I’ve been saying for years that some day I will work at Pixar. Even if it’s mopping the floors or cleaning the dishes in the commissary, I will work there. Seeing a video like this recent CNN feature only makes me want to work there sooner….
Just like they did last year with WALL-E, Disney/Pixar is pushing UP for “Best Picture” at the Academy Awards. They even have a nice web site pimping UP and all the other Disney/Pixar movies they feel are deserving.
Only thing is, unlike last year when WALL-E was robbed, I don’t think UP deserves it this year. It’s a good movie, but not a great movie. (My review.) I kinda feel about UP the same way I felt about CARS after seeing it the first time. I’ve actually come to like CARS a lot more since watching it on DVD a few times … so maybe Santa will bring us the UP DVD this year and I’ll feel the same way?
That would be nice.
I mentioned before that UP wasn’t my favorite Pixar movie, but I absolutely loved “Dug,” the obedient dog whose job was to track and find “Kevin,” the rare bird. So I just had to add him to my growing Pixar collection:
He has seven phrases and sounds awesome when you make him talk.
I’d been watching DisneyStore.com for a while, waiting to order him — but they’ve been sold out. So, I finally tried eBay and BAM – found him, and for about the same as it would’ve cost on DisneyStore.com.
I didn’t blog much about UP in the last couple months, and for good reason: I was avoiding any and all trailers, previews, previews, spoilers, you name it. But the lack of posts wasn’t a sign that I wasn’t excited about the movie — to the contrary. Around the house, we were counting down the weeks and days until May 29th!
Despite the recent health issues I’ve been dealing with, the whole McGee clan did manage to get out and see the movie right after it came out. Since both Cari and Sean don’t see 3D stuff too well, we all went to the 2D version.
And out of the four of us, I think I’m the one who liked it the least.
It was good, but not great. The “marriage/life” mini-film at the beginning, showing Carl and Ellie’s life together, was absolutely brilliant. One of the best pieces of Pixar movie-making I’ve ever seen. All kinds of emotion in it, and both Cari and I were crying when it ended. But the emotion didn’t carry over to the rest of the movie for me. I never connected with UP the way I did with, say … Wall-E or Monsters, Inc. or even Finding Nemo.
For now, UP is probably in the middle of the pack among Pixar movies for me. But there’s hope yet: I felt this same way about CARS after the first time I saw that, and have come to like it a lot more on repeated viewings. Maybe the same thing will happen with UP?
I was gonna post about this last week, but the text of that post would’ve been a lot of %$@!#%$#@ and %$#$@$% like that. Now that I’ve settled down a bit about the Oscar nominations, I can say it much more eloquently:
Seriously, it was a huge commercial success (something like $500 million overall at the box office) and a critical success — it was the best reviewed movie of the year. So, both critics and the movie-going public say it was one of the best pictures of the year. But, of course, it doesn’t get a Best Picture of the Year nomination from the Elitist A-holes … err, the Academy.
Meanwhile, what was the critical reaction to the five nominees? Here’s what Rotten Tomatoes says:
The Reader — 60 percent
Milk — 92 percent
Slumdog Millionaire — 95 percent
Frost/Nixon — 91 percent
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — 72 percent
Nice. Not even Dark Knight, which I saw on PPC last weekend and also deserves to be on this list, made the cut.
Prediction: Ratings for this year’s Oscars will be the lowest ever. The Academy is completely out of touch with reality, and the Average Matts of the world just won’t bother watching what’s clearly an art/indie flick awards show.
TIME magazine (correctly) lists Wall-E as the best movie of 2008. Awesome! Says Richard Corliss:
A dirt-of-the-earth guy hooking up with the ultimate ethereal gal, WALL-E and EVE could be the 29th century version of Tracy and Hepburn, or Seth Rogen and any attractive woman. It hardly matters that the movie is not-quite-silent, when it blends art and heart as spectacularly as WALL-E does.
I’m telling ya … Wall-E for Best Picture at the Oscars!
As long as I’m on a Pixar theme, there’s this: A guy named Larry and his wife were part of a small group who saw an early screening of the next Pixar film, Up. Larry shared his thoughts about the movie:
Both my wife and I welled up at a few scenes and there is a memorable montage that depicts a couple’s life together that is so poignant, even the toughest critic will be moved. There are still some very funny moments but this picture really stands on its own and is difficult to compare to its Pixar predecessors.
I already can’t wait for this movie. It’ll be out on May 29, 2009.
