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‘up’: film review.

Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it.

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Michael Rechtshaffen

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Given the inherent three-dimensional quality evident in Pixar’s cutting-edge output, the fact that the studio’s 10th animated film is the first to be presented in digital 3-D wouldn’t seem to be particularly groundbreaking in and of itself.

But what gives Up such a joyously buoyant lift is the refreshingly nongimmicky way in which the process has been incorporated into the big picture — and what a wonderful big picture it is.

The Bottom Line Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches that came before it.

It’s also the ideal choice to serve as the first animated feature ever to open the Festival de Cannes, considering the way it also pays fond homage to cinema’s past, touching upon the works of Chaplin and Hitchcock, not to mention aspects of It’s a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz and, more recently, About Schmidt .

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The House That Soared

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By Manohla Dargis

May 28, 2009

In its opening stretch the new Pixar movie “Up” flies high, borne aloft by a sense of creative flight and a flawlessly realized love story. Its on-screen and unlikely escape artist is Carl Fredricksen, a widower and former balloon salesman with a square head and a round nose that looks ready for honking. Voiced with appreciable impatience by Ed Asner, Carl isn’t your typical American animated hero. He’s 78, for starters, and the years have taken their toll on his lugubrious body and spirit, both of which seem solidly tethered to the ground. Even the two corners of his mouth point straight down. It’s as if he were sagging into the earth.

Eventually a bouquet of balloons sends Carl and his house soaring into the sky, where they go up, up and away and off to an adventure in South America with a portly child, some talking (and snarling and gourmet-cooking) dogs and an unexpected villain. Though the initial images of flight are wonderfully rendered the house shudders and creaks and splinters and groans as it’s ripped from its foundation by the balloons the movie remains bound by convention, despite even its modest 3-D depth. This has become the Pixar way. Passages of glorious imagination are invariably matched by stock characters and banal story choices, as each new movie becomes another manifestation of the movie-industry divide between art and the bottom line.

In “Up” that divide is evident between the early scenes, which tell Carl’s story with extraordinary tenderness and brilliant narrative economy, and the later scenes of him as a geriatric action hero. The movie opens with the young Carl enthusing over black-and-white newsreel images of his hero, a world-famous aviator and explorer, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Shortly thereafter, Carl meets Ellie, a plucky, would-be adventurer who, a few edits later, becomes his beloved wife, an adult relationship that the director Pete Docter brilliantly compresses into some four wordless minutes during which the couple dream together, face crushing disappointment and grow happily old side by side. Like the opener of “Wall-E” and the critic’s Proustian reminiscence of childhood in “Ratatouille,” this is filmmaking at its purest.

The absence of words suggests that Mr. Docter and the co-director Bob Peterson, with whom he wrote the screenplay, are looking back to the silent era, as Andrew Stanton did with the Chaplinesque start to “Wall-E.” Even so, partly because “Up” includes a newsreel interlude, its marriage sequence also brings to mind the breakfast table in “Citizen Kane.” In this justly famous (talking) montage, Orson Welles shows the collapse of a marriage over a number of years through a series of images of Kane and his first wife seated across from each other at breakfast, another portrait of a marriage in miniature. As in their finest work, the Pixar filmmakers have created thrilling cinema simply by rifling through its history.

Those thrills begin to peter out after the boy, Russell (Jordan Nagai), inadvertently hitches a ride with Carl, forcing the old man to assume increasingly grandfatherly duties. But before that happens there are glories to savor, notably the scenes of Carl having decided to head off on the kind of adventure Ellie and he always postponed taking to the air. When the multihued balloons burst through the top of his wooden house it’s as if a thousand gloriously unfettered thoughts had bloomed above his similarly squared head. Especially lovely is the image of a little girl jumping in giddy delight as the house rises in front of her large picture window, the sunlight through the balloons daubing her room with bright color.

In time Carl and Russell, an irritant whose Botero proportions recall those of the human dirigibles in “Wall-E,” float to South America where they, the house and the movie come down to earth. Though Mr. Docter’s visual imagination shows no signs of strain here the image of Carl stubbornly pulling his house, now tethered to his torso, could have come out of the illustrated Freud the story grows progressively more formulaic. And cuter. Carl comes face to face with his childhood hero, Muntz, an eccentric with the dashing looks and frenetic energy of a younger Kirk Douglas. Muntz lives with a legion of talking dogs with which he has been hunting a rare bird whose gaudy plumage echoes the palette of Carl’s balloons.

The talking dogs are certainly a hoot, including the slobbering yellow furball Dug and a squeaky-voiced Doberman, Alpha (both Mr. Peterson), not to mention the dog in the kitchen and the one that pops open the Champagne. And there’s something to be said about the revelation that heroes might not be what you imagined, particularly in a children’s movie and particularly one released by Disney. (Muntz seems partly inspired by Charles Lindbergh at his most heroic and otherwise.) But much like Russell, the little boy with father problems, and much like Dug, the dog with master issues, the story starts to feel ingratiating enough to warrant a kick. O.K., O.K., not a kick, just some gently expressed regret.

“Up” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). A wee bit of gentle action and a climactic fight scene, but nothing inappropriate for any viewer of any age.

Opens on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Pete Docter; co-directed by Bob Peterson; written by Mr. Docter and Mr. Peterson based on a story by Mr. Docter, Mr. Peterson and Tom McCarthy; director of photography, camera, Patrick Lin; director of photography, lighting, Jean-Claude Kalache; edited by Kevin Nolting; music by Michael Giacchino; production designer, Ricky Nierva; produced by Jonas Rivera; released by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.

WITH THE VOICES OF: Ed Asner (Carl Fredricksen), Christopher Plummer (Charles Muntz), Jordan Nagai (Russell), Bob Peterson (Dug/Alpha), Delroy Lindo (Beta), Jerome Ranft (Gamma) and John Ratzenberger (Construction Foreman Tom).

