SPOILERS AHEAD!

Like many people this weekend, I saw Wall*E, and like many people, I loved it. In terms of Pixar movies, I’d rank it with faves like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Toy Story 2. (Wow… they’ve made nine movies, and I’m calling four of them my favorites. But they rule, you know?)

One of the things I always enjoy about Pixar movies is that they make me feel and think at the same time. I get all weepy over Jessie the Cowgirl–I’m sorry you got left under the bed, girl!–but I also get philosophical about our cultural tendency to dimiss things after they get old. I laugh when Nemo “touches the butt,” but I also ponder what it means for a parent to let a child break free.

Wall*E hits me on both levels, and it’s a particular favorite because it has such fierce hope for humanity. Some critics have claimed the movie has a “programmed,” predictable ending, but I disagree. I’d say the ending, and in fact the whole plot, is less cliché than archetypal. It re-tells one of the most powerful and most repeated stories in our culture, then adds some unexpected details to catch us off guard.

In other words, Wall*E is the latest movie to make a Christ allegory, but this time it’s a robot, not a person, who gets to be Jesus.

SPOILER WARNING! THEY’RE COMING UP NEXT!

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Not sure what Trailer Scaler means? Go here.

The Movie: Bolt, released November 26

The Buzz: Disney does makes computer-animated films without Pixar, but usually, they’re thundering disappointments like Chicken Little. Can this movie–about a dog who plays a superhero on a TV show, but doesn’t realize it’s all pretend–turn their ship around? (Also, can it survive a mini-scandal? Lilo & Stitch creator Chris Sanders had the original idea and called it American Dog, but then he was removed as director.)

(see the trailer after the jump)

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A few months ago, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a popular theater/concert hall/cinema here in New York, hosted this evening of fun that was directed at my demographic: There were cool indie bands playing in one of the theaters, a “Lindsay Lohan mid-career retrospective” going on upstairs, and free arcade games by the concession stand.

One of those games was Donkey Kong, which Andrew and I pounced on like wild-eyed second graders just let out to recess. Totally arrogant, we started a two-player game, assuming the Kong would fall beneath our mighty fingers (or at least beneath Mario’s mighty heel.) I mean, we had been great at this as kids, right, so how could we not rule as adults?

But as it turns out, Donkey Kong is insanely hard. I didn’t even get past level one. One! And Andrew barely got to level three. Red-faced, we had to slink away from the game and drown our sorrows in a midnight screening of Mean Girls.

However, my defeat primed me for tonight’s DVD viewing of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a documentary about folks trying to get the highest Donkey Kong score of all time. I missed this movie when it came to theaters, but if I hadn’t waited, I wouldn’t have gained the proper respect for its stars. Between this and Pride, I’m anticipating a wild weekend.

I haven’t missed an issue of Entertainment Weekly since October 1993, when I randomly bought a subscription from a kid in my ninth grade geometry class. Since I’ve logged that kind of time on our relationship, I feel I have earned the right to question my beloved now and then.

And don’t get me wrong: I do love EW. Every Friday, I still get a little thrill when it shows up in my mailbox. (For disclosure’s sake, I’m also friends with a staff writer there.)

But sometimes my baby lets me down, as it has done with Issue Number 1,000. (This is a week for disappointing, 1,000-numbered milestones.)

Really, this issue could have been a huge deal. Entertainment Weekly has become so dominant in the field of pop culture reporting and criticism that it has trounced its competitors. Remember when Us used to provide real articles and reviews instead of tabloid pics and “stories” about dieting like a Desperate Housewife? Yeah, they stopped doing that because EW does it better.

But to mark its first foray into quadruple digits, the magazine doesn’t do anything reflective or surprising. Instead, it coughs up hundreds of pages of random lists. They all fall under the heading of “New Classics,” but that’s a flimsy premise for a ton of half-hearted ideas.

(more after the jump)

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Sigh… Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” is next week’s number one single.

Even more disheartening? It’s the 1,000th number one single in America. That’s kind a milestone.

Billboard magazine starts counting number one hits from the ascendancy of “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock.” Based on their count, here are some other songs that have been benchmark chart toppers:

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Check out my Variety review of “Bash’d: A Gay Rap Opera.” If you’re in New York, I recommend going to see it.

Who doesn’t love a theme? If it weren’t for high concepts, I never would have attended a “1987 prom” in 1998, thereby having one of the best times ever. The official name of the prom was “1987: Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” (my idea). We had a balloon arch (my friend Marisa’s idea). It was amazing.

