Up

           This is another wonderful presentation by the good folks down at Pixar. It’s really too bad that it takes so long to make each 3-D animation movies, because each year there’s another triumph. Up is really a touching film from beginning to end. It starts as a young boy watches tales of a disgraced adventurer who has sought after the elusive snipe during the 50’s. In the midst of emulating his hero he meets a charming young girl.

            The two enjoy a long life together, though unable to have children, and they settle into a typical American life, he works as a balloon salesman outside the zoo where she is a caretaker. Eventually she dies and he settles into his old man funk, bothered only by the asian investors that want to buy his house and a funny little boyscout with a neglectful father.

            As he is about to be evicted from his house, he hatches a plan and creates a giant balloon harness for the house, taking the “up” and away into the clouds. Eventually they land in the mountains of Peru where the adventurer has been searching all these years along with a pack of wild dogs he has domesticated and trained to speak.

            The whole thing is really a marvelous adventure, including the discovery of the snipe, which turns out to be the sweetest creature in the amazon, though fast as a dickens. The adventure really captures the throwback flare with the updated culture of America, and the need to savor the small things in life. 2.