Two big openings this weekend, each living up to the hype. I won’t say much–no need to prod you, as infotainment about these films is at a fever pitch. They’re both damn fun.
Up is every bit the delight promised by the Pixar brand and by the usual round of critical raves for each particular film. The first 10 minutes lay out the backstory for protagonist Carl, from his childhood fascination with explorer (and later antagonist) Muntz to his meeting with his lifelong friend/love Ellie and then skipping through his relationship with her, right up until her death. Even as I’d been warned (or promised) by every review about how powerful this segment was, I was still startled by the rigorous–almost ruthless–economy of its emotions. Funny, sad — no doubt. But as with WALL-E before, the ability to sketch character through faces, mise-en-scene, composition, editing… you find yourself almost mourning the shift into a more conventional comic-adventure plotting.
I don’t fault the film’s shift, do not find it a let-down. But it’s like walking into an ice-cream parlor and being served the most delicious and subtle plate of szechuan stir-fry, then having that meal whisked away just as you’d tucked in, replaced by the world’s most perfect sundae. I get to wondering what kinds of meals these Pixar guys could come up with, if not wholly bound to the conception of the children’s film. Or–since they’re clearly disrupting, expanding, revitalizing American notions of the children’s film (much as their ideal, Miyazaki, does)–maybe just letting them off the hook. More films about life, please, about characters just going about their business.
The dogs are endlessly funny. Carl is a wonder. His sidekick Russell seemed a little too fat-kid-comic-foil for me, while round not so rounded, if you get me, but I enjoyed the film entirely, so no need to pick at this and that. My last note: I’d mentioned with Coraline (still the best film I’ve seen this year, ‘though these two come close) that the 3D was startling; watching a good film utilize this technology as a new, complex tool rather than just another familiar way to goose the audience . . . well, it makes you salivate at the potential. Up, unlike the enormously-aggravating previews for dead-eyed adaptations of classic kids’ lit and sequels, has not one moment of Monster-Chiller-Horror-Theater thrusting at the audience. Instead, the visual reach is amplified, the textures of every surface so richly and attentively underlined, that you feel you could and would just watch the landscapes, homes, faces, vegetation . . . it’s beautiful.
I’ll say even less about Raimi’s glorious, loony, old-school, fluid-drenched, gypsy-curse scarefest. You self-proclaimed wusses should still go see Drag Me To Hell, preferably with a big audience–I can’t imagine it being as much fun without a good theater’s huge booming sound system exploiting every overdetermined fluid squoosh, every huge bang, the whirling flurry of shrieks and wind. Not to mention my absolute favorite thing about the film: it’s exaggerated yet nuanced score by Christopher Young — like the rest of the film, it takes elements you’ve heard before (the plucking tenor scream of strings, the vaguely Old-Europe rhythms) and both exaggerates and subtly ironizes them. And having an audience–even ‘though a bit annoying in some ways (I sat next to a kid who looked about 7, who kept looking over half in anger and half in abject fear at his older sister who’d brought him) helped amplify the film. This is big outsized silly filmmaking — this is my kind of summer film. Silly, loud, funny, smart, genre-tweaking great. From the moment it opens with the old ’70s-version of the Universal logo, the movie delights.
It is interesting in seeing these 2 back to back how we envision the elderly — Drag‘s vision of the vindictive snarl complemented by the utterly grotesque (and lovingly-detailed) breakdown of the old woman’s body; Up avoids patronizing but does idealize–Carl may occasionally creak and shuffle, and his eyebrows are prodigiously ungroomed, but his snarl is sweet, his decline mostly in his head and (by film’s end) resolved.
I really liked Up. The comparison with WALL-E is right on. These directors/animators have been showing incredible skill with facial gestures, mise-en-scene, composition, editing. The opening scene, with Carl going down the stairs in his stairlift, is a perfect example of what reynolds is talking about. I could watch Carl sit on his porch all day.
The big difference, for me, between this film and WALL-E is I laughed a lot more. This is not to fault WALL-E, which I thought was excellent. But there was a stretch of about 30 minutes or so where I just couldn’t stop giggling. The dogs are, as reynolds says, endlessly funny. Giving Alpha a bum wire in his collar, which later gets fixed, then goes south again, is a small stroke of genius. It’s little touches like that which make this film so good. Regarding reynolds’s point about the use of digital 3-D: I was thinking back on the previews–a string of awful animated features–and I see how far Pixar is ahead of other studios. Everything looked like crap painted with broad strokes. Then a preview for Toy Story 3 came on and I immediately thought, “okay, this I will want to see.”
Great voices. Especially Bob Peterson, who co-wrote and co-directed. He does Dug and Alpha. “I hid underneath the house because I love you.” How do you say that line?
OK, maybe I would have enjoyed Drag more with an auditorium full of confused seven-year-olds and a big, booming sound system. I doubt it, but I can see the appeal of watching everyone else recoil at gypsies, bad dentures, trailer park tramps, whining/conniving Asian-Americans, and psychic Indians sporting 19th century beards.