🍿96: Robot Dreams
This week, a guest review, the latest trailers and two facts about WALL-E 🤖
“You’re made of metal, but you have feelings, and you think about things, and that means you have a soul. And souls don’t die.”
~ The Iron Giant, 1999
Be Our Guest…
This week, we’ve got a special guest review from one of SP’s greatest supporters, my mother-in-law-to-be, Karen E., who also wrote a scathing review of True Things in SP#38.
We’re always open to guest reviews and collaborations and, as SP transitions from free to freemium, we hope that we’ll be able to pay people to write for us more regularly, in the interest of giving you, the reader, more diverse takes on the latest films.
Of course, I also need to take time off now and then, and for now, those are the only times I can afford to pay guest editors. But, we would love to have a growing roster of guest writers to cover the reviews.
We’ve done a callout before, and while our next guest editor (for July) has been chosen, we’d love for you to get in touch if you fancy writing a future review for SP. If you’re interested, simply reply to this email to let us know and we’ll ask you to fill out a very short form before adding you to the roster.
Please also note that while some professional writing experience is preferred, it’s not a necessity, provided you know how to write.
What’s Popping
Sean Baker’s Anora — a Cinderella story about a sex worker — won the Palme d’Or. Read more.
Andrew Scott, Josh O’Connor and Cailee Spaeny are confirmed to star alongside Daniel Craig in the third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man. Read more.
The Shanghai Film Festival has unveiled its competition lineup. Read more.
And finally, the house from Home Alone, complete with a cinema and a basketball court, is up for sale to anyone with a cool $5.25m. Read more.
Coming Soon
Wolfs
UK: 20 September // USA: 20 September
Brad Pitt and George Clooney play two fixers who get thrown into the same job, despite only working alone.
Kinds of Kindness
UK: 21 June // USA: 21 June
Teasers aside, this is the first ‘real’ trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos’s upcoming film. With an all-star cast — Emily Stone, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Joe Alwyn (and more!) — the big question is, how will it compare to Poor Things?
Fact of the Week
After wrapping Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, the legendary sound designer and director Ben Burtt told his wife that he never wanted to work on another film involving Robots. That was before Pixar talked him through their ideas for WALL-E.
Burtt ended up recording 2,500 different sounds for WALL-E, which is around twice as many for any Star Wars film and the most Burtt had ever recorded for a single feature. When the film’s director Andrew Stanton met with Burtt to pitch the idea of him working on the film, he reportedly said: “I need you to be 80% of my cast!”
If this week’s fact is a bit too sound-oriented for you, here’s a bonus: Earth’s first artificial satellite, better known as Sputnik, makes a small cameo in the film just as WALL-E exits the Earth’s atmosphere. Here’s the clip:
Review: Robot Dreams
Star Rating:
4.5 (out of 5)
Where to Watch:
USA: Only in cinemas
UK: Only in cinemas
Runtime:
1hr 42m
Director:
Pablo Berger
Blurb:
It’s 1980s New York City and Dog is tired of living alone. One day he decides to build himself a robot as a companion. Their friendship blossoms and they become inseparable until one summer night, when Dog is forced to abandon Robot at the beach. Will they ever meet again?
The Review:
Taking two ten-year-old boys to a 1980s-based tragicomedy, without any dialogue, might sound like a fierce tiger-parenting move, but this film was an absolute joy for us all.
Based on a 2007 graphic novel by Sara Varon, the animated film retains the simple lines of a comic strip, accompanied by a gloriously retro soundtrack. (We were humming Earth Wind and Fire’s ‘September’ for weeks afterwards).
The plot could be described as a quiet love story, albeit a tale of love and loss (and love again), but there is so much more to this film, which offers a perfect balance of comedy — and heartbreaking sadness.
Dog is a melancholy loner, sitting day after day in his East Village apartment, eating macaroni cheese dinners for one, watching Manhattan life go on without him from his window. When a jaunty TV advertisement (remember those?) catches his eye, Dog knows where the answer lies.
The Amica 2000 is the robot companion he orders from the advertisement - and Dog’s life is completely transformed. Dog and Robot become inseparable friends. They roller-skate together, eat hot dogs in Central Park together and take the subway around the city together — all while having the most fantastically exhilarating, disco-dancing, beautiful summer together until, of course… tragedy strikes.
Without giving anything away here, the pair are separated and the journey to find each other again is an achingly poignant story of conflict, anguish and yet still, moments of comedy.
Within this bleak winter of their cruel severance, we see a series of Robot’s dreams that speak to his friendship with Dog, the companionship they have experienced and the anxieties of being left behind.
The film premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival last year. While it only received a limited release here in the UK (via Curzon cinemas) the film continues, deservedly, to receive five-star reviews. It’s a rare beast with the emotional weight to genuinely delight children and adults alike. See it and weep.
Scroll down to see what’s in the next issue.
If you liked Robot Dreams…
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
2021 | UK: Sky Cinema / Apple TV+ (£7.99) // USA: Netflix
Voiced by Jenny Slate, Marcel is a shell (with shoes) who, after living with in isolation with his grandmother, sets off on a quest to find his long-lost family. If you’re looking for another cute and emotional animated to watch after Robot Dreams, this is it.
Next Week:
The Beast
UK: 31 May // USA: 5 April | Watch the Trailer
See it and weep - so true! Nice review, Ma ;)