WALL-E WALL-E Oxen Free

by Nathan Walpow

Anybody else see the gigundous insert in yesterday’s L.A. Times extolling the virtues of the Disney/Pixar cartoon feature WALL-E? Here in Los Angeles, we’re used to all sorts of movie promotional crap in the Times around the end of the year, as the Oscar voters are revving up their ballots and the words For Your Consideration get burned into our brains.

But this one defies belief. It’s 12” by 9-1/2” by about 5/32” thick, on sturdy semi-glossy paper. It weighs in at exactly ten ounces. It’s full of all sorts of critical hyperbole.

I haven’t seen WALL-E. I’ll probably rent it sooner or later. I’ll probably enjoy it more or less, as I have most of the Pixar pictures. Certainly this hunk of paper isn’t going to make me more likely to do either. I have a feeling the same will be true for most of the hundreds of thousands of people who subscribe to the Times. Though that’s not who this thing is directed at. It’s directed at Motion Picture Academy voters. Of which there are, what, a few thousand?

But what I find curious is ... the movie’s story is based on rampant consumerism covering the whole Earth’s surface with trash. And this is how they promote it. With something that’s going to add who knows how many tons to that trash.

Oh, I know. Many of them will be recycled.

I know too that they’re printed on recycled paper. It says so right on the back cover.

But, still ... didn’t somebody raise a finger and say, “Uh, fellas ...”?

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