Pixar's Up: A lesson in life's adventures

Friday evening I took my son with me to see Up, Pixar's 10th movie. What can I say about this incredible story? I'll try not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but here are a few thoughts of mine about Up.

Pixar comes back from a vow of silence. Pixar achieved an amazement feat in story telling when they told the story of Wall-E a year ago. They created a character that said very little while only being a hunk of metal yet people instantly fell in love with him. If Pixar was a person, Wall-E would have been her vow of silence -- a masterpiece of a film told through very little dialogue. As soon as the characters began to speak in Up, that person who had been silent for so long had me affixed to every word now being spoken. Even the non-verbal cues in Up were so well done because Pixar had perfected them so well with Wall-E. What I thought was a nice touch and maybe this was not their intention, but one of the main characters in Up only says one or two words for the first 5-10 minutes of the movie and yet I was instantly attached to his character. It was like they were using my impression I got from Wall-E to comfortably introduce me into the world that was Up.

Life's lessons. Up for me was really a lesson in life's adventures. Most of us are ordinary people who lead ordinary lives. Some would think that the simple things in life or the ordinary events that go on are not all that exciting. Up teaches me that those ordinary times become the extraordinary memories and that life's adventure's are best lived by enjoying what you're doing right now.

3D. We watched the movie projected in 3D. I have to say the 3D added a nice clarity to the film, but did not seem to be as 3D-in-your-face as I thought. I thought there could have been more times in the movie where things were reaching out at me.

Emotion from the start. Up is the first movie I've seen where I get choked up in the first 15 minutes. That was a new experience for me and I wonder why more movies don't strive for this.

Once again, Pixar delivers a great story with amazing characters and in a well crafted presentation. Pixar doesn't just make movies, they make people think.

Economy Down, Pixar Up!

Pixar's next movie opens May 29th has a title that reflects the company's success despite the current economic valley. I'm referring to "Up" and that's exactly how I would describe Disney/Pixar's financial status.

Let me interject here and just say that it's my opinion that most of the movie industry is not really suffering from the economic slump. Could this be that entertainment is like gas. People are going to buy it no matter the price and no matter how empty their pockets are?

Back to Pixar. I wanted to back my first observation with some news I heard recently that Disney/Pixar is building a new studio that will be focusing on the production of short films. In addition to this I also got wind of an expansion on their existing operation in Emeryville, CA.

My only beef with the new studio is that it will be located in Canada, which according to macroeconomics will not help the condition America's growth and employment crisis.