Up

Review for the Kiddies

Up is a fantastic, exciting voyage to South America! With a magic flying house, grouchy grandpa-type Carl Fredricksen and his little buddy Russell explore the jungle, meet a funny talking dog, and save a giant bird from a crazy old man in a zepplin! Featuring lots of laughs and some surprisingly tense action, Up isn't for super-young kids, but any child over 5 will have a whole flying house full of fun!

Review for Grownups

Up spends its first 20 minutes or so grinding away at its protagonist's life so savagely that it may reduce you to tears. Carl marries his childhood sweetheart, and in short cinematic order their lives rush by. Unable to have the children they desire, Carl and his wife Ellie pin their dreams on an eventual voyage to Venezuela, one she does not live to see. Crushed and alone, Carl spends all day in his house, talking to his dead wife while a heartless and marginalizing city grows up around him. Eventually, he is committed to a home, and realizing he has nothing to lose in death, flies his house on the voyage his dead wife always wanted to take. Carl's flying house and the film's other aeronautic hijinks show more than a passing Hayao Miyazaki inspiration, which is to be expected due to his close relationship with Pixar exec John Lasseter.

Carl is accompanied on his trek by Russell, a boyscout whose enthusiasm for nature is motivated by the love of a father who has long since abandoned him. The villain of the film is Carl's boyhood hero, a man so lonely and obsessed that he seems less genuinely evil and more completely pitiable. Behind most of the film, these undertones of losing people and ideas we love can be felt in how the characters act and what they do. The whole movie is built on foundations of sorrow.

You might think this would make Up a sad movie, and it does, but it also makes its many happy moments stand out that much more clearly. The movie draws strong, heartfelt performances from all the members of its talented cast, and had, to me, no slip-ups on its way. And don't worry: if you've seen the short film The Ark, and about halfway through Up you start to worry it'll end the same way- it doesn't. You can relax. Unlike Pixar's other movies, Up probably won't have a lot of commercial visibility. There will be some product tie-ins, but many companies have already publicly shied from the film. The reason is pretty obvious; ageism is an established thing in movies and just because Pixar rose above it doesn't mean companies will.

In short: Up is a moving, sophisticated film that will appeal to adults and children on totally different levels and shines above other kids cinema on the market as a complex narrative on human feelings and behavior.

9/10

Emile

Those close to me know of my deep love for Ian McKellen. During his films, I am wont to talk directly to his character. I saw all 3 X-Men movies just because of him. Ian McKellen is an awesome dude. So awesome he totally starred in this awful, dreary movie. Probably out of pity. I'm pretty sure this film was made purely during his spare time while filming X-Men 2. The credits actually thank the film. Seriously. It's all "Special thanks to Mom, God, My dog Murphy, and X-Men 2." And like X-Men 2 this movie is set primarily in Canada. Of course, most movies are and simply lie about it. In Johnny Mnemonic Canada pretended to be Hong Kong and New Jersey, in X-Files, Canada played the part of the District of Colombia, and in The Final Sacrifice Canada was Atlantis. Or Atlantis was Canada. Whatever.

Emile is the story of a dude named Franklin HAHA FOOLED YOU HIS NAME IS EMILE. Emile grew up in a shack in Saskatchewan, apparantly the most depressing place on Earth, where the skies are eternally grey, the fields vast and forever dried brown, and the people introverted and abusive. Every shot of his youth is taken through Fujifilm's patented "Bleakerizer" filter, which makes the shot up to 40% more depressing. Please note that the Saskatchewan scenes are not actually filmed there. That is because the director was lazy and wanted to film the whole movie next to his favorite pie shop (citation needed).

Emile's big brother the mean jackass, and his younger brother the sensitive writer spend their lives playing out a 2-man version of the Dead Poet's Society until the younger brother kills himself, so Emile trucks off to England and becomes Ian McKellen. He returns to Canada for an honorary degree, and stays with the daughter of his older brother. But Emile has a dark secret- when his older brother died in a  truck accident, he DIDN'T ADOPT THE NIECE BECAUSE HIS UNIVERSITY DIDN'T ALLOW KIDS!

What, that's not dark enough for you? Too bad. That's it. Emile's neice grew up in the foster system and turned into a huge jerk. Can Emile build a bridge to his last living relatives, or will he be pulled into a quagmire of guilt over not visiting his awful siblings while they were alive? The resolution may shock you, because there isn't one. Everyone sort of just gets over themselves and stops moping.

Aside from making every inch of Canada's natural majesty look perpetually dark and somber and completely lacking a point, this movie isn't too special. The soundtrack is repetitive and generic, the cinematography awkward (in true cinema crapite style about half the shots are off the corner of a porch) and the script, when it breaks the film's many awkward silences, is heavy-handed and flat. Emile is a ponderous, dreary film with little to teach and not much of a plot to entertain with.

Kind of Like X-Men 2, actually.

1/10

Twilight

The movie Twilight, no good. I kept waiting for the action, the climax, anything...never happened. The kid playing the main vampire looked like a pretty boy with far to much make up. What was with him acting as if he would throw up just looking at the chic, thought that was rather funny.
All my friends and family that watched the movie with me liked, I must have really missed something then because it was dumb! I like vampire movies usually and I was very disappointed in this film. It was more like watching a 2 hour music video rather then sitting through a movie. Two thumbs WAY down!

Twilight

Twilight is a movie based on a book in the "Twilight" series.  It's the first story in a four part list.  I didn't think I was going to like this movie as it seemed to appeal mainly to teenagers and romance enthusiasts from the previews and from what I've heard.  The movie surprised me.

I actually liked it and I was interested in it the whole time.  I can't say if the adoption from book to movie is any good because I never read the book but the movie was well done.  The special effects of the vampires powers were well done, and the way the vampires were portrayed was also well done.  Everyone has a different take on the vampires and I liked the approach they used.

The romance piece of the movie was definitely the center of the story but it didn't soak up every ounce of the other aspects so I respected that.  If you don't normally like romance movies (like me) then you still should give this one a chance.  7/10