"Up" (Disney/Pixar - 2009)

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Pixar/Disney's latest animation "Up" is an unashamedly moving, incredibly funny, stunningly beautiful (in a subtle, unshowy way), all-round entertaining piece of film-making. If it doesn't AT LEAST get an Oscar nomination for Best Film, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the world.


Don't just take my word for it, go see it yourself (with optional 3D which I liked), and I challenge any grown adult not to get more than just a lump in the throat during the early montage sequence showing the lives of central character Carl Friedricksen and his wife Ellie, from the moment they first meet as young children. It is a sequence as good as any that I have seen for a very long time. It shows the genius of the Pixar animation house and director John Lasseter in just a few minutes: beautiful animation that doesn't glory in its own eye-catching beauty, but that is 100% at the service of the characters and their stories.

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