventure takes us to the classic world of Casablanca. Tune in for a sneak peek of how a young girl from Oslo finds herself immersed in the vibrant allure of Paris, setting the stage for an exploration of storytelling and emotional depth. We're gearing up to discuss the complexities of relationships and the power of unforgettable scenes and dialogues. With playful musings on the pronunciation of Casablanca and the art of leaving a mark, we promise fresh insights into the enduring legacy of this iconic film. Don't miss out on our upcoming episode as we peel back the layers of this cinematic masterpiece.
Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of Nadie and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nadie, of course, and with me on today's episode is my good friend Katie. Hi Katie, how are you?
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I'm just in the throes of making dinner.
Speaker 1:So what are you having?
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for asking. It's smash burgers, sweet potato fries, homemade and apples. Yeah, and you know, none of these are like labeled, so I can't you know. Today is sponsored by fresh produce see, that's what.
Speaker 1:That's what it should be brought to you by every time, because who needs artificial stuff like what I ate for dinner?
Speaker 2:yeah, speaking of artificial robots. Speaking of robots, have you seen the movie wally?
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously I have, because that's that's the movie we're. This movie we're talking about today. We're talking about wally, disney's wally. If you, uh, pay attention to our social media platforms, you know that originally we were going to review another movie, django unchained. But we had been reviewing, like, really gloom gloomy even though jango unchained is not gloomy, if you've seen it, you know but pretty like heavy movies. We've been reviewing the past couple episodes, to quote in the ways of Yoda, so we thought we'd go a little lighthearted because today is election day. Woo-hoo, if you haven't early voted, go vote today, make your voice be heard.
Speaker 2:Yes, I support that. That's all we're going to talk about election-wise today.
Speaker 2:You know, politics could play a factor in today's episode, though set in the future. But yes, it is Election Day, happy Election Day. Yes, to what Nathan said, I was begging him. There was just all these rated R movies. I was like we've got to have something. I'm going to tell you guys right now, if you're listening through our journey, we're getting closer to the top as we enter the end of the year. Most of the year, and, uh, most of the movies are rated r from this point forward. So this was a nice movie to get a little break. So before we get into our thoughts, though, I gotta go over the synopsis.
Speaker 1:A robot who is responsible for cleaning a waste-covered earth meets another robot and falls in love with her. Together they set out on a journey that will alter the fate of mankind. Wally stars, ben burt, elisa knight, jeff garland and fred willard I remember seeing this movie when they still had midnight showings. Do you remember those?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, I mean I would go just because it was cool to be like out at night, like I didn't really care what movie it was. Well, this is, yeah. How old is this nathan?
Speaker 1:it's like it's um, it came out in 2008, so it's an early to uh, early 2000s, almost 2010s movie. But, like I said, I went to go see this in a midnight showing and if you've seen the beginning of this movie, there's like no talking for the first 20, 25 minutes feels like right, really long. That's a long time. So I remember my first reaction to this movie was that it was crazy boring and it's one of those disney movies that little children probably won't be able to sit through. I say that and my children actually were glued to it for a good amount of it. I think when it got to what Katie hinted at as what could be considered the political slant, that's when it kind of got too much for them. And yeah, that's basically what I feel about this movie.
Speaker 1:It was boring at the beginning. It does have little heartwarming moments. It was cute to watch it with my children, though, because my daughter picked up on the fact that Wally fell in love with Eve like right off the bat, like at the beginning of the movie. When he's all by himself, she's like, oh, he wants someone to be with him, and then, when Eve shows up, he's in love with her, and so it's kind of like hearkening back to the Charlie Chaplin days where you didn't need to say anything to pick up on what was going on. So that's exactly what this movie was for my child. What did? Did you watch this with Ben? Or did you watch this with by yourself? Or how did you watch this children's movie?
Speaker 2:I did watch it with Ben. So we were actually on a car ride back home from North Carolina and I'm like you know, there's only so much you can do in the car.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks for coming to visit me, by the way.
