BEFORE: I almost never do this - I think I've maybe done this once or twice in almost 5,000 reviews, but tonight I'm going to watch a short film before the main feature. This used to be common practice in the world of cinema, any film, even the most serious ones, was likely preceded by animated or slapstick short, in order to maximize perceived entertainment value during tough economic times. So, since we're reportedly on the verge of another recession (or even a Depression) thanks to you-know-who and his unexplainable obsession with tariffs, I'm going to double-up my review of "The Wild Robot" by first watching "Strange Way of Life", a short that's somehow made it to Netflix (although, it's marked as "leaving soon"), and it also stars Pedro Pascal, who's carrying over from "Gladiator II" and will also be in tonight's main feature. Ethan Hawke is also in the short, but I need not mention the rest of the cast, because as per the rules of the blog, appearing in a short film will NOT count in the year-end stats - so Mr. Pascal would still need a third appearance in a FEATURE film to chart for the year. Mr. Hawke was in "Maudie", sure, but would still need TWO more features to chart.
But the director of the short film is Pedro Almovodar, last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and I've only seen one other film to date directed by him, "Volver". However, I've got two mother-based films directed by him that would make a GREAT double-feature for Mother's Day, if I can swing my chain that way. We'll see.
"Strange Way of Life" is just 30 minutes long, and in that time a couple of cowboys reunite after one rides across the desert. They were lovers once, and they become lovers again, but this one still gets filed in the "It's Complicated" section. For starters, it's a bit tough to say whether this film is set in modern times, or the 1800's. Based on the outer fashions, I'd say it's a modern film, but based on what I know about men's underwear, I'd say the 1800's. And then there are parts of the film where clothing's not involved at all, if you take my meaning.
Jake is now the sheriff of a small Western town, and what makes his relationship with ex-lover Silva even more complicated is that Silva's son is a suspect in the murder of Jake's brother's widow. So Jake is personally invested in catching his sister-in-law's killer, only he's being protected by Silva. This leads to a Tarantino-like Mexican stand-off, and each man has conflicting motives, to say the least. Plus, whatever happened to their dream of owning a ranch together and just living quietly together? More to the point, if one of them shoots the other, what happens to that dream, is it still possible?
I'd say 30 minutes is just about right for this one, any longer and there just wouldn't have been enough story to fill up the space, and if it were any shorter, well then we wouldn't get to feel all the feels and fully understand the conflicts when your lover is also the father of your murder suspect. Most of the questions are answered by the end, except maybe the one about "what the hell do we do with this short film about gay cowboys, now that we made it"? Yeah, I know that can be a terrible conundrum, and I speak from personal experience in the world of animated shorts.
It's a shame, really, because I do usually have a "Best Western" category at the end of the year, only last year there were NO qualifying entries - it appears I may have watched them all? That can't be possible. Anyway, shorts are not eligible for my annual awards ceremony, sorry about that. OK, now Pedro Pascal carries over again to my main feature, speaking of animation. If I have more time in the future, I can include more shorts to precede other features, provided they don't interrupt my chain.
THE PLOT: After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose.
AFTER: Hey, remember in January when I watched three movies with Catherine O'Hara, but I didn't have room for four? I was bummed because the Oscars were coming up and I could have squeezed in one more contender for Best Animated Feature, only I chose not to. Well, that was the right decision because if I'd done that then, I wouldn't be able to use that film to link out of "Gladiator II" and continue on my way. Good call.
I will admit I avoided this "Wild Robot" film at first, because I thought it sounded too much like a clone of "WALL-E", I mean, stranded robot, maybe no dialogue, challenging problems, set in the future, you get that, right? But this is its own film, maybe there's a similar starting point but then it goes into a VERY different direction, it's mostly about animals and how they might interact with a robot, or regard it as a "monster" when it's anything but. It would be very easy here to regard the robot as a stand-in for a human, but it's not that at all - unfortunately it also falls into the Disney trap of giving animals the power of human speech, and I just think we're never really going to understand animals at all if this is our go-to. They are NOT humans and we probably shouldn't make them talk like humans, because in doing so we're simultaneously giving them too much credit and also somehow selling them short, they know a lot about surviving outdoors and we humans, not so much.
