Floating in Authenticity: Up Review

Pixar makes films that capture one of the primary reasons I love going to a theater, sitting in the dark, and staring at a screen for a couple of hours. I love all sorts of films, including those gritty and realistic stories that speak directly about our daily lives. Pixar’s films, on the other hand, are wonderful escapism and enjoyment. Like all good art, no matter how fantastical the subject matter may be, the Pixar movies do show us something about ourselves, they help us see the world differently. I go into a Pixar movie expecting great things and to this point, I have not been disappointed. Some films soar higher than others, but even at their “lower” moments, the movies Pixar produces are better than most other films released. With their ability to craft wonderful stories and worlds inhabited by memorable characters while pushing the technological envelope, I can say that with each Pixar movie, I have always seen something I had never seen before.

The streak continues with Up, which is not one of Pixar’s lower moments. The film is Pete Doctor’s second directorial project for Pixar. (His first was Monsters Inc., which somehow gets overshadowed by the other Pixar films.) It is hard to write a review about this film because I want to give nothing away. It is best experienced with as little knowledge as possible so that the viewer can ensure maximum surprise. Briefly sketched, the film follows Carl Fredrickson (Ed Asner), a seventy-something curmudgeon who sees the wonderful life he had lived for several years taken from him in a series of setbacks. Doctor and his screenwriting partner and co-director Bob Peterson set up the movie with deftness and aching beauty in just five minutes. The opening sequence of Up is one of the most moving film beginnings I have ever seen. It is not hard to get me to cry at a film, but I cannot remember the last time I cried within five minutes of a movie starting.

The Road Has a Trailer…

And I’m not impressed. Did they read the book? Thankfully, an article in Esquire says that the trailer does not reflect the film that well — the film is much closer to the novel in its pacing and dialogue. According to the article, the film, like Cormac McCarthy’s novel, offers no explanation for the post-apocalyptic setting. The trailer makes it look like another post-apocalyptic action story like, I Am Legend, rather than a beautiful story of the love between a father and his son in the midst of a harrowing future. I hope that the trailer truly does not give us a good picture of the film and that The Road merely goes down as another example of a bad trailer for a good movie. My hall of shame includes trailers for The Truman Show and Cast Away, which gave away significant plot points that the films try to keep hidden for, you know, dramatic purposes. The trailer for Master and Commander made a cerebral epic look like Gladiator at sea. Then there is the all-time king of a bad trailer for a good movie: The Princess Bride. “It’s as real as the feelings you feel”? A saxophone? Really?