Speaker 2:Listen, shout out to my in-laws, todd and Ann. G-mommy and G-Daddy had to go visit the family. But yeah, ben, ben, do you want the silly parts, the silly parts. Yes, wally is so silly. Uh, we enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were in the car, figured this is the last movie he could watch with me and he, he was glued like your point, nathan, this is probably a little kid, can't pick up on quite the whole storyline, uh, but he was stuck in a car so he was definitely glued to it and even days, days after he was still talking about WALL-E. He wants to build a WALL-E robot and he wanted to watch WALL-E videos and we've been just going around the house saying WALL-E, eva. So to kind of go into critiques, because it's a great movie, I don't have a ton of negatives, but I will say the negative probably would be what you're referring to. Some of those jokes or commentary on life feel like much more adult, like I'd really just this would not be a kid movie. Up is one I feel like has enough silly to get a kid interested. Again this I think he missed out on a lot of the humor because of his age.
Speaker 1:Saying all that, but this movie actually won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year in 2009. And it was nominated for six Oscars, which is the most a Disney movie had been nominated since Beauty and the Beast. So I mean, this movie did well, the reception was well. People really liked it. I bet they probably liked it for the social political commentary that was in there.
Speaker 2:Go green, you know, get healthy, because you know all the people are fat and lazy, right yeah, it's one of those where I think the movie sticks with you after like the story behind it with me don't stick with me, that's like me.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean maybe because I'm fat, I don't know wow, I think the environmental piece is definitely part of it. Um, you know not to score much in the movies, but they're. They are living in the future and so the humans that do come up in the movie are like very, very fat, barely can walk because they've had everything automated for them and they're on screens all the time and they don't like, they just eat, eat, eat all the time. They don't understand, they have no concept for what earth was like and the robots are kind of in troll in control. But I think that's why I find myself coming back to it a lot.
Speaker 2:I've talked to you before about that kind of weird movie idiocracy where it's what the future could look like and it feels like that the company BL, I think, is the company in this movie that's in charge of everything. I'm like, oh, you mean Amazon Prime. So I do think it has implications just as a indictment on what could happen to us if we're not careful, if we automate everything to the point of just laziness. You know, everything's getting delivered to our door now. We don't have to go on walks, we can scooter around instead of walk. We have e-bikes instead of regular bikes, there's just all kind of anyway. So I so I thought that was the most intriguing part for me.
Speaker 1:So is this essentially a kid's Terminator. Oh, maybe.
Speaker 2:No again I think I think the premise of the story is sort of the love and romance between these two robots, but I do think there's sort of this side story about a warning to the human race. What did you think of the animation? I thought it was incredible.
Speaker 1:I mean it's Disney, pixar. So the animation for the time 2008, which is crazy to say it like that Through the time back in 2008. Back in back, dude. But yeah, I mean, of course the animation is spectacular, beautiful visuals. I'm surprised it didn't win for best, you know visuals. But yeah, I mean, the animation is great. The voice acting was fun, wally, I mean, you can't, you know, you can't beat that. I liked how they mixed actual humans. Fred Willard is actually Fred Willard. He's not computer animated version of himself. I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1:It's just, it's just one of those movies and I understand it's. It's probably a film that you, you know, some parents probably had conversations with their children about what the movie was about. But it's one of those films and I, I'm going to be that guy, I'm going to be that guy. I'm like, why is this in a kid's movie? It's kind of like with the movie Elemental and the movie, even though I loved Inside Out, it's not a movie that every child could watch. And I'm not saying every movie should be made with every child in mind, but it's, if it's a disney movie, like snow white and old school cinderella, just simple stories that every child could watch. Yes, there are still some creepy moments with like the evil witch characters and stuff, but it's just a simple story and I don't understand why there's a need to throw social commentary, political commentary, into children's films. Is that too much?
Speaker 2:I feel like that's a good point. I, that's the thing I liked about it. But you know, that was the thing that you didn't like about it and I think I didn't like can you, can you imagine this coming out now?
Speaker 1:I thought it was a little over overreaching at times okay, that's fair.