I think the robot here (and the world it comes from) represents artificial intelligence, and it's clear that animators HATE A.I. - probably because they know it's coming for their jobs, we're really not that far away from somebody at Disney or Pixar being able to say, "Movie about tiger cubs lost in the wild and the monsoon season is approaching, also there are tiger hunters and story has to resonate emotionally with both kids and parents" and then in no time at all, the A.I. has written a script, replicated the voices of Emma Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the whole thing will be animated by lunchtime. There, if any animators read this paragraph, good luck getting to sleep tonight, your whole career is coming to an end.
In this futuristic movie, humans live in giant cities under geodesic domes, so we can assume that maybe climate change was a thing and the earth's environment is broken. But each family of five gets a robot that does all the menial chores like watching the kids and getting groceries from the hydroponic farms, probably in the future everyone is vegetarian after all because there's no space for cattle farms or chicken ranches. Nobody goes "outside" because it's too dangerous, and certain no humans travel to this remote island where the shipment of robots washes ashore. I'm down with all this, it could happen. The water level on Earth is eventually revealed to be OVER the roadway of the Golden Gate Bridge, so yeah, that's probably due to the melting of the icecaps.
Anyway, if there were people in this film, then the robot would have its regular tasks to do for human clients, but bereft of them, it creates tasks to do while it tries its best to understand the natural world around it, keeping busy until it can transmit a message to home base for pick-up. Quickly learning the language of animals is a bit of a cheat here, but it's the only thing that could advance the plot and allow Roz to communicate with the other characters. Roz watches a gosling hatch and a helpful fox tells her that the chick needs to learn to eat, swim and fly away before winter comes. (Yes, as summers get hotter due to climate change, the winters also get more severe, I think we've seen that taking place already.)
But by "mothering" the gosling, Roz also prevents it from developing normally, she is also unable to detach her protective instincts to allow the gosling to truly learn to swim or fly on its own. Yes, there are lessons here for parents - in teaching your child to swim, you can either use the "throw the kid in the water" method, which is cruel but perhaps effective, however there is a chance your kid may drown if you're too detached. Or you can try baby steps, getting that kid in the water and teaching them to blow bubbles, swim with floaties, and if their progress is slow, that's OK, champ, there's no rush, you can try again next summer. While I disagree with method #1, I'm a victim of method #2 in that I was given freedom to learn swimming at my own pace, which means I never really succeeded at it. So I don't know, I don't think either method works well, probably the secret is parental support and positive reinforcement, which probably explains why I can't swim - my father was probably a "throw them in the water and whatever happens, happens" type, only my mother was in charge of me learning to swim, hence the failure, as she never learned either.
Flying is another issue, and Roz enlists the help of an owl who lives on the island, he also has shorter wings so he can advise the gosling better, and OK, great, practice makes perfect and success is eventually achieved, Brightwing is eventually accepted into the goose community, but not before a fair amount of bullying from other geese and THANK GOD for once the answer to combat bullying is not to fight back, but to keep being yourself and keep taking the high road, prove yourself by being above it all and don't stoop to the bullies' level.
Another lesson comes during a winter storm, when Roz works with Fink, her fox friend, to find the freezing animals across the island and bring them to the shelter she built, convincing them to put aside their differences and their proclivities to eat each other so they can ALL survive until springtime. This defies the natural order of things, certainly, but a message of peace is certainly welcome during these troubled times, as unlikely as it might seem.
NITPICK POINT: The robot's I.D. number is 7134, which is a number that forms a word on calculators, and that word (upside-down) is "Heil". Supposedly meaning "whole" here, there's an obvious Nazi reference here, too, I would have avoided that just to be on the safe side.
Directed by Chris Sanders (director of "The Call of the Wild" and "The Croods")
Also starring the voices of Lupita Nyong'o (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Kit Connor (last seen in "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "Their Finest"), Stephanie Hsu (last heard in "Leo"), Matt Berry (last seen in "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"), Mark Hamill (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Game 6"), Boone Storm, Alexandra Novelle, Raphael Alejandro (last seen in "Jungle Cruise"), Paul-Mikel Williams (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Eddie Park, Dee Bradley Baker (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Randy Thom (last heard in "Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken"), Avrielle Corti, Keston John (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Max Mittelman (last heard in "The Sea Beast"), Piotr Michael (last heard in "Bill & Ted Face the Music"), Tiago Martinez, Collin Erker
RATING: 7 out of 10 things that a baby opossum can pretend to die from
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