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09 Oct 2009

102 minutes

In 1982, Werner Herzog made Fitzcarraldo, the story of an over-zealous Irishman (bonkers Klaus Kinski) who, in his quest to bring opera to the South American jungle, drags a huge steamer up and over a mountain. An epic, visionary, never-to-be-repeated slice-of-life action movie, it is also an unlikely touchstone for an animated summer entertainment, the likes of which are usually powered by focus groups and the need to tie in Happy Meals. Like Fitzcarraldo, Up, Pixar’s tenth feature-length slice of genius, is driven by a tenacious lead character dragging his home across the jungle, a real cinematic width and a sense of wonder at both nature and the burden of dreams. Unlike Fitzcarraldo, Up will break your heart in the first five minutes, boasts scene-stealing dogs with high-pitched voices and stars a rare exotic bird called Kevin. Herzog missed a trick there. A bird called Kevin would have done wonders for Fitzcarraldo’s box office.

If the traditional view of animation is that it is kiddie-aimed fare with a dose of adult slyness smuggled inbetween the primary colours and thrills and spills, Pixar appears to work on opposite principles. Even by its own standards, Up stretches the limits of what stories are permissible in mainstream animation. For all of WALL-E’s wordless abstraction, it still had sci-fi trappings, whizz-bang spaceships and cute robotic sidekicks. Here, the treatment and imagery is even more bizarre. It’s a character study of a cantankerous old git. It’s a buddy movie where the buddies are separated by 70 years. It’s a love story where the love transcends death.

Up also reveals an interesting retro reading on Pixar’s previous heroes, recasting the leads as figures stuck in a rut and looking for a way out of their status quo: the factory-working drones of Monsters, Inc., oppressed by the need to garner children’s screams; the obsolete superheroes of The Incredibles marooned in suburban mediocrity; the sewer-dwelling rat who dreams of a five-star kitchen in Ratatouille; WALL-E’s trash-compacting robot who yearns for life (and love) beyond the garbage. In Up’s case, the hero, Carl Fredricksen, is literally tethered to his house, dragging it across exotic South American landscapes, but in reality he’s tied to his memories of a previous life. It’s this that gives the U-rated thrills huge emotional heft.

As well as Fitzcarraldo, Up also shares trace elements with Chaplin, The Station Agent, The Wizard Of Oz, It’s A Wonderful Life, About Schmidt, Gran Torino and Hitchcock, so given its affectionate melting pot of filmic influences, it is perhaps apt that the movie starts with a little boy sat enraptured by the flickering images on a cinema screen. Carl Fredricksen, his eyes wide beneath aviator goggles, sits glued to the exploits of intrepid explorer Charles Muntz, detailed in a lovingly mounted mock-’30s newsreel, mouthing along with Muntz’s catchphrase, “Adventure is out there!” This ’30s milieu looms large: the entire film is fuelled by that decade’s spirit of derring-do, the thrill of hero worship and the sense of the world as a huge playground waiting to be explored. As Carl leaves the movie theatre, he imagines the newsreel narrator describing his journey home as a grand adventure, his imagination turning stepping over the cracks in the pavement into jumping over the widest ravines. It’s a lovely gracenote that acknowledges the importance of dreaming (and day-dreaming) within everyday life without once pouring on any sentimental, saccharine claptrap.

On the way home, Carl hooks up with fellow Muntz fan and wannabe adventurer Ellie (who looks like the kid sister of The Incredibles’ Helen Parr), and what follows is the most beautifully wrought, poetic love story of the year. As the couple’s dreams of adventures in far-flung places get parlayed into the reality of everyday life, Docter and Peterson provide snapshots of married life, a kind of Revolutionary Road without the harsh shouting, that movingly document the tiny triumphs (turning a rundown house into a Technicolor dream home) and crushing catastrophes (Ellie’s sad discovery at the hospital) that constitute a life. It’s a perfect piece of simple story-telling so lucid and moving that if you left the movie at that point, you’d feel thoroughly satisfied that you’d got your money’s worth.

Yet, happily, Up has plenty more surprises in its locker. Resembling a boxed version of Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner-era Spencer Tracy, old man Carl (voiced by Ed Asner), withdrawn from life and facing eviction from his cherished love nest, comes up with a plan to finally realise his long-held dreams. Working his entire life as a balloon vendor, the plucky pensioner ties his inventory to his house, floating himself, his home and the movie into an entirely different zone of unpredictability. The first surprise is that Carl is not alone: an eager-beaver Junior Wilderness Explorer named Russell, desperate to earn his ‘Assist The Elderly’ badge, has stowed away on Carl’s porch. Russell boasts more buoyancy than all the old man’s balloons put together, and his relationship with Carl is tenderly etched. The arc of Carl’s initial disdain to the pair’s mutual companionship and dependency might be obvious, but the bond never feels forced.

What this second phase of Up doesn’t have is the kind of tight plotting that makes the best of Pixar sing (it also has one of the studio’s weakest villains), but its more freeform approach delivers some real delights. There is a run-in with colourful wildlife: the rare exotic bird Russell dubs Kevin is straight off the Chuck Jones drawing pad, a space-cadet version of Road Runner; in a genius move, a pack of dogs on the trail of the bird are able to vocalise their inner thoughts and obsessions through electronic collars. The best of this bunch is Dug (hilariously voiced by co-director Peterson), a goofy, endearing nerd of a mutt. Up also delivers the best action sequences of the season: an escape from the drooling dogs and a heart-stopping third act aerial combat involving a Zeppelin are perfectly crafted, virtuoso set-pieces where you can actually tell who is pursuing who. Most animation bombards the viewer with sensory overload and sees what sticks, but Up is more classical in approach. From subtle joke-making — look out for the cute sideswipe at C. M. Coolidge’s Dogs Playing Poker paintings — to a beautifully controlled colour palette that moves through the muted tones of Carl’s house to the explosion of hues in Paradise Falls, to Michael Giacchino’s lovely, artful score, this is refined filmmaking by any standards. Every now and then, Docter and Peterson deliver some 3-D bravura — the depth of field in a jungle sunset, or Russell swinging towards the camera on a rope — but for the most part they are admirably restrained. This is because they have bigger fish to fry. Up doesn’t need 3-D gizmology because, ironically, it is rooted in solid foundations. For all its fantastical leanings, Up is that rare animated film that sees the world as real. Its pains feel real and its joys feel earned. That may be an obvious thing, but it lifts Up into a class by its beautiful self.

