Tommy Collison

Thanks to the swine flu, I didn’t leave the house all week, starting Sunday evening. By Saturday though, cabin fever was threatening to raise my actual temperature back into the danger zone. I decided that the cinema would be an excellent escape, and loaded up the local cinema’s ‘Now Showing’ website to see what was on. I’d read a review of Fantastic Mr. Fox that morning which looked promising. (Demolitions expert? Since when?). That was on at 9, but since it was 6, I wasn’t sure if it would be booked out, so I looked at other films. Up was on at quarter to 9, so I decided to arrive at the cinema at 20 to 9, and see what the story was with being booked out. I tweeted the plan and got several responses recommending Up.

In the end, we arrived at about 25 to 9 and chose the earlier film, purely because it was earlier.

Up begins with this queer little short video. I loved For the birds but this one confused me. It details some clouds who make babies for all the animals, and then the storks deliver them. There’s this one cloud, though, who’s grey to their white, and gets all the crap babies – the alligators and porcupines. It’s odd, to say the least. Not helped by being totally factually incorrect too.. Babies don’t come from clouds, my mom told me one day.. they come from cabbage plants!

After that, the movie started. I won’t be all spoilertastic here, and go into specifics of everything, but I’ll give you the gist.

An old man who’s always longed for adventure finally goes on one, accompanied by a stereotypical kid played for laughs. They come across a talking dog (and *that*, ladies and gentlemen, is where all the SQUIRREL! jokes come from: talking dog + no attention span…) and a bird called Kevin.

That’s fleshed out over its 96 minute running time, of course, but that’s what’d go on the DVD’s back cover, anyway.

The kid is done well, with the boundless energy we all love/hate. The man is a stereotypical grump, but who becomes more lovable as the movie. We’ll never get along though; he has a cooler cane :( (see picture)

The best parts I found were the ones with the dog, Dug. He was the comic relief though, so there you go. He was so good, in fact, the best thing about the movie.

At this stage, after Ratatouille and now Up, I’m convinced that Pixar are the ones you go to for kid’s movies, which also appeal to dads too. With music, I often talk about the ratio of good songs per album. Adam Pascal’s Civilian is an example of a high ratio, while The Blizzards only have about 5 good songs over 2 albums, which is a low ratio. Pixar’s good to bad movie ratio is very high indeed, which, I believe, is the true mark of talent. Anyone, after all, can be lucky with a once-off hit.

Go check it out :)