Irony

"I'm glad now that we walked to this film." So declared the co-signer. She was right and I felt better as well. We had just seen Wall E on Sunday afternoon at the local theater. It's such an odd thing - watching a movie warning about the dangers of sloth and conspicuous consumption in a building designed to promote the virtues of sloth and conspicuous consumption. Then, of course, came the realization that the movie makers would also promote conspicuous consumption and hyper consumerism via the marketing of products tied to the movie. Truly odd, and yes, I was happy to have walked to and from the movie.

That said, I liked the movie a lot. Overlooking it's heteronormality and the typical of Pixar female character as a sidekick to the male hero syndrome, I found it to be entertaining. Not the best of the Pixar fare (that remains Ratatouille in my book), but still a good film.

Another recommendation: The Book of Dahlia by Elisa Albert. I finished it Sunday morning. The book follows the life and death of the title character. She has a somewhat directionless life and an angry, bitter, sometimes ironic, and very cynical view of it as she battles and falls to a brain cancer. The book is dark, funny, tragic, and at times poignant. This is not great literature in the way that Orhan Pamuk or Salmon Rushdie write, but it is the sign of a possible bright career. I look forward to future novels from Ms. Albert. Give this, like Wall-E, 4 stars out of 5.