Bolt

Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of accompanying my sister and her family on a family outing that included a movie. It was quite an experience, watching her and her husband herd their four children into the minivan, which my brother-in-law navigated down I-495 to the consumer paradise known as the Solomon Pond Mall (map) near Marlboro.

There's another mall named after a pond in Cambridge, and I joked with my sister, "So they name malls around here after the ponds they pave over when they build them?" That made her laugh, although she assured me that the ponds in question still existed.


The multiplex at the mall was on my list of theaters to visit, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to go there. We had a couple hours to kill before the showing, which was spent perusing the mall for bargains and gifts. The mall itself was crowded with holiday shoppers, belying any economic downtown. The truth emerged when we got to Linens N Things, which was undergoing its liquidation. The two-story outlet was already half empty. It was my first trip to a Linens N Things, and I finally got to see what "things" were sold with the linens---turns out that it is lots of kitchen gadgets mostly. I was especially intrigued by the prices on the fixtures---the tables and demonstration bed platforms, since everything was for sale. The fixtures seemed like the best bargains in the store. It felt like a quintessential moment in 2008 America, walking amidst the collapsing ruins of the hypercredit Nineties economy.

The movie itself was in the Regal Cinemas multiplex next to the parking garage, attached to the building with a separate entrance outside the mall itself. It looked like a quintessential early Nineties-type, ample and large but before the real luxury stuff was implemented. The restrooms were horribly small for a multiplex of that size.

I almost always see movies alone, so accompanying my sister's family was a treat. We sat in the first row of the main block in the stadium-style seats, so my brother-in-law could lodge the huge double stroller in front of the metal railing of the lateral aisle. I sat on the end, and found myself being the jungle gym to both of my twin three-year-old nieces during the screening---an appropriate way to watch a Disney cartoon. At my urging, and with my sister's hearty concurrence, we had chosen the 2D version instead of 3D.

"I saw two 3D movies over the summer," I had told her. "They give me a headache for the first twenty minutes, then after that I get used to it and don't even notice the 3D effect at all. It's a huge waste."

That being said, Disney always makes a quality product, even if it is saccharine. I had been dreading Bolt for months, mainly because I could not stomach the thought of John Travolta doing the voice for the main character. I absolutely hate celebrity voices for animation flicks---often I can only picture the actor in the studio talking into the microphone. With so many great voice talents out there, it seems a shame to have to land a marquee "name."

But it was a better movie than I feared. The story was an adaptation of Plato's Cave (for the dog protagonist character specifically) shoehorned into the old Incredible Journey animals-across-the-country story that has been redone so many times. It was glossed with a Tinseltown-oriented story for good measure(even our cartoon animal movies are now about fake cartoon Hollywood celebrities).

The most negative thing I can say is that although it had a sympathetic feline character, it nevertheless included plenty of sadism against cats and anti-cat messages. This is a huge trend lately in movies, one that has exploded in our neocon fascist times. One cannot make a movie about cats without catering to those who despite cats. To me this is on par with Barack Obama catering to the Sarah Palin voters in choosing his cabinet. Just say F-off to these people.

It is almost certain that the movie will be among the three Oscar nominated for Best Animated Feature (along with Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda) and will also most certainly receive a nomination for Best Original Song for "I Thought I Lost You", which appears over the closing credits. This means that Oscar viewers will be treated to a Miley Cyrus performance next February, reprising her performance in this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.