[TEEN MOVIE REVIEW] WALL-E (warning: spoilers)

NOTE: the following was written by my 13 year-old daughter Kira, who has agreed to provide a teen’s perspective on media that might interest other teens. With the exception of minor editorial corrections, the views and phrasing are hers alone.

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Pixar has done it again. WALL-E is their newest movie. It tells the tale of a little robot named- you guessed it- WALL-E. WALL-E has been cleaning up Earth for as long as he can remember, making it possible for humans to return to Earth after being aboard a spacecraft for 700 years. His only companion was a cockroach. All WALL-E wanted was love, which he had learned about from listening to and watching the film “Hello Dolly”.

Enter: EVE. EVE is a robot sent to Earth on a classified mission. But as soon as WALL-E sees her, he falls in love. EVE falls in love with WALL-E as well.

But when WALL-E presents EVE with a plant, everything goes haywire. EVE captures the plant and stores it inside of her shell of a body, going dormant. WALL-E doesn’t know what to do. He takes her with him everywhere, hoping that she will revive from her passive state.

When a ship comes to take EVE, WALL-E hitches a ride. He arrives on the Axiom, the ship that had taken everybody from Earth 700 years before.

In a mad dash to find EVE, WALL-E comes across some pretty odd things. The humans are all FAT. They have no clue that they can do anything other than sit on their hover-chairs and use technology for everything. None of them have ever even stood up in their lives.

But little of this matters to WALL-E. All he cares about is finding EVE. WALL-E searches high and low, looking for his true love. When he finds her, she is with the captain of the ship, who has discovered that they can now go back to Earth, since EVE brought back proof that the planet is now capable of supporting life.

But the autopilot has other plans. He refuses to let them go back to Earth, even if he has to kill WALL-E and EVE. Can WALL-E and EVE save the day and get everybody back to Earth? Watch WALL-E to find out.

I thought that WALL-E was the best movie in a long time. It was so pure and simple. I could feel sheer joy while watching this. But, the characters swayed me in such away that I wanted to die during the more depressing scenes. It was an excellent movie, which I rate an A ++++++++++! (10 +’s)

[TEEN MOVIE REVIEW] The Prestige

NOTE: the following was written by my 13 year-old daughter Kira, who has agreed to provide a teen’s perspective on media that might interest other teens. With the exception of minor editorial corrections, the views and phrasing are hers alone.

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Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called ‘The Pledge’. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird, or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it, to see that it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But, of course, it probably isn’t. The second act is called ‘The Turn’. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret, but you won’t find it. Because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act. The hardest part. The part we call ‘The Prestige’.

These are the words that greet you when you turn on The Prestige. Starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Sir Michael Caine, The Prestige tells a tale of revenge, betrayal, heartbreak, jealousy, and lies. It’s the story of Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale), two aspiring magicians, and how their desire to destroy one another destroys everybody around them.

The movie centers around one thing: “The Transported Man”. It is a trick that every magician wants, but none can truly have: the magician displays himself, vanishes, and appears in another location in a split second. Some have come up with ways to mimic it, but nobody can really do it. Angier is positive that Borden has the real trick, and will stop at nothing to have its secret. His obsession borders on insanity, driving him to Colorado to meet the infamous Nikola Telsa (played by rock star David Bowie). Cutter (Caine), Angier’s mentor, tries to stop his self-destructive quest, but cannot.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but found myself very confused during my first viewing. You never know where it’s going to go. You may think you know it all, but you don’t. I loved this movie, but if you aren’t the best at following plots, I wouldn’t recommend it. If you have the guts to view this movie, ask yourself this one question while watching this: Are you watching closely?

[YOUNG ADULT BOOK REVIEW] The Year of Secret Assignments

NOTE: the following was written by my 13 year-old daughter Kira, who has agreed to provide a teen’s perspective on media that might interest other teens. With the exception of minor editorial corrections, the views and phrasing are hers alone.

The Year Of Secret Assignments
Jaclyn Moriarty, 2004

The Year of Secret Assignments depicts the tale of three girls and their pen pals.

The book starts out when Lydia, Emily, and Cassie, students at Ashbury High, are all assigned pen pals from Brookfield High. “Lyd” (Lydia), is assigned a boy named “Seb” (Sebastian). Seb is fascinated with Lyd, because she is so incredibly exciting and random, which is how Lyd feels about him. Emily is assigned to a boy named Charlie, who is having girl problems. While Emily helps Charlie with his problems, the two fall in love. Lyd and Seb are also falling in love. So what’s wrong with that?

The third girl in the trio, Cassie, is the one with all the problems. Her pen pal is a jerk named Matthew Dunlop. Matthew, instead of replying to Cassie like Seb and Charlie, simply threatens to harm Cassie if she doesn’t leave him alone. Cassie persistently continues, however, to send him letters. Matthew eventually relents and reveals his personality to Cassie.

Cassie thinks she has found a kindred spirit in Matthew, but Lyd and Emily tell her that they have discussed Matthew with Seb and Charlie, and that neither boy knows a Matthew Dunlop– there is no boy by that name in the school records. They all decide that Cassie is either crazy or lying to them. Cassie is determined to prove herself sane and truthful, but there are other matters to deal with: the schools are vandalizing one another, and Cassie, Emily, and Lydia are the three main suspects.

I think that The Year of Secret Assignments is an excellent novel. Jaclyn Moriarty did a delightful job of telling an entire story using only letters, diary entries, bulletin notices, and most oddly, a self-help book about writing. The book shows how truly random and bizarre teenagers are, and keeps the reader interested from beginning to end. Overall, I think this is a wonderful read. I devoured this 340 page book in only two days!