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Movie Review: Up - The Greatest Adventure

[This review contains plot details revealed in the first 10 minutes of Pixar's Up ]

Pixar's movies have always depicted fantastical worlds spun out of reams of boundless creativity. A rat who dreamed of becoming a chef, and who lived out that dream through controlling a guy by pulling on his hair. An epic battle between ants and grasshoppers. A city full of monsters, powered by the screams of children. A family of superheroes that try to defeat a spurned ex-devotee.

It's in the context of these wondrous films that Up emerges as Pixar's entry for summer 2009. Directed by Pete Docter ( Monsters Inc. ), Up is Pixar's most ambitious effort yet. Pixar films have always expertly been able to imbue fantasy with real-world emotions, but with Up , Docter tries to create a world that is both distinctively ours, yet also a universe of its own. How well does he succeed?

Up tells the story of Carl Fredrickson (Ed Asner), a retired balloon seller whose wife has recently passed away. Carl's biggest regret is that he never took his wife, Ellie, to visit her dream destination of Paradise Falls in South America while she was still alive. Determined to rectify this mistake, Carl fills his house full of helium balloons and the next morning, he deploys them out of his chimney, ripping his house off its foundation and sending it hurtling southwards. On the way to his destination, he finds that Russell (Jordan Nagai), a local Wilderness Explorer (this movie's version of Boy Scouts) has stowed away on board, in an attempt to help Carl and win his "Assisting the Elderly" badge. Together, the two form an unlikely friendship as Carl tries to fulfill his quest.

Let it first be said that Up is thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. There was nary a moment that didn't engage, thrill, or pull (and occasionally yank ) on my heartstrings. The first ten minutes of the film, which contain an utterly masterful montage depicting a romance from inception till death, is some of the best storytelling I've ever seen in my life, and evokes Wall-E's opening 30 minutes of dialogue-free greatness. As Giacchino's sweet, yet plaintive score played in the background during that segment, tears came to my eyes and I felt the audience around me also cave in to the weight of the emotion on display.

If there's any flaw that can be attributed to Up, it's that it tries to do too much. That opening 10 minutes is completely rooted in the real world, where real people deal with real joys and real problems (Ellie even discovers that she is infertile during this portion of the film). However, the film rapidly veers into a world full of flying houses, talking dogs, fantastical inventions, and exotic creatures. Tonally, it gets a bit muddy towards the end, as the film takes us from extreme pathos to manic whimsy in the blink of an eye. Yet how often can it be said that a film, especially an animated one, is too ambitious? A forgivable fault, to be sure.

I was also mildly disappointed that the film wastes an opportunity to be a serious meditation on the rigors of aging. Up begins by reflecting on how one copes with the loss of a loved one in old age, but for the rest of the film, Carl's age is merely played for laughs; he's spry, limber, even acrobatic when the film needs him to be, but his body also gives out just when a comedic beat is necessary. This reflects some of my broader problems with the film — namely, that Up sometimes doesn't know what type of movie it wants to be.

Nonetheless, as is usual for Pixar, Up does so much right that it's easy to forgive these slight missteps. The performances are amazing: Asner is perfect as the cantankerous and deeply conflicted Carl Frederickson, but it's Jordan Nagai as Russell, the young Wilderness Explorer, that steals the show. Nagai, a first-time actor, successfully manages to straddle the line between annoying and adorable, and his performance as Russell gives what would otherwise be a more ponderous movie a much-needed jolt of life. While Russell's dialogue makes his character arc predictable, it's infused with so much sweetness that it will still melt your heart.

And of course, the visuals (my God, the visuals)!. Pixar continues to reveal themselves willing to push the envelope with their visual wizardry, and Up is no exception. The balloon physics are so detailed that they occasionally appear photorealistic, and the vistas visited in this film are unmatched in their breathtaking beauty. Yet one of the things I was most impressed with was the character design for Carl Frederickson. With his square jaw, stout body, and grizzled face, Carl is an imposing figure, but the combination of his nuanced emoting and Asner's performance make him an unlikely lovable hero.

In the end, I love Up because despite its flaws, it is ridiculously effective. Up transported me to another world and allowed me to experience that thrill of adventure, previously felt only in films as great as Raiders of the Lost Ark . But perhaps the film's biggest achievement is the eternal truth that it speaks to: That to experience true love and friendship is one of life's greatest adventures.

/Film Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Brian Eggert May 29, 2009

The Spirit of Adventure. Pixar Animation Studios has captured it before, but never so precisely as in Up . The themes throughout the picture address life’s immeasurable potential to take a journey or explore the unknown. Through the studio’s gloriously bright and colorful animation, tangible and beautiful and alive all at once, they inhabit an emotional complexity that is conveyed with the utmost ease. There are layers to this picture; however, each is clearly described for children and adults alike, rendering a universal entertainment that wisps the viewer away into an escapist fantasy remarkably devoted to its very real characters.

As a boy, Carl Fredricksen (voice of Ed Asner) aspired for adventure with his playmate, and future soul mate, Ellie. The two children dreamed of visiting South America, to a faraway land called Paradise Falls, discovered by daring explorer Charles Muntz (voice of Christopher Plummer), containing unusual creatures never before seen by human eyes. The children kept an “Adventure Book” to log their fanciful wish of someday living in Muntz’s forgotten wonderland. But their dreams, like many of us, were slowly consumed by reality. Carl and Ellie were married, but they could not have children, which made their bond even stronger. Years pass, and in time, Carl, a 78-year-old balloon vendor, finds himself alone. Ellie has passed on and his life of adventure with her. This is all shown in a beautiful, wordless opening sequence that establishes the entire picture’s emotional substance.

Carl has become a cantankerous old man living alone in the rickety home he and Ellie built, a city growing all around him. He speaks to his absent wife, aching for her company. When he finally must resign himself to a retirement home, he instead launches the house from the city with countless helium-filled balloons and takes off for Paradise Falls. Accidentally stowed away on his porch, however, is Russell (voice of Jordan Nagai), the young Wilderness Explorer desperate to earn his “Assist an Elderly Person” badge. Russell’s sweet virtuousness recalls the young Carl, though the grumbling senior doesn’t realize it.

