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| There's a very good reason that John Ratzenberger is the 11th most successful actor of all time (source: http://www.the-numbers.com/people/records/): he has been in every Pixar film produced to date, including Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Cars, The Incredibles, and in this latest Up. And there's a reason Pixar is so successful: the story always comes first, everything else is secondary to that. Up is no exception: bring plenty of tissues.
First, we see Carl Fredrickson as a young boy (Jeremy Leary) engaging in hero worship of Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Muntz has discovered the skeleton of a bird in South America which he brings back to the US with much fanfare. However, his discovery is questioned by scientists, and the hero is disgraced. None of this matters to Carl, nor the girl he meets Ellie (Elie Docter). The two become friends and later marry. According to the vignette, they attempt to have a child, fail, grow old, and Ellie dies fifteen minutes into the movie.
It says something about a film that starts the tear-jerking about 15 minutes into the movie. Already, we care about old Carl Fredrickson (Edward Asner) and his story. We also understand his motivations for what he is doing. And what he does is pure magic itself: he ties thousands of balloons up to his house to fulfill a promise he made with Ellie to take her to South America. Unfortunately for Carl, he brings along Russell, a Junior Wilderness Explorer (Jordan Nagai) with a penchant for trouble and a pure heart that ultimately wins Carl over.
The themes of loss, adventure, and ultimately letting go permeate throughout the film: The house begins to represent everything Ellie meant to Carl, and ultimately becomes a burden to Carl that he must let go. This movie is also about the promises we make, and how sometimes the letter of a promise becomes the ultimate arbiter of what we do when it should be its spirit, something Carl learns.
The funniest bits are reserved for Dug the dog (Bob Petersen) and Kevin the bird. Being a dog person, I can identify with Dug's behaviors that I have seen in dozens of dogs ("Squirrel!"): that honest, dopey, and ultimately good-natured sensibility that all good dogs have. The fact that they don't understand that, no, you don't want the dead squirrel brought to your back patio, thank you very much.
And why does the crabby Carl attract so many friends? Because, ultimately, he is a good person at heart, and is still that eight-year-old kid who geeks out about adventure and excitement. The crabbiness is just an affectation, and everyone of pure heart sees right through it.
This movie punches in the gut several times, and if you aren't sobbing in the first fifteen minutes and alternately sobbing and laughing throughout this movie, better get yourself checked: there might be a good chance that you aren't human. | |
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| - Tags:jokes
- Mood:amused
 - Music:"Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz
God and Moses are playing golf. It's the 15th hole, and its God's turn, and He gets up to the tee, addresses the ball, and swings. He slices it, and the ball goes into the woods, hits the trunk of a tree, and lands at the root. A rabbit comes out of a hole at the bottom of the tree, grabs the ball, and starts running with it across the fairway. An eagle spots the rabbit, dives, catches the rabbit, and flies away with his prize. At 2000 feet, the rabbit drops the ball, and it lands on the green, bounces a couple of times and lands in the cup. A hole in one!
Moses turns to God and says, "So, you gonna continue to fuck around, or are you gonna play golf?" | |
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| "Hello World" is a program that nearly all code jockeys are familiar with: it is usually the first program they learn to write. It is nearly universally used in the beginning of most programming textbooks to teach the basic form of a computer program, how to use the compiler, and basic output commands. Ben Jenkins, junior at Hofstra University, has discovered an error with the "Hello World!" program: it's missing a comma.
Jenkins has a major in Computer Technology at Hofstra, with a minor in English. He made the discovery early one morning, cramming for a threatened test in his Programming in Java course, taught by James Rutherford, III. "I was studying very hard for this test, and it suddenly dawned on me: 'Hello World!' is missing a comma," Jenkins said yesterday afternoon through e-mail. "With 'World,' you are addressing the world, and this requires it to be surrounded by commas."
Jenkins continues: "I checked every textbook I could get my hands on. Sure enough, the error was in all of them. Every single programming textbook is wrong. It should be 'Hello, World!' not 'Hello World!'"
The capitalization of "world" went unmentioned. | |
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| That sound you hear is of Will Eisner spinning in his grave.
It is very rare that I see a movie and want my $8 back... at the very least I paid matinee price.
The problem with the movie can be summed up by the following words: "Posing, not acting." The whole movie felt phony... okay, so we're talking about a guy in a domino mask who runs around rooftops, who seems to survive without any sustenance, and can't be killed. But that doesn't mean that the performances have to be total drek. The only performance that I found even halfway believable and natural was Sarah Paulson as the doctor hopelessly in love with the Spirit.
Perhaps the suffering is at the hands of Frank Miller (creator of "300" and "Sin City")... It seemed to me that the plot of the movie could have been compressed into 30 minutes in the hands of a skilled director.
Some of the art direction seemed more like art for art's sake, and had nothing to do with the story, telling the story, or moving the story along. I found it at times distracting, as if a first year film student decided to experiment with some of the settings of his video toaster ("Ooohh, look what I can do!").
