Review: Up

Up is a movie far stranger, and far more moving, than the one I was expecting. I thought I’d signed up for what really could have been the 20-minute short film version of the same movie, stripped of the extra layer or two of complication. And that would have been effective, and I would have enjoyed it, dewy-eyed and with a newfound appreciation of life and old people and aging, and that would have been it.

See, in this movie, balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) is a widower, refusing to move from the house of his dreams despite the large-scale construction surrounding him. It’s the house where, as a boy, he bonded with a little girl named Ellie, and later where they spent their married lives. When Ellie dies, he becomes more protective of his property, and when it’s encroached upon, he fights back and, one thing leading to another, is eventually forced to leave. But not without his house! He lets fly the balloons and sails to his and Ellie’s dream location in South America.

It goes on from there, in a couple of directions – but if it didn’t, that’d be the short film I described earlier. Right near the beginning, a beautiful, extended wordless montage takes us through his and Ellie’s lives. It sets the stage wonderfully, yet I’d have been satisfied with that dense little love story as is.

That’s the heart of the movie, Carl’s relationship with Ellie. From the extended first passage to other moments threaded through, it’s only superseded (in time, if not in significance) by his grandfatherly rapport with young Russell, a “Wilderness Explorer” (Boy Scout) and stowaway on the house-in-flight. They each make an animal friend in South America, Russell with Kevin (a rare local bird) and Carl with Doug (a dog owned by a SPOILER). Not entirely unlike the Wizard of Oz, Carl-as-Dorothy takes his flying house and proceeds en route with these three pilgrims. But in a twist on that story, the Wizard is off to see them, and that’s where the movie takes its dark, weird turn.

Turns are fine when they don’t make me ask questions that aren’t otherwise addressed or answered in the film itself. Turns out there were a lot of these, questions or things that otherwise stretched my disbelief too far (way beyond moving a house via balloons). And it left an unwelcome taste, though one that didn’t detract from other character arcs in the movie.

How dare this movie make me feel! I was looking for a breezy, optimistic puff-pastry but ended up with, not to continue the metaphor, an arguably well-balanced movie that evens out the sentimentality of the main plot with a weighty, adventurous side that doesn’t let the entire feature-length ordeal get carried away with itself (sigh).

It’s tough, but I can’t not compare this to Wall-E, Pixar’s previous release. I preferred Wall-E because the story seemed more coherent, the protagonist more charming, the antagonist less random, the world more interesting and engrossing. Up is gorgeously rendered, of course – that almost goes without saying, and is no small feat, and like Avatar, goes so far in earning the whole production its rightful praise. The focus on the older gentleman reminds me of Geri’s Game, the Pixar short film from 1997 in which an old man plays chess with… himself (and whose doppleganger – or something – shows up in Toy Story 2 as a toy repairman). And whatever makes that short film’s depiction of an elderly man so appealing, interesting and compelling, works here also. The drawbacks I see are narrative-related. Up is a very, very good movie, and one I recommend, and one I wish I could have enjoyed more than I did.

3.5 stars

Tweet Batch #20

# If during your daily grind you’re ever pressed for coffee, give Tim Horton’s a shot. Beans filter mug. 6:39 PM Feb 10th from txt

# Oh, and “Who Dat?” is racist: http://bit.ly/ddwrAu 12:52 AM Feb 8th from web

# And now I have to go punch myself in the face. 12:48 AM Feb 8th from web

# You won’t impress a French girl by calling her “mignon,” unless you want to be sweetly wrong. Try “mignonne.” Google can tell you that, too. 12:46 AM Feb 8th from web

Tweet Batch #19

# Do You Want to Know a Secret Garden #SpringsteenBeatlesmashups 7:11 PM Feb 5th from web

# Because the Night Before #SpringsteenBeatlesmashups 7:06 PM Feb 5th from web

# Born to Run for Your Life #SpringsteenBeatlesmashups 7:02 PM Feb 5th from web

# I love that Tony Dungy (http://bit.ly/9LKgAi) is the one talking trash on behalf of the stoic Colts: http://bit.ly/9ZRJ8Y 7:00 PM Feb 5th from web