When they arrive at their destination, the world they find is best discovered for yourself. Among the mysteries are misty mountains, a chocolate-loving exotic bird, and a talking dog named Dug (voice of Bob Peterson). The reject of a small army of talking canines, Dug, and those like him, speak via electronic collars. If you’ve ever questioned what dogs would say if they could talk, this film captures it, in all their loving, naïve, desperate-to-please splendor. Who created these collars? Carl doesn’t care. He just wants to set his house down by the falls, as he promised Ellie he would do long ago. But as Carl quickly learns, there’s more at risk than his own desires.

Arguably the funniest of the Pixar films, the laughs are only matched by the thrills. Carl’s crankiness and Russell’s hilarious innocence keep the audience laughing, while dog humor is prevalent and twisted slightly by their ability to speak. Take the hench-pooch, Alpha, a Doberman Pinscher who stands with a threatening glare until his falsetto voice, raised by his broken collar, squeaks as if he was sucking the helium from some of Carl’s balloons. Near-constant humor helps ease some of the film’s later, more gripping suspense that might otherwise frighten youngsters.

As with every Pixar film, the stakes are set from the beginning. But these aren’t mindless conflicts cleared away by equally mindless animated antics. These characters are tangible, the turns of their stories occasionally heartbreaking. Pixar’s animators illustrate the characters through mild stylizations that don’t detach from their humanness. Of course, they’re cartoons, but they have depth and sheen and the faultless illusion of flesh. Cute animals are present not merely to elicit awww reactions from the audience; rather, they have fully conceived personalities, even while remaining true to their nature. Dogs are just dogs. People are just people. How they react in this amazing situation is what’s extraordinary. And the imagery used within the story captures a kind of vintage iconography, employing objects rooted in the simplicity of their design, such as balloons and blimps, bringing to mind an immediate classicism.

Director Pete Docter, who helmed Monsters, Inc. and conceived Toy Story and WALL•E , works alongside co-director and writer Bob Peterson, himself the writer of Finding Nemo . Together, they create a world where the impossible is just a step passed intention, where adventure arrives by your own making, and where escapism doesn’t necessarily mean escape. Once again, Pixar shows audiences that the potential for animated features is boundless in the right hands. In contrast, competing studios like Dreamworks and Fox prove time and again just the opposite.

How appropriate then that the film speaks with awe about the pure concept of Adventure, about the romantic possibility of unexplored nature and newfound technology colliding in a grand discovery. Pixar finds wondrous ways of touching on this theme on and offscreen, through their story and by way of their breakthrough animation techniques, while also acknowledging that the need for adventure and exploration have tragically become characteristics of the past. And so, Pixar films are contemporary cinema’s abundant fountain where our thirsty imaginations are quenched, as they can realize the most spectacular story, infuse it with the most sincere of human emotions, and render it with the most visionary narrative scope.

Up is the kind of film where even critics find themselves incapable of putting into words just how cheerful and entertaining it is, ever at a loss to explain how everything is just right. Each line of dialogue and the accompanying gestures extract the precise emotion intended. As always, from Toy Story to WALL•E , Pixar’s clarity of purpose astounds. Flawlessly evocative, the film’s joys are so very joyful and the saddening moments ever so tender. Miraculously transporting us up and away through means by which only Pixar can, this is Movie Magic at its purest, realized with all the infinite possibilities of the cinema, animated or otherwise.

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What is Up ?

It is a love story. A tragedy. A soaring fantasy, and a surreal animated comedy. A three-hankie weepie and a cliffhanging thriller. A cross-generational odd-couple buddy movie; a story of man and dog. A tale of sharply observed melancholy truths and whimsically unfettered nonsense.

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

On top of all that, Up opens with a standalone cartoon short ( Partly Cloudy ) and a newsreel, like going to the Saturday double-bill matinee in the old days, when Carl Fredrickson was a shy, wide-eyed lad who idolized dashing celebrity explorer Charles Muntz and dreamed of adventure, but became tongue-tied in the overwhelming presence of the irrepressible, voluble young Ellie, his polar opposite and kindred spirit.

Up opens with an eloquent, economical prologue that is among the most arresting tributes to lifelong love that I have ever seen in any film, let alone a cartoon. Joy, serenity, hope and heartbreak, dreams long cherished and long deferred — a lifetime of indelible memories effortlessly evoked in a few brief minutes.

Now a stumpy, crusty old geezer who lives by himself in a forlorn bungalow glaringly out of place in a neighborhood in the throes of urban upheaval, Carl (Edward Asner) is a widower, but Ellie remains very much a presence in the film. She is still the center of Carl’s world, and their love story is the only story he has.

No, Carl won’t hear of selling his house to the faceless suit who razes and erects worlds around him. He doesn’t want the help of the hopelessly earnest young Wilderness Explorer Russell (Jordan Nagai), doggedly fixated on doing the old man a good turn to earn his missing “Assisting the Elderly” merit badge.

Above all, Carl is contemptuously determined that whatever his future holds, it won’t be the sanitized comfort of the Shady Oaks retirement home. What other animated film has contemplated the anxious stubbornness of the elderly to cling to whatever independence they can for as long as they can, to remain connected to familiar places and things? What other animated film even has a senior citizen for a protagonist? ( Howl’s Moving Castle doesn’t count; Miyazaki’s doddering heroine is really a youth in a grandmother’s body.)

And then things start to unravel, and Carl’s future is no longer in his hands — not without reason, to his guilty shame. You may have seen or known about similar cases from the outside; Up shows us the story from Carl’s inside perspective.

And so we come to the great conceit celebrated in the much-seen trailers. If you’ve seen the trailers, you don’t need me to describe it, and if by some twist you haven’t, why would I rob you of the moment of revelation? It is a sequence of singular magic, and the delight of discovery comes but once.

Suffice to say, Carl precipitously decides to throw caution to the winds and embark on the long-dormant dream he and Ellie shared: to follow in the footsteps of their childhood hero Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) and go to South America to see the spectacular Paradise Falls in the “Lost World” of Venezuelan mesa country. Yes, the journey started in that magical moment has a destination; Up is not the aimless, lofty film one might imagine from the trailer.

Yet nothing so far could prepare you for the lunacy that commences once the film reaches the vicinity of Carl’s destination. Somehow, like Dorothy with her cyclone, like Muntz in those old newsreeels, Carl has left the ordinary world behind and landed in a “Lost World” of his boyhood pulp fantasies — a world of lighter-than-air airships and biplane dogfights, of exotic refugees from a Dr. Seuss zoology, of “Wallace & Gromit”–esque dogs who cook, among other things, and even (in a conceit echoing the film version of Michael Crichton’s “Lost World” tale Congo ) communicate in a way that is both goofily human yet hilariously canine.

