movies

I’ve had an evening of unadulterated cute.  First, Chopper and I watched all the special features on my newly arrived WALL-E special edition DVD, followed by the movie (for the fourth time, yeah).  It is my favorite movie of all time.  Yep.  It sure is.

Chopper had Paisley with him during the movie and at the end, I decided that it was time again for a feeding frenzy of mealworms.  Mmm.  Paisley sort of fell off Chopper onto the down throw I’d been using and stayed curled in a ball.  I fed her some mealworms off a spoon (what, spoiled?) and then busted out the camera.

Tell me this isn’t stupendously cute.

More in her photo album on Flickr.

I just pre-ordered the three disc special edition of WALL-E.  Yay.  Now I just have to wait until November 18 to get it.  Ah, life is cruel.

I’ve now seen WALL-E twice, and I cannot recommend it enough.  It is by far my favorite movie that Pixar has ever done.  (Yes, that is high praise and I mean it.)  It’s smart, funny, visually striking, touching, and generally brilliant — and the characters are so well fleshed out, even if they’re mostly robots.  And I love the cockroach.
I discovered that Pixar released several vignettes to promote the movie and they are wonderful, too.  “Cups” is my favorite.
Cups
Vaccuum
Bouncy Balls
Magnet
Fire Hydrant
Hula Hoop
Headphones

I just idly checked our Netflix queue and saw something that literally had me jump off the couch and run around the apartment.  (Chopper thinks I’m nuts, as usual.)  A while back, I added two DVDs to the yeah-I-know-they’re-not-available-but-I-have-hope category (whatever they call it) and they are now both scheduled for release on July 24.

Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring (more properly Manon des Sources) are the two films made from Marcel Pagnol’s novel L’eau des collines, which I have read in both French and English.  It’s a magnificent book and the movies (surprisingly for book adaptations) are equally good.  The story is a tragedy — a greedy old man and his stupid nephew are desperate to buy a nearby farm, and when a hunchback inherits it, they close up the spring that is essential to bring water to the farm.  The two films are the story of the aftermath of that decision and the revenge of the hunchback’s daughter, Manon.

I’m actually giddy at the idea of getting to see them again.

I’m in the process of watching David Attenborough’s PBS documentary series The Life of Birds right now, and if you like documentaries, I can’t recommend this enough.  The cinematography is phenomenal and the subject matter is very well presented.  I was hooked in the first episode by the film of a bee eater (a lovely, colorful little bird) catching a honeybee.  The little bird takes the bee in its long beak, carefully wipes the stinger off on a branch, and then crunches down on a specific spot to burst the bee and send a spray of clear venom into the air.  Wish I had an HDTV to watch this one.