# With all respect to Super Bowl Weekend, here’s a baseball link: Players in Little League & regular World Series http://bit.ly/cCk0A6 1:46 PM Feb 5th from web

# I know I visit espn.com too much because more often than not, all the links on the right side are gray. 11:37 AM Feb 4th from web

# There’s a city called Effingham, Illinois. Effing cool. 12:10 PM Feb 2nd from web

# DDMMYYYY should have been shortlisted for my twitter handle. Taken, alas. 11:09 PM Feb 1st from web

# It’s only 11pm, I can still squeeze some fun out of this second palindrome day in less than a month. First step: Tweeting about it. Check. 11:07 PM Feb 1st from web

# I dislike when there’s so much text on a webpage that the scrollbar on the right gets impractically small. 2:20 PM Jan 30th from web

Tweet Batch #18

# Yes, I have planned my weekend around the Pro Bowl. Yes, I am joking. 3:39 PM Jan 29th from web

# How charming and barmanlike it’d be to ask, “What’s it going to be then, eh?” 12:35 AM Jan 27th from web

# twitter always sounds f’ed up, forever asking “What’s happening?” 12:32 AM Jan 27th from web

# Let the speculation begin! The sooner it starts, the more we can discuss it! http://bit.ly/8CIsbt 4:03 PM Jan 25th from web

Review: Shotgun Stories

It must have been Netflix that suggested this movie for me – could have been my appreciation of No Country For Old Men that did it. However it happened, I was glad to have seen Shotgun Stories, and I’ll tell you about it.

The movie is set in Arkansas, and starts and proceeds with the relaxed pace of the lives of its main characters. We first meet three brothers, grown men, called Son, Kid and Boy. (Son is nicely played by Michael Shannon, who not only looks like a young, angry David Letterman, but was also Fred – the newlywed destined for Wrestlemania – in Groundhog Day). Their father passes away and it’s at his funeral that we meet another set of brothers – ones called by typical first names – who are the father’s children by his second wife. The father became successful only after abandoning his first family. The argument over how to remember the man heightens this ongoing conflict between the families, and sets the rest of the movie on its course.

The comparison to No Country for Old Men is apt, if a little too generous. There’s an impressive efficiency in the dialogue, for example, that’s refreshing in any script but in this case also underlines the nature of these characters and of their feud. No more is said than is necessary to tell their story, but we also see that the resentment has fed on this silence. We get to see it addressed, finally. The movie’s not scary, but its suspense is built in a similar slow, methodical way. Often there’s a disarming quietness in the air. The direction is straightforward, not too flashy, and that could merely be a by-product of its budget – but I also see the insistence and modesty appropriate and effective for the tone and the characters involved.

It’s when the violence escalates that what just might be the symbolic component in it all really made itself known. To me, broadly, this story cuts right to the heart of religious conflict. The comparison works best without being too specific about the players involved, I’ll admit, but: here we have two sets of children from the same father. They dispute the right way to think of him, wanting to have the only word in shaping others’ perspectives of him. One set of children has been raised to hate the other set, before being old enough to decide for themselves. These men are called to the front line of a fight that wasn’t entirely theirs to begin with, but has ultimately become theirs to deal with. And unfortunately, both sides look to violence before first considering that this conflict may be sooner resolved through cooperation and discussion. But even that solution isn’t easily achieved if it’s in these boys’ nature to be more reticent than talkative. The violence picks up quickly, building on the emotions of many years, and soon these newest generations are fighting to exact revenge for even newer transgressions farther removed from the original disagreement. And buried beneath all of this is hopeful idea that it might just take one person with an idea of peace to open the eyes of those too eager to continue fighting.

3 stars