I'm feel UP from watching Disney/Pixars Up!

So as you can tell from my older review of Wall E, I'm kind of a Pixar fan girl. Now, I'm not so much of a fan girl that I can't accept when Pixar makes some not-as-great-as-usual films (Monsters Inc. and Cars wasn't their best, and when I say that I mean it was good, but it isn't their usual level of awe-inspiring great), but for the most part I have accepted that my heart belongs to Pixar, and that every year, a part of my pay check will go towards supporting their work, be it by buying a movie theater ticket, a DVD copy, or dare I say it, soundtracks and knick knacks from their films. And just when I thought that they couldn't out do themselves due to Wall E's pure awesomeness, they come along with a film that I truly and honestly love, and is what I consider to be the best film this year.

Up is one of those films that is just amazing, in the true sense of the word. It has appeal to almost any audience you can imagine, and has so many layers that I could write a whole paper, or novel, on the gravity that this film has. The animation is stunning, the characters

are developed and lovable, the story is timeless, the dialouge is pitch perfect, and the score fits perfectly with the feel of the movie. This is one of those rare gems that will make you laugh, cry, miss your childhood, look forward to your golden years, and make you step back and see a new perspective on life. And all of this from an animated movie about a house floating away on balloons. Well that, and so much more.

When I first heard reviews flooding in from last years Fantastic Fest that within its first ten minutes, Up had audiences sobbing, I was skeptical. I like to think that I'm one of those stone hearted cynics that, when it comes to movies, you have to do a lot to make me care, and do even more to make me cry. So I was surprised when I found myself bawling during the opening montage that portrays the marriage and lives of Carl and Ellie Fredricksen. This single montage is one of the most moving, emotional, beautiful things that I have ever seen portrayed on film, and that sequence alone deserves every award out there to give, and should be seen by everyone at least once in their lives. I honestly have a hard time putting into words how amazing this part of the movie is.

The plot is as follows: af

ter the death of Carl Fredricksen's wife Ellie (aka the love of his life) he has been living a grouchy, hermit lifestyle in solitude, alone in his beloved house. When face with the threat of being kicked out and moved to an old folks home, Carl uses his ex-balloon salesmen skills and riggs up thousands of colorful balloons to his house, in an attempt to fly himself and his house to Paradise Falls, the one place where he and Ellie always wanted to go, but never got to. And thus the adventure ensues from there, introducing characters like Russel, the lovable little kid that unintentionally joins Carl on his adventure, Dug, the talking dog and Kevin, a colorful tropical bird.

Now with that last sentence I know what you're thinking: talking dogs? Great. But please bear with me, these aren't your usual Disney like talking dogs. These dogs use dialouge that actual dogs would use if they could talk, not some smart-alecky sarcastic quips made up by a writer. I may not be making a lot of sense here, but trust me, the talking dog thing isn't a comic relief shtick and it never gets annoying or juvenile.

Which brings up yet another great thing about this film: the movie isn't juvenile. This movie refuses to talk down to kids, and uses a very grown up story in a kid friendly medium (animation) to teach kids (and adults, teenagers, and seniors alike) a very important lesson about life and love. I don't want to ruin what it is by saying it, but its something that can be lost on some people in this day and age.

The characters as I mentioned before are fantastic, and you'd be hard pressed to find a person that didn't instantly identify and fall in love with them. Carl is your jaded, old neighbor with a heart of gold that loves a lot, Russel is you when you were a kid: over active, loud, energetic and has a soft spot for animals and the wilderness. Dug is the outsider of his group who can't seem to do anything right or fit in, but eventually finds his place. Ellie is that person who walked into your life and changed everything, the loud adventurous person that made you come out of your shell...the list goes on and on, but as I mentioned before, all of them are lovable, relatable, and above all else are developed so well and have so many layers to them that they seem realistic and will win you over.

The animation in this film is your regular Pixar grade quality stuff, meaning that it yet again impresses and looks gorgeous. The sequence of thousands of balloons exploding from Carl's house is a triumph in this medium: they're vibrant, translucent, they float and move like real balloons and just like you were when you were a kid, you're captured by them and can't take your eyes off them for a second.

I've seen this film about five times so far, and I've teared up every single time. I've also shown this film to about six people and each of them have walked away loving it just as much as I do (its interesting to note that each of these people is from a different age group, ranging from teenagers to small kids to adults). To say it once again, all of these things show that this is a perfect, truly great film. I believe that this is the single greatest film I've seen all year, and deserves a spot in the various lists of the greatest movies of the decade. With the Academy Awards expanding their Best Picture category to 10, it is also possible that Up might get nominated, which would not only be well deserved, but would be a great win for all of animation in general. If you haven't seen this film yet, I can't suggest it more highly: you must see this film.

Avatar: A Movie Review!

