Up

In one of his magazines or comic books, Thing One discovered a flyer from the Cartoon Network a couple months ago. It advertised a contest in which one of the top prizes was a toy lightsaber. Very excited (my brother-in-law bequeathed the curmudgelings his old Xbox, and "Star Wars Lego" has been their favorite), he asked me to enter him in the online drawing. I warned him he ought not expect to win anything, but he was nonetheless determined not to miss out on this opportunity. So I entered him for the inevitable disappointment, figuring this would be a chance to learn a Very Important Life Lesson.

You can see where this is going.

While he didn't win a lightsaber, he did get a free ticket to the movie of his choice. Said choice being Pixar's Up, I took him to see it yesterday afternoon. For what it's worth, this may be Pixar's best to date. While the computer animation is of course state-of-the-art, what continues to impress me about the studio's work is that it would be equally good using the old hand-drawn method. These films are memorable because they stick to what works: visual humor, solid plots, and excellent character development. They produce films of consistently high quality which are more remarkable for their humanity than for any computer-generated wowie factor.

In this case, Up is primarily a sustained meditation on the obligatory nature of family relationships in general and the nature and significance of marriage in particular. Its message is simply and eloquently stated: it matters less what we do than with whom and for whom we do it.

Up's run is coming to its end, and you should be able to find it at the dollar theatres soon (I think any movie is better seen at a theatre than on a TV of any size). The Disney marketing machine hardly needs my help, but here it is anyway: go see Up. Tell them the Curmudgeon sent you.