As wonky as the proceedings get, director Pete Docter ( Monsters, Inc. ) and screenwriter and co-director Bob Peterson ( Finding Nemo ) never entirely lose touch with the ragged human emotions underlying the story. There’s an obvious metaphor in the film itself for the strange blend of realism and zaniness, partly tethered to solid ground, partly twisting in the capricious winds of whimsy.

More fundamentally, Carl’s house, the film’s central metaphor, is the embodiment of his shared life with Ellie, and thereby a symbol of Ellie herself. Up offers a sweeter and less uncanny counterpoint to Gil Kenan’s Monster House , a darker computer-animated tale of a crotchety, reclusive old widower inhabiting a house that’s as much a character as the humans, with a mind of its own. Ellie’s childhood “Adventure Book,” a scrapbook documenting her exploits and aspirations, with its blank pages saved for her hoped-for trip to South America, epitomizes the tension between unrealized dreams and what turns out to be the actual stuff of our lives.

But it goes deeper than that. Not to spoil the emotional and narrative territory, I’ll append some brief final thoughts to the end of the review for readers who have seen the film.

There is also poignancy in Russell the Wilderness Explorer’s back story, and in the simple vignettes in which, ultimately, two broken lives prop one another up. Although not as centrally or violently, Up feels the gulf of grief and betrayal in the wake of the absentee father as acutely as The Spiderwick Chronicles — another family film in which a house is much more than a house.

As powerful as the emotional underpinnings are, the characters experiencing those emotions don’t quite come entirely into their own. They’re somewhat archetypal, not entirely unlike the characters in WALL-E , rather than fully realized, specific individuals, like those of Finding Nemo , The Incredibles and Ratatouille . In part because of this, for all its emotional power, for all that Up gets right, on first viewing I find the overall effect to be poignant and charming rather than enthralling.

Rarefied standards, applicable only to the work of Pixar. The very fact that I came this close to the end of this review without mentioning the studio’s name or comparing it to previous works is a testament to their sustained achievement. There was no need. Only one team in the world is doing work like this.

I did not cry while watching Up , though certainly many will, but I was moved to tears afterward thinking about it. It has become commonplace to say that Pixar makes films as much or more for adults as for children, but this is too facile. Up is a film about life that makes realities of adult and even geriatric experience universally accessible, even to the youngest viewers. Isn’t this among the noblest things a story can do?

Final thoughts (thematic spoilers)

For viewers who have seen the film, some parting thoughts about the symbolic depths of Carl’s house.

As noted above, the house represents both Carl’s shared life with Ellie and Ellie herself, who even in her absence remains the defining fixture of Carl’s life.

At first, the house — Carl’s memories, his mourning, his love for his late wife — is his refuge, his solace in a world that is moving on without him, leaving him behind. Then, in a moment of crisis, the house becomes his escape, his freedom. It buoys him up, elevates him above an intolerable situation.

As time goes on, though, the house starts to become something else: a burden. Baggage. An increasingly torpid, even ridiculous dead weight that he feels obliged to drag laboriously around everywhere he goes.

In the end, it threatens to become something worse: a death trap. It is something Carl must let go. Maybe not all at once — maybe it starts with piecemeal efforts that lighten the load — but in the end the whole thing has to be cut loose.

And then, a paradoxical miracle: Only when he lets it go does it finally take its rightful place in the whole drama of his life. The whole story-arc of the house is an astoundingly fluid metaphor for bereavement, grief, loyalty to departed loved ones, malaise and the threat of morbidity, and finally acceptance and something like peace.

Available on DVD and Blu-ray, Up comes loaded with extras, including commentary by directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, a new short with Dug the dog (“Doug’s Secret Mission”), and behind-the-scenes featurettes on story development (“The Many Endings of Muntz”) and the filmmakers’ expedition to Venezuela’s tepui highlands (“Adventure is Out There”).

Blu-ray extras offer tons more: featurettes on several characters (elderly Carl, young explorer Russell, brightly-plumed Kevin, even Carl’s house!), a geography game and more. The Blu-ray set also comes with the movie on standard DVD, so it’s worth getting even if a Blu-ray player is still well in your future.

I have mostly stopped reading movie reviews prior to viewing the movies, except for the reviews you write. Perhaps I just read the wrong reviewers, but I’ve noticed that more and more of them pretty much just give away the entire story and leave no room for surprise. It’s almost as though movie reviewers these days want to make sure that the movie consumer knows exactly what their $9.00 (or whatever it costs in your market) is getting them. It sure doesn’t leave a lot of room for surprise and wonder. This was brought to mind rather strongly in comparing your review of Up with the review published by another Christian venue for the same movie. I read yours before seeing the movie (I skipped the spoiler section on first reading, though your spoilers tend to be more coy than most), and the other review post-viewing. While I appreciated the other critic’s insights into some of the themes, I found the six or seven paragraphs summarizing almost the entire movie to be way to revealing. The review gave away too much. I say this not to pick on the other critic, but to illustrate what I see to be a general trend in movie reviews. I’m not a particularly observant movie watcher. I know little about movie-making technique, and I rarely sit around after viewing to analyze what it was that made the story work. I find reviews helpful to tip me off to things to keep an eye out for that I might otherwise miss, insights that amplify the viewing experience, and of course, whether the movie is one I might want to see. For me, a good review is one that I can read both before and after seeing the film and get something out of each time, while also getting to enjoy the movie itself. So thank you. Your reviews are consistently excellent (even when I have to disagree with your conclusions), and have been instrumental in pushing me to see movies I might not otherwise have seen (e.g. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days ). You don’t give away the story or spoil the movie for me, either. For all these things, I am grateful. Thank you!

I think you should up (no pun intended) your rating to an A+. I saw the movie with my teenage kids and they were moved by the incredible love of the couple. I’ve never seen love expressed so simple and so joyful in a cartoon movie.

