Up (2009)
It’s like America, but south.
THE SUMMARY: An old man loses his wife before they can achieve their dream, but he finds new peace and purpose on a quest to fulfill the promise. Up is beautiful in all aspects of its presentation: visually, philosophically, and in its writing. It’s also the first full-length movie to capture and hold my toddler’s interest, so… well done.
NO MOVIE-PICKER COMMENTARY: Once again, the movie nominations were rejected in the vote two weeks ago, so Up is a random selection from IMDB’s top-250 list. It currently ranks #112.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S AI FACESWAP ART:
I see she’s missing the swastika badge.
This came out way better than expected.
Oh wait - there's the swastika badge. Yes, this video faceswap is included because it's so bad.
THE BEST:
The art of a story without dialogue: The opening sequence depicting the life of Ellie and Carl is a true masterpiece. The music, the joys, the struggles, the life, and… the death. It’s an achievement to tell a story without saying a word. Just by watching a montage of brief moments, you can understand an entire lifespan. It even made sense to my two-year-old, who observed ‘oh - him feel sad.’ So did my wife, who pretended not to cry, but certainly did. Normally I’d mock such a thing, but wow, is this a beautifully emotional presentation. It’s hard enough to generate that feeling by acting and video editing - to do it by digital animation without it seeming silly is impressive.
Goals unachieved are still worthwhile: Often we see value in goals only to the extent they’re achieved. And yes, it’s important to achieve them. But sometimes success is in the pursuit of the goal itself. Ellie never made it to South America, but the effort to do it gave her life with Carl purpose and direction, and led him to something new after she’s gone. The point? Don’t get discouraged if you struggle to achieve your goals. The commitment to the pursuit is as important as the achievement itself.
The boring stuff is what you remember most: Russell has a great story about getting ice cream and counting cars with his dad, explaining how that may sound boring, but ‘the boring stuff is the stuff he remembers.’ It’s true - in our families, our studies, our professions, and every other task and association we have, doing the ‘boring’ things well is a key to success.
My dad taught me growing up: ‘90 percent of success in life is just showing up on time.’ It’s a completely boring thing to do, to arrive where you’re supposed to at the time you’re supposed to. But just by doing that reliably, you’re already ahead of a huge portion of society who can’t even figure that out. Yes, talent matters. Yes, going beyond the baseline expectation matters. But just by being boringly reliable, you can achieve most of what you need to. It’ll make you a good father, a good employee, a good anything.
Do the boring things consistently, and do them well. We can’t all be exceptional at everything, and we shouldn’t expect to be. But we all can be reliably adequate, and that matters. People will remember you for it.
How to process and give purpose to loss: When loss hits, and it will if it hasn’t already, you have a moral obligation to move beyond it, for two reasons: 1) the success of your own life depends on it, and your life has inherent value and purpose, but 2) because it’s what the person you lost wants. If I die tomorrow, I don’t want my wife and boys grieving to their own graves. I want them to enjoy the rest of their days with the life I built for them, occasionally telling happy stories about me and not agonizing that I’m gone. Almost everyone would say the same, and it’s the message Ellie leaves for Carl: ‘thanks for the adventure. Now go have a new one.’
Don’t sentence yourself to suffering because you think that’s what honors your loved one. It doesn’t. Living your life with purpose does. That person shaped your life, so honor him by continuing it. Build something that person would be proud of, not a state of sorrow he’d pity. It’s not heartless to move on. It’s mandatory.
It’ll always be my first born’s first movie: For whatever reason, this movie captured my two-year-old son’s attention like no movie has before. He doesn’t sit down and watch full-length movies - he doesn’t have the attention span or verbal understanding for it yet. But this one got him. He wouldn’t go to bed because he wanted to keep watching. We put him to bed halfway through, and the next day, he requested to finish it. It could just be that my son has reached the right age to comprehend and enjoy movies, but I think it’s something unique to Up. There’s something powerful in its presentation that doesn’t require a large vocabulary to appreciate.
How to provoke tears without saying a word.
Go have a new one.
Remember the boring stuff.
THE WORST:
The villain plot is a little tough to follow: Maybe I’m just too dumb to follow a kids movie, but throughout, I was confused about why Muntz was so villainous. Why is he friendly, and then evil? Why does he care about this bird so much? If hunting this bird is his life’s purpose, how did he never think the obvious that perhaps food might attract it?
The last part doesn’t matter, of course, but the point is I didn’t fully follow the reasoning and motivations of this villain. He went from wacky friendly to wacky evil in an instant, so I had to go back and read some plot summaries to remember at the start he was discredited for faking the bird’s skeleton, so his obsession with it is to prove to the world that he’s not a hoaxer.
Even with the understanding of that motive, I don’t get why he’s such a dick about it. Just take a photo of the bird. Reach an agreement to bring the bird into your giant house and take care of its injuries. You can prove its existence without trying to murder an old man and his child companion and burn his house down.
Right, but Muntz is ‘insane.’ At least that’s the explanation given in the Wikipedia summary. Meh. I don’t find a generic ‘he’s crazy’ explanation for his bizarre character and behavior to be very compelling. Too easy.
Alpha’s voice: The helium-voice-for-a-vicious-dog bit got old after the first line. Not just because it’s not that funny in concept, but because it’s actually hard to understand. It was a chore to listen to throughout. Most of the time I couldn’t even follow what Alpha was saying. Voice is too distorted. Scrap that garbage, and give that character a cool voice instead, as they later did.
Why is this guy such a dick about a bird, again?
I get it - the voice doesn't match the character.
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. Aside from a slightly confusing storyline and one annoying voice, Up is excellent in everything that matters: art, characters, and most importantly, its core concept. There’s little tougher than processing loss, but if we’re lucky enough to live long, we’ll all experience it. So find a way to give it meaning, and have a new adventure beyond it.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇ Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
DISCUSS OR REVIEW THE MOVIE WITH OTHER LISTENERS: Check out the dedicated channel on the community Discord server.
NEXT WEEK: Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Poor nominator Celery Salt - his movie nominations were rejected in all four weeks of eligibility. I believe that’s the first time in the three-year history of the movie review segment that a nominator has not had one movie selected by the audience.
Accordingly, Maverick is yet another random selection from from IMDb’s top-250 list. It currently ranks #140. Is it as gay as the original? We’ll find out.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! Since I failed to notice earlier that June has five Sundays this year, I didn’t have a proper plan for what to do this week. So I have hastily grabbed four random selections from IMDb’s top 250 list for your vote, or you can vote for yet another random selection from the top 250 list instead.
Next week we’ll have a fresh list of nominations for July.
Want to be the movie nominator for the month? Here’s how - fill out the form below. Note: once you are entered, you are eligible for selection on an ongoing basis. One entry per participant - multiple entries will be rejected.