Conservatives love to complain about Hollywood liberalism, but most of the political films that shuffle through the cineplexes are standard-issue leftie hackwork that neither persuade nor succeed. You can see them coming a mile away. And then you get something like "WALL-E," Pixar's postmodern masterpiece, which is one of the most subversive films I've ever seen.

The late, great Stanley Kubrick (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) used to say that if you can turn off the sound and still follow the story, you’ve made a film, but if you black out the picture and can still follow the story with only the sound, you haven’t.

LOS ANGELES - Hollywood's most famous trash compactor continued his journey from the dump to the Oscars.

LOS ANGELES - A lonely little robot made millions of friends during the weekend - and even outgunned Angelina Jolie.

 LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has gone populist on its picks for best movies of 2008, choosing the animated smash "WALL-E" as No. 1 and the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight" as runner-up on Tuesday.

The arrival of a new Pixar film also means the debut of the animation studio’s latest short. And this time, the feature film has more in common with its short-film tradition.

LOS ANGELES -The Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight," slighted in earlier Hollywood honors, was among best-picture nominees Monday for the Producers Guild of America Awards.

NEW YORK - "Waltz With Bashir," a groundbreaking animated documentary about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, won the National Society of Film Critics' 2008 best picture award Saturday.

Review: "Surrogates" is itself a surrogate, a kind of stand-in for many of the sci-fi movies of the recent past: In it, you'll recognize the ideas of "Blade Runner," ''Minority Report" and even "WALL-E."

LOS ANGELES - Hollywood loves breaking box-office records, yet studio executives aren't griping that their 2008 lineup will fall a bit shy of the all-time high set a year earlier.

What a glorious summer of cinema it was, with "The Dark Knight" reminding us why we miss Heath Ledger, ABBA fans coming out of the closet and out of the woodwork for "Mamma Mia!" "Kung Fu Panda" and "WALL-E" keeping the kiddies entertained and an August so littered with funny, raunchy movies the nation's frat houses threatened to empty out altogether.

LOS ANGELES - It promises to be a colorful Academy Awards season when films featuring Richard Nixon and Batman could go toe-to-toe for best picture.

Between Marmaduke and now Alpha and Omega I'm officially starting to get fed up with movies in which four-legged animals dance. Exactly what do filmmakers find so appealing about dogs and wolves prancing around on their two back legs? Is it supposed to be funny or charming? Having cute penguins tap dance is one thing. But there's something I find unbearably grotesque about quadruped animals doing the foxtrot, even in the universe of animation. Alpha and Omega has so many needless dancing sequences that the film could have been called Dances with Wolves.

Between Marmaduke and now Alpha and Omega I'm officially starting to get fed up with movies in which four-legged animals dance. Exactly what do filmmakers find so appealing about dogs and wolves prancing around on their two back legs? Is it supposed to be funny or charming? Having cute penguins tap dance is one thing. But there's something I find unbearably grotesque about quadruped animals doing the foxtrot, even in the universe of animation. Alpha and Omega has so many needless dancing sequences that the film could have been called Dances with Wolves.

The animated “Astro Boy” is a shiny hodgepodge of “Pinocchio,” “WALL-E,” “Oliver Twist,” “Gladiator” and “Superman,” with some obvious visual touches taken from “The Iron Giant.” As its own entity, though, it’s pretty forgettable.

“Murder, armed robbery and suicide are just a few of the ‘traditional gun activities’ left out of your happy ode to the Second Amendment (Our View, Friday).”

Don’t you hate it when your bratty kid won’t listen to you and then they sneak off and consult a witch who gives them a curse that turns you into a bear – just to shut you up? That’s the premise of the very fun and entertaining new Pixar animated film, "Brave", but I don’t know if it’s a good idea to give kids these kinds of ideas.

Don’t you hate it when your bratty kid won’t listen to you and then they sneak off and consult a witch who gives them a curse that turns you into a bear – just to shut you up? That’s the premise of the very fun and entertaining new Pixar animated film, "Brave", but I don’t know if it’s a good idea to give kids these kinds of ideas.

For a while now, Walt Disney Pictures has been trying to develop an action/adventure franchise with the same mass appeal of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Its first attempt was with the failed “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” “John Carter,” Disney’s latest venture, isn’t much of an improvement. This is a flashy and corny blockbuster with only a couple amusing moments every 30 minutes.

For a while now, Walt Disney Pictures has been trying to develop an action/adventure franchise with the same mass appeal of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Its first attempt was with the failed “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” “John Carter,” Disney’s latest venture, isn’t much of an improvement. This is a flashy and corny blockbuster with only a couple amusing moments every 30 minutes.

Yes, there is life on Mars in "John Carter," and it's deadly dull.