Thank you for your “final thoughts” on the real role of the house in Up . There was something about the house’s relationship with Carl I didn’t quite get at the time (possibly because I was holding a 2-year-old on my lap, and the moment of the great house-purging occurred just as he — the 2-year-old — ran out of cherry icee — otherwise, he sat through the entire thing in rapt attention), but your comments on how [ spoiler alert ] the house became a burden to be dragged around and Carl’s piecemeal attempts to rid himself of it before realizing it was a real life-trap made the whole movie click for me. And, for what it’s worth, I was one of the guys who cried in the theater (probably the only time during the movie I was glad we’d seen it in 3‑D … those tinted buddy holly glasses are good for something). Not too many animated movies deal with the unsharable grief of a miscarriage (and certainly none with that degree of economy and emotional precision). But then, I cried in Cars (and every other Pixar movie), too, when Route 66 gets bypassed and Radiator Springs becomes a forgotten ghost town, so maybe I’m just a sucker for a good story.

Up was a joy. Your review not only encouraged us to go see it, it magnified our pleasure with the qualities and values it presented. Thanks for your site. You’re a gifted educator.

Thank you for your interesting review of Up . I thought the film was “cute”, but I was personally disappointed after all the hype. Something bothered me (besides the repetitive soundtrack): there were a lot of violent elements in the film (life-threatening situations for the heroes). I understand this is a cartoon, but at the same time, this is not a film with talking cars, superheroes, animated toys, or talking animals (well … okay). We have a character who tries to kill the young Wilderness Explorer not once, not twice but three times (the last time with a shotgun!). When the crazy guy falls to his death, there is no reaction from our “heroes” (not even shock or horror) — their only concern is for the house (and for the weird bird). This situation kinda felt odd in a film geared to young kids.

What are you opinions on the character of Kevin as a gay/transgendered character (colorful, rainbow-like character)? I’ve read that this was a subtle nod by Pixar to the Prop 8/GLBT crowd. I saw the movie and didn’t pick up on it, but others who have seen it had commented on this. I am interested to hear your opinion on this.

I’ve read a lot of reviews of Up , but I don’t think I have heard anyone addressing this particular issue [ spoiler warning ]. When Carl lifts up his house for his trip to Central America, he severs his home’s plumbing and electricity. He makes it clear that he doesn’t have any more balloons or helium. He can’t go back. He only has the food he keeps in the house, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to find more edibles in the jungle (and he certainly isn’t prepared to hunt). If he has a medical emergency, there is no doctor or hospital for maybe hundreds of miles. That leads to one conclusion: Carl is going to South America to die. Carl is clearly really healthy for his age (evidenced by all the physical activity he performs), but if he did succeed in moving his house to the cliffs, he would probably only have a few weeks before he died, probably of starvation. This journey is not just an adventure, it’s a suicide mission. I think that the heart of the story lies in Russell (and also Doug’s) ability to make Carl come alive once more. Once Carl realizes that he has a responsibility to others besides himself, Carl realizes that he has to fight to stay alive. I would like to make some comments on your final thoughts on the great metaphor that is Carl’s house. I think that in making the journey, Carl is trying to write the last chapter of his life, and the love story between himself and Ellie. By ripping it from the ground and disconnecting all pipes and wires, he has deliberately rendered it impossible to live in for very long. He has tried to draw the curtain on his life, but Russell and Doug draw it back again, and for the first time since Ellie’s death, Carl has someone to live for — thank goodness.

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Movie Review: Up (2009)

General Disdain
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--> June 8, 2009

Admit it, you’re just like me — you really had no idea what Disney Pixar’s latest animated adventure, Up was about. For me, all I knew was it had a grumpy old man, a fat kid, a talking dog and a colorful bird in it. Oh yeah, how could I forget, there was also a house, a house that was being whisked about the sky by a million balloons. How all these pieces were supposed connect to form a cohesive story was going to take a lot of effort to pull off.

Yet ain’t it something — they pulled it off. Incredibly well too, I might add. And yep, I’m stunned about it; I certainly thought Up was going to be the Pixar clunker we’ve all been awaiting for some time. Instead, this film may be their strongest showing yet.

Continuing through the door that WALL-E ripped open, Up too, tells a powerful tale without wasting words or packing the 96 minute running time with unneeded filler material.

It gets going with an unexpectedly moving and heartfelt montage laying out the younger years of Carl Fredericksen (voiced by Edward Asner). He meets Ellie, a girl who shares his passion to become a great explorer like the famed Charles Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer). They marry and build a fulfilling life together. She dies without them ever visiting their dream location, Paradise Falls or having children. Full of loneliness and sorrow, and backed into a corner, Carl gives the proverbial finger to the fast moving society building up around him by, quite literally, taking his house up and away. To Paradise Falls, South America he goes, as a final tribute to the woman he loved so much.

The ensuing adventure itself isn’t one to write home to mommy about — at its base it is simply a flighty fight for a colorful dodo-like bird between Charles Muntz with his army of talking dogs and Carl Fredericksen aided by a Junior Wilderness Explorer named Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai). It’s fun to watch due in part to its child-infused absurdity (dogs flying planes?) but mostly because it is fantastically modeled and rendered, and because the slow transformation of Mr. Fredericksen from old codger to an old man with a new lease on life is handled better than most live-acted dramas.

The animation is, as expected, a no-brainer; Pixar has pushed the limits of computer generated realism for years. Up doesn’t noticeably break any new ground (of course I didn’t see the 3D version of the film, so I may very well be wrong here) but it doesn’t lose any either. I’ll just say the landscapes and vistas are beautifully put together. What I found particularly engrossing, which leads to my transformative point, was the small details in Fredericksen’s face and the way he carried himself. In the beginning he was forlorn and lost, and by the end he’s engaged and reinvigorated — with so much of the story being told without ever needing a word spoken. Pete Docter, the man ultimately responsible for this project, had really seen to it that Carl could give the best silent film actors a run for their money for best conveying of a story via expressions only. Ben Affleck, take notes.

Oh yeah, the music score by Michael Giacchino is damn good too. So good in fact, I wouldn’t doubt it gets an award or two.

With Up , Pixar is clearly showing how far they’ve matured. It’s not just about the cutesy characters anymore (although they’re thrown in for good measure), it’s more about the substance of the story and the manner in which it is told. The bar has been raised, DreamWorks Animation — and this is one tough act to follow.

