IMDb #115 Review: Up (2009)

Source: Wikipedia

The title of this Pixar adventure helpfully indicates in which direction it is misleading us. Not up, it's down. From America to South America, from soaring dreams to grounded reality, from breezy comedy to zephyrs of romance to doldrums of tragedy to the squalls of raging geezers clumsily dueling on a nosediving zeppelin.

A quiet nerdy boy meets a loud nerdy girl. They marry, grow old, endure tragedy along the way. Life eats their dreams and shits them out as lost time.

So the retired balloon salesman revenges himself on physics and society. He exacerbates the world helium shortage. He circumvents urban expansion and a pending lawsuit and the nursing home system by raising his decrepit technicolor homestead into the stratosphere. Using balloons. Many, many balloons.

Without proper steering or navigational equipment, the impossible flying house impossibly reaches its destination. The wild jungle of Paradise Falls, Venezuela.

Nothing can stop him now. Except a stowaway, a chubby Asian Boy-Scout-in-all-but-name (see: violently defended copyright).

The old grouch sends the kid on a snipe hunt. The kid returns with a hyper-intelligent chocolate-loving rainbow ostrich. Which the kid dubs Kevin.

In the untamed jungle of Venezuela, away from oil crises and drug wars and raging totalitarianism, there's a valley of weirdness. Realism need not apply. An elderly explorer can maintain a zeppelin large enough to house an airborne paleontology museum, staffed by talking dogs whose translation collars let them share their moronic thoughts with the world. This explorer guy has to be truly ancient; by now he's sunk so much time into his snipe hunt that he's not above cold-blooded murder.

Here we have Pixar at its silliest and downright darkest. It's presumably a realistic universe (despite, you know, balloons lifting a house and collars explicating canine minds), where the real magic happens in the animation and soundtrack and storytelling. The kids laugh; the adults fight back tears and hug their kids more often.

Anyway, the old man (the one with a cinderblock for a head, literally and figuratively) learns about the rigors of moving and moving on. The kid learns about the inherent risks of assisting the elderly. Sometimes you cross the street, sometimes another continent, and sometimes you're picking a dogfight with a flying fortress and a squadron of dogs in biplanes.

Like old age, happens to the best of us.

IMDb #168 Review: Finding Nemo (2003)

Source: Wikipedia

A maniac kills and eats a man's wife and all his children, save one. Year later, the father and a mentally retarded woman go on a dangerous journey to rescue his physically disabled son. Also, they're fish, and this movie's for kids.

Nemo, the titular localized disaster zone, gets scooped up by divers and plopped in a quack dentist's aquarium. His embarrassingly overprotective dad charges headlong into danger to save his boy from getting a scratch. In fact, the incredible journey goes viral, rippling through the ocean faster than the East Australian Current.

The rules of this universe are baffling but consistent. Fish have expressive eyebrows. Their offspring go to school with musically pedantic manta rays. Aquarium dwellers befriend pelicans and perform tribal initiation rituals. Colorful denizens of the Great Barrier Reef can apparently survive in any environment. These include Sydney's polluted bay, the deep-down Abyssal Zone, and the Jonah zone. All aquatic species (except weird ones like jellyfish and anglerfish) can inexplicably communicate, as well as understand human speech. One, in particular, can read English.

I nitpick because I can only nitpick -- this movie's scarily close to perfection. The animation's brilliant as ever. The storytelling takes the shotgun approach to the broad family audience, and blows the competition out of the water. Pixar writes children (of all species) remarkably well, most likely by consulting actual children. 

Somehow, the work remains grounded. Over-caution becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: it results in rebellion, which results in abduction by aliens. The message boils down to all things in moderation and trust each other. Simmer at 350 for fifteen minutes, add a dash of Cajun spice, and dig into a healthy helping of chillax, yo with your fellow blazed-out surfer turtles.

IMDb #223 Review: Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Source: Wikipedia

Biological abominations performing mundane factory duties shouldn't be this entertaining, let alone family friendly. Leave it to Pixar.

Okay. So these self-identified monsters live in a parallel world just like ours, except for the parts that aren't. The population spans a staggering range of shapes and sizes and color combinations, yet everyday objects appear designed for the relatively humanoid. Human things are just tweaked to look more monstrous. Moreover, clothes seem optional.

The urban economy depends on actors who go through interdimensional portals made of wood and metal and rubber tubes.

Why? To harvest the negative emotions of human children which fuel their technological society. Because of course.

All this offbeat weirdness blends into a sensational symphony of the instantly relatable and unquestionably bizarre. Human names, human events, human social situations, but cloaked in a luxuriously animated monster metropolis.

Oh right, the story. It's great stuff. The gentle giant and bigmouth bipedal eyeball are the top in the scaring business. Then, via shenanigans, a human toddler escapes into their world. A reverse monster movie ensues. Blah blah unmitigated brilliance.

Turns out the girl isn't toxic like the monsters think, but she exhibits typical toddler attributes. She babbles incoherently (yet coherently enough to communicate); she transforms intelligent adults into gibbering morons (did they all legitimately fall for that disguise); and might possess the superpower of teleportation.

Scrambling for an easy solution to an unexpected child (there is none), the well-meaning heroes stumble upon corporate corruption and pragmatic atrocities. It can happen.

At the apex of their genius phase, Pixar creates yet another enormously complex world. Even better, they make it comprehensible and slick-paced and legitimately funny. Every hair, tentacle, and snowflake oozes obsession to detail.

Why yes, I’m raving. Carry on with your doubtlessly fascinating lives. Which would be even more doubtlessly fascinating with adorkable monsters.

92 minutes.