WALL-E (2008)

WALL-E (2008)

[9]

My favorite Pixar film features two robots who say little more than each others’ names, but somehow, as if by magic, WALL-E manages to convey more emotion than films that try twice as hard to do so.  There’s a charming purity in the characters of WALL-E and EVE, who to differing degrees struggle against their ‘directives’ to form a bond.  The fact that these two odd ‘bots end up protecting the last sliver of life on Earth — a tiny plant — could have been cloying, but Pixar knows how to handle the material.  When WALL-E finds the fragile vine, he simply collects it in an old shoe and places it on a shelf with other artifacts of a bygone era. 

The Player (1992)

The Player (1992)

[9] Director Robert Altman made his post-Popeye comeback with this biting takedown of the film industry. Tim Robbins (Jacob's Ladder, The Shawshank Redemption) stars as Griffin Mill, an unscrupulous studio executive who's paranoid about being replaced by an up-and-coming rival…
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)

[9]

It may be steeped in sentiment and nostalgia, but Fried Green Tomatoes doesn’t need to use them as a crutch to elicit a powerful emotional response.  It’s got bigger guns than that:  character and storytelling.  It’s one of the rare movies that successfully captures the importance of real, honest-to-God friendship, whether its reflected in the toned-down affection between Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker (whose characters are lesbians in Fannie Flagg’s novel), or in the budding friendship of Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy.  It’s a marvel that the movie can cut back and forth between the two story lines and keep both equally interesting.