I'm an old, miserable fart set in his ways. Some of the things that bring a smile to my face are (in no particular order): Teenage back acne, the rain on my face, long walks on the beach and redneck women named Francis. Oh yeah, I like to watch and criticize movies.

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'Movie Review: Up (2009)' have 3 comments

June 11, 2009 @ 9:43 am hanna

I admit as you, i did not know anything about Up when i went and saw it,I had not even seen the commercial! I was pleasently suprised after i saw the movie. I loved it!

April 30, 2010 @ 3:50 am IBS

This is a really good review. I havent actually seen Up yet, but it sounds like a great fun movie. I wasnt a big fan of WALL-E so I hope this is better.

May 1, 2010 @ 8:44 pm Richmond

Great movie that gives the viewer a mix of emotions.

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The film that makes me cry: Up

None can stand before Pixar’s pinnacle of animated tear-jerking, which starts with a deathbed scene and ends with you in a blubbering mess

I first saw Up when I was 40,000 feet high in the sky. Unlike the lead character of the animation, however, who travels the world by helium-balloon-powered house, I was on a plane en route to my cousin’s wedding. Little did I realise that within 10 minutes of putting my headphones on and pressing play, I would be reaching for my travel tissues and stifling sobs as passengers either side of me stared awkwardly into their complimentary peanuts and pretended not to notice.

The somewhat unexpected hero of this 2009 Pixar classic is Carl Fredricksen, a balloon salesman in his late 70s who lives alone after the death of his wife Ellie. The animation starts further back in time, however, with Ellie and Carl meeting as wide-eyed, button-nosed children dreaming of exploration as they soar across the wilderness of their imaginary worlds in matching aviator goggles.

In quick succession, the two grow up, fall in love, get married and build a home together. But time presses urgently on, and soon we see Ellie on her deathbed handing Carl her well-loved book of adventures and telling him it’s time for one of his own. Some films may try to tease out a tear at some point along the way and never quite achieve it; Up has you with this opening sequence and doesn’t let you go.

Yet, magically, despite heart-wrenchingly understated scenes like Ellie’s death, Up is always one step ahead, making you laugh out loud just when you least expect it. Carl’s totally non-action-packed trip from the top to the bottom of his house via a stairlift is the perfect example – but perhaps you have to see that one to appreciate it .

Up is a film about getting old, about regret and about realising that life is messy and out of control, as much as you might try to make it otherwise. But it’s also a film about love, compassion and making sure that every day counts. Which is exactly what Carl does. When the local authorities try to send him off to a retirement home, Carl realises he has one chance left to do his best by his late wife, so he ties hundreds of helium-filled balloons to their home and floats the house out of the bustling city and across the tops of the clouds towards the place he and Ellie had always dreamed of visiting.

It’s only when Carl is thousands of feet up that he gets a knock at the front door and realises he’s brought an unexpected guest with him – a lovably useless local kid called Russell, who found himself on Carl’s front porch when the house took off. Proud he’ll be able to help navigate the journey using his GPS tracker, Russell throws his arms open enthusiastically, only to mistakenly lob the location gadget out of the window on to the clouds below.

“Oops”, says Russell, as he and Carl watch the flying object hurtle away from them. And so the pair’s adventure really begins.

The film that makes me cry
Animation in film

Screen Rant

'up' review.

Even within a pantheon of excellent films, Pixar's 'Up' stands out as the best one yet.

There's nothing better than an easy review: Pixar's latest summer offering, UP , is a fantastic film. Simply fantastic. Seriously, if Ratatouille and Wall-E deserved to be in the running for Best Picture of the Year (as many said they did at the times of their releases) then UP certainly does.

It's that good.

The film - which was written by Bob Peterson ( Finding Nemo , Ratatouille ) and directed by Peter Docter ( Monsters, Inc. ) - delivers all the things we've come to expect from a Pixar animated feature: gorgeous visuals, a strong story rife with moral lessons and (gasp) good character development; humor both low-brow (for the kids) and high-brow (for the grownups), with strokes of bold wit and a dash of sagely wisdom for good measure.

And yet, UP also delivers something quite unexpected: Pixar's most adult-oriented story yet, slyly disguised in a fantastic adventure tale.

UP tells the life story of Carl Fredricksen (the unmistakable voice of Ed Asner), a shy little boy who grows up in (1930s?) America, an era in which people pack into movie theaters to watch news reels about adventurous explorers like Charles Muntz, who travels the world on one epic quest after the next.

Young Carl Fredricksen idolizes Muntz: He spends his lonely days roaming his neighborhood pretending to be Muntz until one day he runs into Ellie, an energetic and fearless young girl (everything Carl is not) who idolizes Charles Muntz just as much as Carl does. Ellie and Carl cross their hearts then and there and swear to be great adventurers like Charles Muntz, and with that oath, theirs is a match made in heaven.

After that fateful first encounter, we get a truly beautiful montage of Carl and Ellie's life-long romance. We see the young kids grow into a teenage couple; see them get married and buy a house, working day jobs (balloon vendor) while saving up for the kind of adventures they fantasized about as kids. We watch the couple deal with the ups and downs, joys and tragedies of life; and gradually we watch them grow into old age, Ellie's "My Adventures" scrapbook still unfilled, even as her time on Earth ends.

With Ellie gone, Carl becomes a disgruntled old man desperately trying to hold on to a house, heirlooms and a lost-love he cherishes. A physical confrontation with neighborhood developers leads to Carl being forced into a retirement home for the rest of his days - but before the old man will give in he decides to honor the oath he and Ellie swore as kids and take one last shot at adventure! Carl ties an impossible number of balloons to his house (working a balloon cart at the zoo was his job for many years), rigs a steering system and UP he goes!

But there's a stowaway on board: a young boy scout-type named Russell (Jordan Nagai), who is desparately trying to earn his last merit badge assisting the elderly, for personal reasons that are as moving as a they are heartbreakingly naive. From that point on, the story mainly focuses on Carl trying to find room in his broken heart for love and friendship again, with Russell acting as his primary foil and simultaneous source of inspiration. Russell is also handy for providing the comedic relief the kids will get.

