Honea Express

Archive for the ‘Good Cause’ Category

I spent the better part of the day reading various reviews of Disney-Pixar’s WALL-E. It’s not that I was looking for them, they found me. They were everywhere. Reviews written by CNN, Yahoo, MSNBC, New York Times, USA Today, and the leading papers across the nation wrote of WALL-E with such prose and poetry that I felt like I was reading a high school girl’s diary. These were words of wonder and love and I feared that perhaps they would build my hopes too high. I was afraid they would make me expect too much, and subsequently fall too hard. I read the reviews with growing anticipation, and braced myself for the inevitable.

It never came.

The movie is everything they said it was. It is a wonder of animation. It is a tender story of love and loyalty. It is a commentary on human nature vs. Mother Nature. It showcases the apathy of mankind with interest and concern. It preaches, but it is not preachy.

There were lessons, but they weren’t there for us to learn, because they were lessons we know too well.

When I saw Happy Feet I left the theater wanting to march up to a penguin and kick it. It went so far with its agenda as to anger those that agree with it. WALL-E went so far with its agenda that it inspired hope.

It’s funny, the film was in production for years, yet the message it sends couldn’t be more timely. It is a time for hope, a time for change, and a time for action.

I find it telling that there were only two major papers in the free world that disliked the movie and one of them is in Arizona, as is someone else that runs on an agenda opposed to the messages that WALL-E embodies.

I told you it was timely.

The theater, which showed the film digitally as opposed to film (incredible), was filled. There were infants, toddlers, teens, parents, grandparents. It is both a family film and a date flick. There were two things I found telling about the quality of the movie, a) a packed theater filled with kids was stone silent during the first 30 minutes of the film despite there being little or no dialogue, and b) they clapped. I love being in a theater where people clap as the credits roll. There is no one to hear them, no bows to be taken, but the people clap because they have been entertained and they have appreciation to show.

WALL-E deserves it.

The time has come, to talk of many things- of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.

But the main thing we need to discuss is why Hilary can’t take a hint. Perhaps she feels that she is making a stronger case for herself in hopes of future elections, but in reality it is showing her total lack of common sense. Although by current standards that is presidential quality at its finest.

I’m actually surprised that a political career built on back room shenanigans and wishy washy values has lasted this long. I suppose to some of those among us there is a certain comfort in having one that is proven in the status quo of politics than one that pushes such things as hope and change.

I prefer to live with hope.

You may say that Obama is a dreamer, but he’s not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us- and the world will be as one.

With all apologies to Lewis Carroll and John Lennon, respectively.

How many Oscars do you have? That’s what I thought.

Tom Hanks has 16. Give or take. That means he’s a better person than most of us. Accept it.

Okay, he may not be a better person, but he’s obviously smarter than anyone that hung the wrong chad thus far in the electoral process.

Don’t vote for a proven liar or a war monger (or McCain). Let’s actually do something with this country besides watch it rot.

I’m Whit Honea and I loved Tom Hanks in almost all of his movies (and Bosum Buddies).

It’s Earth Day. Again. Still. Do something and do it all the better tomorrow.

I really wanted to bring you the actual video to this song by Dramarama, but apparently this is all that Al Gore will allow.