Ever since I saw Wall-E last week (opening night), I’ve been meaning to write a long post about a) how great it is, and b) the apocalypse as a theme in literature and film of the Bush years. (Think: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Jim Crace’s Pesthouse, Kevin Brockmeier’s very fine The Brief History of the Dead.

I’m too tired now to write much about the apocalypse theme, except to say that while every era has its apocalyptic culture, (Fail-Safe, Dr. Strangelove, War Games), I bet that if you could quantify this, the number of people fretting about the apocalypse at the moment is probably higher than any time since the Cuban missile crisis. If George Bush were smart—well, if George Bush were smart, a lot of things would be different—but if he were, he’d pay attention to some of the issues raised in this genre of art (environmental disaster, for one) and realize that these are issues that affect his own approval rating. When the most popular movie in the country features Earth as a planet populated only by a lonely robot and his unkillable cockroach friend, maybe it’s time for the president to realize that people actually do worry about the environment.

I’d like to see an academic trace presidential popularity and its correlation to art of the apocalypse. And I’d like to see a president who, every once in a while, asked academics questions about this sort of thing, and actually listened to the answers.

We have 9/11 to thank for some of this anxiety, but even more, I think, it’s Bush fault. We feel like the world really is going to hell, and Bush is fiddling away (while Dick Cheney lights the matches). Can we survive the rest of the Bush administration? How much more damage can he do on his way out?

Now, back to Wall-e. It is surely the best movie of the year so far, and it’s hard to imagine that there will be a better one in the next few months. It is intelligent, moving, funny, sad, bittersweet, satirical, kind, generous, and, ultimately, optimistic. Its creativity is staggering.

After seeing Wall-E, I left the theater and thought, Yes! Americans can do something right. There remains intelligent life in this country. We do have something to offer the world other than war, debt, and shitty cars.

Sound hyperbolic? See the film. You’ll see what I mean.

I’ll miss the 4th of July this year; I’ll be in the air the entire day, taking off on the 3rd and, thanks to the magic of time zones, landing in Singapore on the 5th.

But on this independence day, I’ll be thankful for the Yankees and the Red Sox, Barack Obama, and Wall-E. Other things as well, of course. But that’s a start.