Up

Up (2009)
Written / Directed by Pete Doctor, Bob Peterson
Starring Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai

Synopsis (By Leila)
kid named carl fredrickson meets a fellow charles munts (super dirigible explorer) fan, ellie. they grow up together fall in love get married, find they can have no children, have a glorious life together, but never get to go on their adventure to south america. ellie dies, and life becomes crappier, and crappier for carl, until one day he decides to go on that adventure for ellie. after hijinx, he ends up with a little kid, a bird named kevin, and a dog named dug.

MOster
Unsurprisingly, I liked this movie.  I'm gay enough to have cried a few times.

By now, everybody probably knows the plot.  I enjoyed the plot.  I found Mr. Fredrickson's (Asner's) development to actually be a story of growing up.  Losing his wife in a truly beautiful montage, his listlessness is palpable and his curmudgeonly behavior is almost understandable.  While the speed with which the system kicks him out of his house is frankly ridiculous, I don't know if there would have been a more-subtle / eimilarly expeditious way to get him up in the air.  Similarly, I think the broad strokes of his plan really work out to a death wish.  Before the kid became a factor, did he really think he would make it to South America with helium balloons holding him up?  Where was the map?  Etc. etc. etc.

But disbelief was pretty easy to suspend, and those doubts are coming up now rather than when I watched the movie.  There was enough novelty mixed with almost-believability when they got to where they were going.  The human characters were true, the kid probably the most realistic.  Christopher Plummer totally sold it as a Livingstone-type explorer looking for something to bring himself back to the fore, and the subtlety of the comedy involved in the (admittedly ridiculous in premise) talking dogs is a lesson that could be learned by Mr. Lucas.  The ending came well, and the tension really paid off.  Asner stepping in as the father figure at the end was another really nice moment.

From a technical perspective, there's not too much to say.  It's a Pixar movie.  It's beautiful and the CG is totally immersive.  Also, the scene where they showed the passage of time by the neckties she fixes on him was really great.

The Woman
this was a very sad story, and pixar always seems to have wierd sad,and sentimental movies. why do i fall for it everytime? why do kids like these movies? they're kind of depressing. i guess other than that it was good.the dogs were really funny and true to form for dogs. i usually don't cry during movies (i leave that up to my woman of a husband), but jeebus, i was tearing up through the whole friggin' movie.