UP

"As buoyant and richly tinted as the balloons that figure so prominently in its story, Up is also thoroughly grounded in real emotion and ideas of substance. How's that for an instant boost? The result is a lovely, thoughtful, and yes, uplifting adventure (in 3-D where available) about an old guy, a kid, and a house that sails through the air, opening up new routes in life to people who thought they were stuck in their loneliness. The movie — which opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, a fresh choice — is Pixar's 10th commanding feature-length demonstration that the most inventive and fully rounded stories in movies today are being told by characters who require an animator's hand to breathe. Up is a beaut. And for once, 3-D animation proves its worth. (More on that in a moment.)

Up is a gentle ride, as befits the Walt Disney PG imprimatur. But I've rarely seen a message of such square sincerity — Life's biggest adventures can be found in your own backyard, shared with people you love! — told with such unselfconscious joy and bright good humor. Who says squares can't be hip? The star of the saga is a squat, sour old widower named Carl (voiced with Lou Grant-quality authority by Ed Asner), a balloon salesman in his late 70s with a head as blockish as a toaster. (Carl's boxy black eyeglass frames, sitting atop a Patch Adams bulb of a nose, only emphasize the set angles of his ways; the guy looks like a cross between Spencer Tracy and an eccentric out of a George Booth cartoon.) We learn that Carl's late wife, Ellie (who looks related to Helen Parr/Elastigirl from The Incredibles), was the real free spirit and would-be explorer of the family, and that the two always planned a trip-of-a-lifetime to a magical waterfall in South America. But daily living got in the way, and Carl and Ellie stayed put: A short, wordless tribute montage reviewing their lives together from childhood through childless marriage and old age is as deeply textured as any great novel.

A holdout in the neighborhood while colorless high-rises spring up around him, Carl sinks into emotional decrepitude — until two things happen. First, he decides to tie thousands of balloons to his old house and float to South America on his own. (He's that identifiable type, someone afraid of sampling the new without schlepping the familiar along for safety.) Second, in the days before takeoff, he's visited by a pint-size stranger. An overenthusiastic scouting-type misfit bursting with boyish energy, Russell (expressive newcomer Jordan Nagai) is as round and bouncy as a balloon himself. When he becomes 
an accidental stowaway on Carl's great adventure, he's unwelcome as far as Carl is concerned. But Russell turns out to be invaluable — not to mention loyal and trustworthy, a friend indeed.

Each specimen in the movie's wild parade of exotic South American animals is worth cheering, and the hilarious, acutely observed dogs who greet Carl and Russell in their new world deserve their own canine-centric spin-off feature. Likewise, under the tender direction of Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.), every detail of 
 the production is quietly exquisite. (Docter co-wrote the screenplay with Bob Peterson, who gets a codirecting credit and also supplies the voice of Dug, the dog nerd in the pack.) Michael Giacchino's gorgeous music, invoking great Max Steiner scores from the '40s and '50s, steers the story's emotional shifts with great elegance. The renderings, the color palette, the small and generous jokes, the perspective as balloons lift a whole house in the air — all are breathtaking.

But the movie's most important accomplishment may be that we're never noodged or even urged to notice these things. Even the sophisticated effects now attainable in 3-D animation are worth about as much 
as a bunch of balloons unless we can feel what 
a character is going through, and why. At 
a press conference at Cannes after the first screening of Up, Disney·Pixar creative 
honcho John Lasseter explained that although he loves 3-D as a ''fun toy,'' he has no use for disruptive tricks that leap out of the screen. ''3-D should supply depth that furthers the emotion of the scene,'' he said. Can complicated technical virtuosity be reduced to something as simple as that? Yes, if you're Up to it."
- Lisa Schwarzbaum, www.ew.com



EW gave UP a stellar A, but I felt Lisa didnt do the film justice. Certain parts, as always, were spot on, but I wish she could have said more.
I cried (and I mean the sobbing terribly, not the tearing kind) 3 times in the first 30mins: during the end of Partly Cloudy, when Ellie had a miscarriage, and when Ellie was at the hospital and leaving Carl soon. I've not been one who cry at the movies. I didnt even cry when bambi's mum was shot. I'm surprised at my tearducts this time.

I rarely see a film that makes me laugh and cry so hard. UP will go down as one of the best films I've seen so far, and a personal favourite. Each Pixar animation has so much heart and soul in it, which CANNOT BE SAID for Dreamworks or Universal or whatever-company's animated movies. The painstaking details in making each character lifelike (unlike the disproportionate dinosaurs-bigger-than-mammoths-by-10-times of a certain ice age movie), the slapstake yet incredibly funny jokes, and the ability to imitate life and its universal feelings in the most incredible of situations and characters (a robot with heart, a talking ant trying to save the day, toys who felt that their time was over, a father's love for his lost fish, a car's coming of age) truely make each Pixar film a timeless gem.

Heck I feel like I didnt give them a good justified review. In any case, I just want to say I love Michael Giacchino and his score, for making me cry and laugh so hard, so many times. He is the one who created LOST's intense music as well. KUDOS!

I also loved young Ellie's facial expression, the whole structure of the character, and the lady who voiced her. So happens that young Ellie's name coincides with voiceover Ellie Docter's (whom I'm guessing is director Pete Docter's wife and his source of inspiration). Her voiceover was excitable and sensitive, and the reading was so brilliant it made real-life actor's reading of their lines sound mundane. AND young Ellie has enough facial expressions to make my favourite Nicole Kidman and her (supposedly fake) nose ashamed.

And you know I simply adore Nicole Kidman. To death.











Words evade me. I've missed:
- 2 episodes of Fringe
- 30 mins of the season 5 premiere of LOST
- 2 episodes of The Mentalist
- 2 episodes of Singapore Idol

If my life can be measured by the hours of tv i've missed, I'm probably the biggest loser. I miss days of freedom and sunsets in school. I miss Jack, Keay, Becca, Ming Hua & co., Faye, Wei, PJ.