And now I’ve decided that Thursdays on The Critical Condition will be dedicated to flashbacks. That means we’ll take another look at an older pop culture gem, because despite what the news cycle might have us believe, things are still interesting after they’ve aged a few years. And sometimes, you just can’t appreciate something until it’s been kicking around a while, you know? Right now, I’m reading J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey for the first time, and I’m glad I waited until I was in my late twenties. When I zipped through The Catcher in the Rye in high school, I was too young to understand what Salinger was doing. Now, I’m getting swallowed up by his writing… staying up at least 40 minutes past my bedtime to keep reading.

So in that spirit, let’s have our first Flashback! This week, it’s time to consider the unceasing awesomeness of the song “Voices Carry,” a top ten hit for ‘Til Tuesday in 1985.

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(Not sure what Ad-Tastic means? Go here.)

They’re so small! It couldn’t possibly hurt me to have one!

For a reformed snacker like myself, these are the world’s perfect words. If I can just… maintain… my willpower, then I can have a tiny cookie without a care in the world. (Of course, if I have twenty tiny cookies, hat’s another story.)

To that end, I love this recent trend in making snack-sized packages of junk food. A bag of mini-doughnuts is never going to be good for me, but is it so bad if the bag is smaller than my hand?

That’s the snacker’s desperate logic at work, and the ad up there for Haagen-Dasz snack-sized ice cream bars exploits the logic perfectly. The crunchy deliciousness of the bar is nestled in a box of assorted candies. Instantly, we’re promised rich flavor with minimum guilt.

And the box itself is surrounded by an ocean of white space, which makes the bar seem smaller, smaller, infinitely small.

I assume the actual product is bigger than it is in the picture, and that’s an interesting reversal of the norm: Think about how big and juicy a Whopper usually looks on a poster. In the photo, the tomato slice alone is as big as your head, and while that may stoke your appetite, it also sets you up for disappointment when the smaller, less awe-inspiring burger gets thrust into your hand.

But for this ice cream bar, the ad actually lowers your expectations, setting you up for a pleasant surprise. (That’s apparently my theme this week.) If you’ve only seen the advertisement, you might feel excited when you open the wrapper and discover a bigger snack than you imagined. And yet, you can still be happy that you’re eating something smaller than usual.

That’s a crafty bit of ice cream trickery. The bar can seem both larger and smaller than we might expect, and both results can please us. Or please me. I think I’m going to buy a box. I’ll report back on their actual size and tastiness.

Sometimes, I love being wrong. As in, after she croaked through her last few episodes of American Idol, I was convinced Carrie Underwood was never going to make a good album. How could she, right? She had no stage presence, and by the sound of it, her vocal cords were about to fly out of her mouth. (Remember this? My girl sounds tore up.)

But, um… whoops. Carrie Underwood rules. I loved “Before He Cheats” the first time I heard it, and I’ve got to say, I liked it even more because I was expecting so little. When you’re not looking for enjoyment, an entertaining piece of pop culture gives you the added joy of surprise.

And that’s exactly what Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gave me.

(more after the jump)

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Not sure what Crank That Hit! means? Go here.

I’m excited to discuss this week’s Crank That Hit! theme, but I have to work up to it first. Where to begin? Ah, yes…

I just got back from a mini-vacay in Washington, D.C. Ostensibly, I was there to attend a conference for theater critics, and while I did go to several interesting events, my trip really revolved around social time.

(Among others, I spent a lot of time with Kerri, who went on the trip with me, and Maggie, who is doing a law school internship in our nation’s capital.)

And let me tell you this: For the first time in years, I had a fantastic time. Before, almost every one of my trips to the capital resulted in tears, and not because I remembered who was in the White House. Hey-o!

On an eighth grade trip, my friend Thomas and I got in a huge fight over (ahem) a girl I was dating, and in grad school, I went there with my then-boyfriend. Let’s just the horrific events of that particular voyage ended up in a major Off Broadway play. No joke.

But this time? Awesome. Part of the awesomeness was due to staying in my friend Amy’s apartment. She’s currently working for the government in Baghdad, and she let Kerri and I stay at her place. It felt so homey! On Sunday, I woke up realizing I could actually make brunch, if I had bothered to buy any food. And that got me thinking: Brunch, whether you eat in or dine out, demands a certain type of soundtrack. You’ve just woken up, you’ve probably slept in, and now you need some music to ease you into the day. It can’t be too slow, or you’ll go back to bed, but it can’t be hardcore rock or dance, because your nerves can’t take it.

When you need the perfect brunch soundtrack, I say… Crank That Hit!

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