Up

Okay, so I saw Up.  And, well, I can’t really believe it, but it just won the award for best Pixar movie.  I’m still blown away.  I’m still recovering.  I can barely believe what I just watched.  All I want to do is go back and watch those first 10-15 minutes again.  And again.  And again.  I’ll just cry the whole time.  

It’s that beautiful.  It’s that touching.  It’s that perfect.  

It’s amazing to me that Pixar movies manage to keep getting better.  I still remember how much Toy Story spoke to me when I was much younger.  That was back before they’d proven how good they were.  They followed it up with A Bug’s Life, which I didn’t really like.  I didn’t really like Toy Story 2 either.  Or Monster’s Inc. (although that one’s grown on me).  From that point on, though, Cars is their only blemish.

I mean, c’mon, it wasn’t that long ago when Finding Nemo was hands down the best thing they’d done since Toy Story.  But then they did The Incredibles and Ratatouille and Wall-E.  And now they’ve done Up.  

And it is perfect.

Obviously, Finding Nemo is about being a parent.  About the adventure of dedicating your life to your offspring and it’s a great movie.  

To me, The Incredibles was Pixar’s take on the superhero genre and it was my favorite up until tonight.  But it was also about family and about finding your place in the world, not on your own, but with the company and approval of those you love.  But it was also about the desire to be special and stand out.

Ratatouille was an ode to food that stunned me with its beauty.  But more than that, it was about having a passion for something.  About loving it and believing in it absolutely and the excitement and joy of sharing that passion with others.  

Wall-E was a love story.  Between two inanimate objects.  It’s Pixar take on the sci-fi genre.  It’s the best sci-fi movie in a long time.  It’s a lot of things.  But, really, it’s just a love story and the lengths that one will go to for love.  My favorite thing about Wall-E is that he never realized that he saved humanity from itself.  The only thing he cared about was being with Eve.  On a side note, I never believed that the movie was about, or against, material excess.  If anything, I think it was rather worshipful of the beauty that Wall-E created with humanity’s trash.  And on the ship, the population had never been given the option to choose and so it can’t be condemning their excesses.

And then there’s Up.  It’s about loss.  About accepting loss and moving forward.  But it’s about dreams.  About living with dreams, about missing out on dreams, and about the dreams of those you love.  At the same time, it’s a gorgeous fantasy about exploration and escaping a world that has left you behind.  

There’s so much to love about this movie.  I can’t help but love Karl.  I loved the journey he made.  I loved getting to see him smile again.  

That is all.

Francis