Sunday, June 22, 2008


It's the morning after and Wall-E was great -- both the movie and the bot. Akhil and his team spent a long, painfully warm day prepping at the "faded red carpet." (They were going for a space-like, reddish dirt effect.) When I saw him he was crouched in a tent, on a headset, getting ready to send Wall-E back out into the open again. They'd gone through about 48 Gatorades and 3 changes of clothes by then.

I took Kendra with me and we hung around outside the theater to see who we could spot. Not too many celebs, just the cast and a ton of kiddie-show stars, like Zac and Cody and that Brenda Song girl, plus Marlee Matlin, Brad Garrett, David Archuleta (American Idol runner-up), and a lot of "So You Think You Can Dance" judges, which is weird, cuz that's on Fox.

Wall-E posed with his castmates, Sigourney Weaver, Fred Willard, Kathy Najimy, John Ratzenberger, etc..., who had fairly tiny parts since there was barely any dialog in the film. Nice gig if you can get it. We were right up against the rail for photo opps, with them and with Pixar execs John Lassiter and Andrew Stantion (director).

The movie itself was cute and clever, moved right along - reminded me somewhat of the few "silent" episodes they did with Bugs Bunny. I love the social commentary; just wish they would've put their money where their mouth is and actually made the premiere green! All those styrofoam props... There's a great Peter Gabriel song for the soundtrack. The after-party was just up the hill at the Griffith Park Observatory, which was completely open, even had a midnight Planetarium show! What a beautiful view. Fittingly, because there were hundreds of kids at this thing, they served plentiful kid-friendly desserts like bakery-made twinkies, devil dogs, and ring-dings plus bon-bons, tarts and cookie pops, and were giving away stuffed versions of Wall-E and Eva. Now life gets a little more chill for a couple of weeks. However, Akhil is off to Europe for international press right after that. He's exhausted. Much more exhausted than he deserves to be. But the robot is great -- I'm proud.

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