Pixar animation always beautiful, story and characters turning darker and older *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera

Disney Pixar Up, out on Blu-ray

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 11/14/2009 – “We came up with this image of a floating house held aloft by balloons, and it just seemed to capture what we were after in terms of escaping the world,” says Up writer-director Pete Docter. “We quickly realized that the world is really about relationships.”

In Up, Ed Asner, voices an unlikely hero. He’s old and crotchety, a curmudgeon. An unremarkable man who’s sold balloons for a living. He’s alone after the loss of his wife, Ellie, the love of his life. Big business wants to buy his house and put up high-rise buildings. Unwilling to move out of the house, he comes up with a plan. To embark on the adventure that he and Ellie always planned for Paradise Falls in South America. And with balloons and some helium, he’s taking the house and a stowaway Boy Scout with him.

“I’m a sucker for sentimentality,” says Up star Ed Asner. “And, I want to be affected by it. I would like to be one of the causes for affecting others. The film has something to say about celebrating life. The union of two souls is always much sweeter than the isolation of one.”

“I love voice work,” says Asner. “The challenge of trying to create the variations and the accents delights me. It’s a part of acting. The interesting thing about the process is that you may have a simple line. You may do a couple of variations if you’re doing a movie or doing it on stage. But working with Pete and the guys, they want to hear a total range of presentations. You give them eight, ten, fifteen sounds on that line which are all recorded and then the absolute funniest is selected.”

“Carl is a bit of a curmudgeon, which is why they cast me,” says Asner. “I’m supposedly recognized as such, but I don’t know how I ever got there. Carl just wants to be left alone, but the boy brings him out of his shell. Circumstances bring him out and he has a rebirth. I think all curmudgeons should have a rebirth.”

“I like this character because he dreams beautiful dreams, and he’s willing to fight the dogs of society to maintain them,” says Asner. “I respect that enormously. I think it’s quite a story that this old man is able to transform his adoration for his late wife into a grudging final acceptance of a love for a young boy who needs his love.”

“Ed Asner is the most likeable curmudgeon that you could possibly ask for,” says Up executive producer John Lasseter. “The goal with all Pixar characters is to make them as appealing as possible and Ed brings that to the role of Carl. We’re so honored to have him on the film. He has given us so much to work with.”

“I am so proud that Up is Pixar’s tenth film,” says Lasseter. “I think it’s the funniest film that we’ve ever made, and also one of the most beautiful. We have a main character that is an amazing hero. He’s the most unlikely hero you can imagine in an action picture. He is a character who learns that the big adventures in life are all the small things that happen in everyday life. Russell is one of the most appealing and charming characters that we’ve ever created. Together with Carl, these two characters light up the screen.”

“It was John Lasseter who suggested making Up in 3D, “ says Up director Pete Docter. “So we set up a whole separate division. This new department took a lot of the same storytelling elements that we were using and tried to use depth as another way of telling that story.” Up is the first Pixar film by released in Disney Digital 3D.

“For example, at the beginning of the film, Carl is stuck in his ways and he’s living in this little house,’ says Docter. “We wanted it to feel claustrophobic so we flattened everything. We made it purposely less deep. Contrast that later when he gets to South America. We wanted this expansiveness. We wanted you to feel the wind in your face, so we really pushed depth there. We look at 3D as another crayon in our crayon box.”

“For me personally, what makes a film worth watching is when you go home and you’re

still thinking about it,” says Docter. “You leave the theater and you’re still thinking about it not only the next day, but the next year. In order to have a film affect you that way, it has to have real true emotion and resonate in some way with your own life. So even though the stars of the film may be monsters or bugs, you identify with those characters on the screen and you understand what they’re going through. It’s important to have that foundation of real truth and an emotional attachment to the characters.”

“Along with the humor, you have to have heart,” says Lasseter. “Walt Disney always said,

‘For every laugh, there should be a tear.’ I believe in that.” Up is the tenth in an unprecedented streak of critical and box office triumphs for Pixar that includes four Academy Award winners for Best Animated Feature. Docter joined Pixar in 1990 as the third animator to be hired. Docter made his debut as a director with Monsters, Inc., which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film. Docter received an Academy Award nomination for his original story credit for WALL-E.

Up DVD bonus features include commentary by director Pete Docter and co-director Bob Peterson. Dug’s Special Mission is an all new original short film about the misadventures of the dog Dug. The Many Endings of Muntz shows the many ideas explored how to dispose of the film’s arch villain. Partly Cloudy is a short film that a stork that delivers babies and his stormy relationship with the cloud Gus. Adventure is Out There is a documentary follows the filmmakers on a trek to the Tepuis mountains of South America as research for the film.

The Blu-ray bonus features also include Cine-Explore, a visual montage of concept art, clips and documentary coverage that illustrates the directors’ commentary. Geriatric Hero is a character study of Carl, from research to realization including art and design, rigging, animation and story. It focuses on the issues of aging, “simplexity”, shape-language and compelling character arcs. Canine Companions is for anyone who ever wondered where CG puppies come from, an introduction to the design, behavior and language of dogs.

Russell: Wilderness Explorer moves from inspiration and design to finding the character arc and authentic voice for this wilderness ranger.

Our Giant Flightless Friend, Kevin traces avian research and development at Pixar that helped bring a mythical, 13-foot tall iridescent bird to life. Homemakers of Pixar shows Carl and Ellie’s house from story to art to its ultimate realization in the computer. Balloons and Flight show how Carl’s house and Muntz’s dirigible presented the filmmakers with challenges. Composing for Characters presents composer Michael Giacchino.

Married Life is the original story concept that became the powerful “Married Life”

scene, showing Carl and Ellie’s love story. Global Guardian Badge Game enables players try to locate countries, states and capitals around the globe in a multi-layered BD-exclusive geography game enhanced with BD-Live.

Up rises like thousands of balloons attached to Carl’s house to take off for parts unknown. Yet, the 78-year-old curmudgeon voiced by Ed Asner makes an odd action hero. The Boy Scout Russell, voiced by 9-year-old Jordan Nagai, or even the talking dog Dug, voiced by Bob Peterson who was Roz in Monsters Inc., have much more charm. It’s bold of Pixar to present the story from the viewpoint of an elderly hero, but it gives Up a tinge of cynicism and fatality. The most child-like fun, which is Pixar’s strength, is the dinosaur-like giant bird Kevin.

Up

Distributor: Disney Pixar

Release date: November 10th, 2009 (USA)

Cost: 2-Disc DVD $39.99, 4-Disc Bluy-ray Combo $45.99

Feature run time: 96 minutes

Rated: PG, Bonus Materials Not Rated

Aspect ratio: DVD: Widescreen 16×9

Sound: SD: 5.1 Dolby Digital, BD: Dolby Digital EX 1080P

Languages: English, Canadian French, Spanish

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