So it's been awhile since I've done a movie review, but with the new year fast approaching (happy soon-to-be 2010 by the way) I thought that I should return to form and start spending my time in a dark, crowded movie theater sitting behind some crying kid, and wedged between two popcorn loving families that apparently have no sense of the word 'personal space' (or 'personal hygiene', if you want to get right down to it). Thus it is that I usher in the first of many movie reviews to come, in preparation to what I like to call the most wonderful time of the year: Awards Season! But enough of that, on with the review!

If you've seen a movie lately (lately meaning sometime within the last 20 year

s) then you've inevitably heard of James Cameron, director extroidinare with a career that shows for it: Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, and most notably, Titanic are some of the many films that Cameron has made over the years, and has made them great, and when I say great I mean highest grossing film ever made great, 11 Oscar wins great. You know, that kind of great.

But in order to understand his latest success, Avatar, you have to go back a few years Cameron's Titanic days, when he announced in 1996, a year before Titanic hit theaters (see what I did there?) that he would begin working on a film tentatively titled Project 880 as soon as this whole Titanic business was over and done with. Hot on the heels of Titanic's splash with the movie-going world (the puns are too easy) , everyone was waiting in anticipation to see what else Cameron has up his multi- million dollar movie making sleeve. In 2006 though, he had to explain the delay of 880 was due to the fact that he was waiting for technology to catch up with his vision. Pretty ostentatious, but considering that this is the same man that built a camera specifically to be used in filming 3D and CGI movies, this only made

audiences more excited and interested in what was sure to be another ground breaking film that would provide an impressive notch in an otherwise amazingly well-notched belt.

And then the first trailer came out for Avatar (the name now changed from 880). Audiences were suddenly split in to two camps, those that thought the movie looked terrible, and those that were still excited to go and see it despite many of the complaints being toted by nay-sayers: the plot is basic and cliche! That CGI doesn't look all that impressive! Where's my groundbreaking CGI battle scenes between aliens and humans?! The Na'vi aliens don't look real at all! This looks like Dances with Wolves mixed with Smurfs! This is Dances with Smurfs! I want building excitement over the past 12 years back!

The list went on and on until it was time for Avatar to be unveiled to audiences

(after yet another delay, the movie was only just released in December as opposed to May to allow for more post-production editing, complex CGI work, and to allow more theaters to install 3D projectors to further give audiences the wow factor). And were they wowed! With an opening day total of 27 million, and a total of $642,993,860 wide so far, its well on its way to being just as successful as Titanic. But now for the actual critique:

When I went to go see Avatar, it was at Gallery Cinemas in Woodstock, which is not equipt with a 3D projector, so I saw Avatar in plain old 2D, and I can still say that it was mind blowing. I was one of those people who was skeptical after the first trailer, taking the story at face value and considering it un-original and done before, but trust me, you haven't seen it done like this before, you haven't seen anything done like this before.

Yes, the whole 'military and government are here to destroy some planet and its

people just for some rocks beneath the surface but oh yay, the bad guys turn around and become good guys to save the day' thing has been filmed before, but it hasn't been filmed by James Cameron, and that is what sets this movie apart from every other. Well that, and the ground breaking CGI work.

In the middle of the movie I had to stop and remember 'This is an entire world that was made from nothing Someone in a tiny studio spent weeks making that rock: giving it form, texture, making it interact with every other rock, plant, animal and being in this world in a realistic way' and the fact that there are millions of rocks, leaves, plants, animals, vines, etc in this film that look, act, and move realistically to the point that you thought they were real, is damn impressive to say the least.

And not only did you believe they were real, you felt for them. You were concerned for the Na'vi people, you felt their pain every time something horrible happened to the planet that they loved so much, every time a tree was crushed, a leaf burned, an animal killed, you wanted to cry along with them. This is the kind of emotional connection that some directors can't get audiences to feel with live action movies, sets and characters, let alone for an entire world built from a computer, and that in itself shows how amazing James Cameron is at doing what he does: he made audiences feel sorry for a bunch of computer generated aliens made from nothing but pixels and color, and feel a sense of unadulterated hatred for the bad guys, aka the real live actors portraying humans. That by itself deserves an award.

As for the rest of the movie, it was pretty good. The Na'vi people look realistic and their language, culture and world is unique and something that audiences enjoyed finding more about during the duration of the film. The main character, Jake Sulley, is likable, relatable, and everything else you want your main protagonist to be, while the bad guy general is every bit as rotten to the core as he needs to be: by the end of the movie, you hate him more than you've hated anything else that came from a movie, and when the moment finally comes for him to be overthrown, you'll want to cheer in your seat (and forget all about the cheesy dialouge this guy spouted throughout the whole film). The final battle is in a word, epic, and in 3D would look amazing between the explosions, aerial dog fights with machines and birds, and the heated struggle on ground level.

And while the story is a bit, well, cliche, you're not going into this thing for the story: you're going in to it wanting to be amazed, to see something that you've never seen before, to experience what James Cameron has been wanting you to experience since the 90's when he first envisioned a world that would capture your heart and imagination. And if you go into the film with these goals in mind, you will not be disappointed.