Speaker 2:How about the fact, though, that this came out before amazon prime was a thing? This came out maybe long enough ago, too, that we didn't have quite the same ai type robots and we probably robots. That's right, buddy. And and I am, I also wonder. I know that the, the fat people were hyper exaggerated, but you're like, well, how would this play out if they did that today? Would people be offended by that?
Speaker 1:this is body shaming movie well, and I mean, this could have been like the beginning of the tech craze, and so disney was coming up before it got crazy like it is now and was saying this is what could happen. If you are obsessed with technology, you need the new, the newest iphone, you need the newest, this, the newest that you want everything handed to you. You know, we're a fast food society where we want everything now and we don't want to wait for it and we don't want to do it ourselves. Doordash is I keep on name dropping things that aren't sponsors of the show and they probably won't be, because we're talking negatively about oh yeah, we the people do not help that situation, and I say that as a person who uses it personally.
Speaker 1:So you know, we, we do things because we don't want to go out and do anything anymore. We just want everything to come to us and so I think in that mindset this is a very uh, ahead of its time movie, but at the time I just want to watch a kid's movie that my child. Children can sit through the whole thing and not be like plants are boring. I don't want to talk. I don't want to watch a movie about keeping one little leaf plant.
Speaker 1:Right, I felt like I was having to kind of explain to Ben what was happening, which is great though I will say it is good to have those movies where you have conversations with your children, because you should already be having conversations with your children anyway without having to watch a movie about it. So I will say, while I harp against it, I somewhat appreciate it. So it's kind of like a dr jekyll, mr hyde kind of split personality, like I. I see the point of it but at the same time I don't want it in every single children's movie that comes out now, well, how about this?
Speaker 2:unlike elemental, I felt like this was done well. It felt like this movie had a storyline going about the romance and, again, I think, even just the visual, like if you're a big Star Wars fan, I think for its time it was probably very visually, visually appealing, but also creative. Some of the little bits at the beginning, the first 20 minutes sort of watching these little robots Very clever, you know. He's like a little construction worker taking his lunchbox and there's like a funny moment where he opens up a beautiful diamond ring and he like throws the ring out and keeps the box and takes the box of suns. So I like this movie. I don't have much else to say other than, if you haven't seen it, I think you should see it, both for it being cute and also for the ramifications of what could happen if we let robots take over so what are we going to rate?
Speaker 1:terminator, the kids edition oh my um.
Speaker 2:It's not like my favorite pixar movie. I hadn't seen it since 10 plus years ago, which means it didn't stick with me that much. We we're going to give it a four.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it deserved the best picture win based just on visuals alone. I thought it was visually stunning. I thought the characters were fun. It had a good story to it. I did think it ran a little long, a little longish for a movie that didn't have that much dialogue in it, but it was still fun. My kids liked it for the most part. So I'm gonna give wally 4.5 out of 6. That is what I'm giving this movie on this election day. That's what I'm giving it. I think it was fantastic. I think it was 4.5 out of 6 stars. I think it was probably the greatest movie. So that is our thoughts on WALL-E. So here is a clip of what we're going to be talking about next week can I tell you a story, rick?
Speaker 3:you got a wow finish. I don't know the finish yet. Go on, tell us, maybe one will come to you as you go along. It's about a girl who had just come to you. As you go along. It's about a girl who had just come to Paris from her home in Oslo. At the house of some friends, she met a man about whom she had heard her whole life. A very great and courageous man. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideals. Everything she knew or ever became was because of him. As she looked up to him and worshipped him, the feeling she supposed was love. Yes, it's very pretty.
Speaker 3:I heard a story once. As a matter of fact, I've heard a lot of stories in my time. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs. Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid. It always began Well. I guess neither one of our stories is very funny. Tell me, who was it you left me for. Was it Laszlo? Or were there others in between? Or aren't you the kind?
Speaker 1:that tells we're taking it back to the classics. Casablanca. I mean, seriously, you can't get more classic than Casablanca. Casablanca, blanca Blanca. I guess we're going to talk about that next week how do you actually pronounce it? Because we're actually going to have a special guest no-transcript of nady and katie at the movies, and I gotta end it with a classic quote from wally wally
