We took Georgia to see Wall-E yesterday. I haven't decided just yet, but it might be my favorite Pixar film to date. It is certainly, on technical merits, the most accomplished Pixar film yet. Director Andrew Stanton and the rest of the team deserve every Oscar that can be thrown at them. The fact that animators like Victor Navone were able to squeeze so much emotion out of characters that are essentially wordless and all-but-featureless is astonishing. That Stanton and team had a packed-house full of adults and kids held absolutely enraptured for three quarters of an hour of nearly wordless storytelling was uncanny.

After watching it, I don't quite get the reaction from some right-wing commentators that the film is left-wing pro-environmental propaganda. It seemed to me that any environmental message in the film was almost incidental, and that the real thrust of the thing was a screed against unchecked and wasteful consumerism. But this is, after all, a film in which one of the romantic touchstones is the burning flame of a Zippo lighter, for goodness sake--not exactly a textbook example of treehuggerism.

So, Wall-E is either the best Pixar film to date or merely one of the best. (And the short film "Presto" which precedes it is, inarguably, awesome.) If you haven't seen it yet, honestly, what are you waiting for?

And here's my favorite of the teasers released in the lead-up to the film's release, just as a bonus.