The movie's greatest sin? Not necessarily mucking around with Eisner's story (though it does plenty of that); nor is it the shallow direction and obscene violence. No, it's biggest sin is that it is simply boring.
To steal gleefully from Dorothy Parker: This movie shouldn't be taken lightly--it should be thrown with great force. | |
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| - Mood:sad
 - Music:"Everything I Own" by Bread
Everything I Own
Bread (David Gates)
You sheltered me from harm
Kept me warm
Kept me warm
You gave my life to me
Set me free
Set me free
The finest years I ever knew
Were all the years I had with you
And I would give anything I own
Give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again
You taught me how to love
What it's of
What it's of
You never said too much
But still you showed the way
And I knew from watching you
Nobody else could ever know
The part of me that can't let go
And I would give anything I own
Give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again
Is there someone you know
You're loving them so
But taking them all for granted
You may lose them one day
Someone takes them away
And they don't hear the words you want to say
I would give anything I own
Give up my life, my heart, my home
I would give everything I own
Just to have you back again
Just to touch you once again Happy birthday, Dad. In Memoriam
Wade Almon Davidson, Jr (7 August 1945 - 8 November 2001) | |
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| I really wanted to like this movie. I mean, I really, really, wanted to like this movie. So, why didn't this movie like me? The problems with the movie are many and glaring that any moron (including me, your Moronic Reviewer) could see them coming from a mile away. Let's start with the plot. ( Spoilers ahoy! )There is another thing that bothers me: I know that Harrison Ford is getting up there in years (as would Indiana in 1957, come to think of it), but this movie is a talkie... In fact, it seems to bog down in these long-ass expositions that made me long for the FF button on my TiVo (bloop! bloop! BLOOP!). Let's get to the action sequences, already, please. That's what we're there for, if truth be told, not some pseudo-history lesson of Mayan culture. In fact, in the viewing I saw this movie at, the whole audience seemed to sense this: they started to fidget about halfway through the movie. The pacing of the whole movie was off. Somehow, in addition to the pacing, they seemed to lose the distinctive look of the Indiana Jones movies. There was a... graininess... to the original movies, the colors more subdued, almost like a colorized black-and-white. Here, the colors seemed more four-colorish, almost too vibrant. It left the backdrops too much in focus, and I found it distracting at times. There is an outside worm's eye view shot with Cate Blanchett framed looking menacingly at Harrison Ford off to the left in the first act; there is a partly cloudy blue sky in the background. Look at that, and tell me that doesn't shout out "green screen backdrop!!!" to you. ( More Spoilers behind the lj-cut )But let's talk about the positives: everyone here puts in a brilliant performance. Karen Allen is back for one of the roles that made her famous. Ford once again proves that he still has it. Cate Blanchett seems to find this whole thing fun. Shia LeBeouf makes a decent sidekick. The action set-pieces, once we do get them, are spectacular, as always. All in all, if Raiders was an A+, and Temple of Doom a B-, and Last Crusade was an A-, then I would have to call this movie a C+. I didn't hate it by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a bit of a let-down. | |
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I don't know why, but I feel strangely compelled to purchase this DVD.
Must buy.... must buy... must buy.....
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| Here are some pretty nutty pictures of my friends and me from NYCC 2008: Comic Con Ny 2008Though the first couple of pictures come from the week before the con. | |
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| - Mood:amused
- Music:"Distant Early Warning" by Rush
Okay, so I have this direct report, a stock guy we'll call Miguel (his name's been changed to save him some embarassment). I would say that he's as dumb as a box of rocks, except that it's insulting to boxes of rocks everywhere. He got injured at work a couple of weeks ago, and had to go out on worker's comp for a few days to recover. He has since come back, but is visiting a doctor for continuing care. Our HR department has been trying to help this guy out, except that he's so dumb he doesn't even realize he's a source of frustration to everyone he meets--he doesn't understand English, and he doesn't understand Spanish. Thus, this e-mail exchange between myself and my company's Worker's Comp Analyst (I have edited the e-mail for the sake of clarity, brevity and privacy):
WCA:
You know what I find amazing? These associates can never find the information I tell them on their claim forms. I sent him a letter in Spanish, and I spoke to him as well on the phone and gave him all of the information, and he still says he doesn't have it. Ahhh!!! If I ever have to send him another letter I am going to try French just to see if he understands that language better [j/k]. These associates can be so exasperating!!! Thanks, Tom.
My response (the punchline):
You see, this is where I believe Miguel has tricked us all: he speaks neither Spanish nor English; I'm beginning to suspect that he actually communicates by a complicated series of hoots, clicks, and ancient forms of interpretive dance. The language is so complicated that it requires a brain the size of a medium asteroid, but it's so heavy that he needs to keep it in a parallel dimension and he has problems accessing it at critical moments. Linguistics professors from Harvard haven't been able to decrypt this language, either. They're working diligently on it, though, and if they come across some sort of Rosetta Stone, I'll pass it along. :) | |
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| - Tags:quiz
- Mood:sick
 - Music:"Fields of Gold" by Sting
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tomd1969's journal