Of course there's a whole flying to South America, evil nemesis (Christopher Plummer), talking dogs/mythical bird adventure thrown in there. All of that stuff is pretty cool, and will be sure to entertain the kids. However, as one of the grownup kids, the story (for me) was all about Carl dealing with his profound sense of loss and love. The flying house escapism, fantastic creatures and evil villains were all just means and metaphors for that awesome emotional narrative.

No lie, there were a lot of sobs and sniffles around me in the theater. If you're old enough to know about love and loss, it's hard not to be affected by UP . By now it's no secret that Pixar knows how to tell a fantastic story, but who knew they could handle romantic drama so well? Superb work.

Visually, UP is just as stunning. The digital 3D tech employed for this film is far from a gimmick - it enhances the experience of the film by multitudes. When Carl and Russell are walking over cliffs or trekking through gorgeously rendered South American jungles, with an enormous floating 3D house harnessed to their backs, it's not just some of the most gorgeous eye-candy seen onscreen (the balloons are truly amazing), it's also a very clever and potent metaphor for grief. Rendered in 3D, those themes stood out loud and clear; the rest of the time, this movie was just a treat to look at.

I confess having wet eyes myself, not once, or twice, but on several instances during UP . Sometimes I was thinking, "This movie is breaking my heart." Other times I was thinking, "This movie is melting my heart." And sometimes, I was simply thinking, "This movie is so damn beautiful."

It definitely lifted me UP .

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Common sense media reviewers.

Pixar's stunning adventure is an upper for everyone.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Meant to entertain, but might inspire an interest

Carl and Russell become good friends and teach eac

Strong role models for multi-generational friendsh

There's some mild peril from thunderstorms hitting

This movie is part of the Disney-Pixar dynasty, wi

Two adults drink out of champagne flutes.

Educational Value

Meant to entertain, but might inspire an interest in travel and adventure.

Positive Messages

Carl and Russell become good friends and teach each other about responsibility, caring for nature, and the movie's main theme about "the spirit of adventure." Loyalty, grit, teamwork, and creative thinking are also themes.

Positive Role Models

Strong role models for multi-generational friendship and a successful marriage. Young Ellie befriends an otherwise lonely young Carl; they become best friends and later a married couple. He takes care of her after she grows ill, and he embarks on a journey to fulfill a lifelong dream of theirs. Russell is a spunky, determined kid. Characters demonstrate integrity, empathy, and gratitude.

Violence & Scariness

There's some mild peril from thunderstorms hitting the house, and a sad sequence that shows Ellie sick in the hospital and then Carl in a funeral home, surrounded by flowers. Both a real gun and a tranquilizer gun are fired at various characters. A house gets set on fire. Younger kids might be scared by some 3-D images that jump at them from the screen, as well as Muntz' dogs, which sometimes appear seemingly out of nowhere, growling and angry. Muntz tries to get rid of Carl and Russell, even if it means trying to kill them. One character falls to his death.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

This movie is part of the Disney-Pixar dynasty, with merchandise and other marketing tie-ins associated with the film.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Up is the second Pixar movie (after The Incredibles ) to receive a PG rating, mostly due to a few potentially frightening scenes involving a band of trained talking dogs trying to get rid of the protagonists, some moments where characters almost fall from a floating house, and some guns firing. That said, it's Disney/Pixar, so the violence is mild. Viewers should note that an early wordless sequence follows an emotional and potentially upsetting trajectory that could trigger questions about old age, illness, and death. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (250)
Kids say (263)

Based on 250 parent reviews

Very sad and emotionally intense

Might be intense for younger children, what's the story.

In UP, septuagenarian Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner ) and his wife Ellie had a shared dream since childhood: to visit exotic Paradise Falls in South America, a place the once-famous explorer Charles Muntz ( Christopher Plummer ) claimed was the most beautiful in the world. After Ellie dies, Carl decides to make his beloved late wife's dream come true and unveils hundreds of helium balloons to fly his house to Paradise Falls. Unbeknownst to Carl, a young Wildlife Explorer scout named Russell (Justin Nagai) is along for the ride. When they finally arrive, the odd couple discovers that Muntz is more interested in killing an elusive rare bird than living in paradise.

Is It Any Good?

Pixar has brought to life a multi-generational odd couple in a film that's visually stunning, surprisingly touching, and unsurprisingly delightful. After nine films, Pixar's legend is well known; it's the only studio with a perfect record both commercially (each of its releases has grossed more than $150 million) and critically. Up is no exception on the latter front, and considering the demand for family entertainment, it's sure to be a big hit money-wise, too.

The beginning of the film is an unexpected tearjerker following the entire marriage -- from first sight to widowhood -- of adventurous-at-heart Carl and Ellie Fredricksen. But he bulk of the story, as the trailer promises, is Carl and Russell's amazing skyward journey to Paradise Falls. Above the gorgeous and colorful animated vistas, Pixar's astonishing achievement is the sweet, funny, lasting relationship that it's odd-couple heroes share.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Up 's central relationship between Carl and Russell. What does the movie have to say about multigenerational friendships? What does a young boy teach an elderly man, and vice versa?

Kids: What kind of adventures do you dream of having? Does an adventure need to be somewhere far away?

How do the characters in Up demonstrate empathy and teamwork ? What about integrity and gratitude ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Movie Details

In theaters : May 29, 2009
On DVD or streaming : November 10, 2009
Cast : Christopher Plummer , Ed Asner , Jordan Nagai
Director : Pete Docter
Studio : Pixar Animation Studios
Genre : Family and Kids
Topics : Adventures , Friendship , Great Boy Role Models
Character Strengths : Empathy , Gratitude , Integrity , Teamwork
Run time : 98 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : some peril and action
Last updated : February 25, 2024

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Inside the making of the brilliant, moving first 10 minutes of Pixar’s ‘Up’

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Ahead of the release of Lightyear , The Ringer is hosting Pixar Week —a celebration of the toys, rats, clown fish, and more that helped define one of the greatest studios of the 21st century. At the heart of the occasion is the Best Pixar Character Bracket , a cutthroat tournament to determine the most iconic figure of them all. Check back throughout the week to vote for your favorite characters and read a selection of stories that spotlight some of Pixar’s finest moments. To infinity … and beyond!

Pixar’s Up was inspired by a single image: a house with balloons tied to its roof floating into the sky, far away from the burden of daily life. “It seemed freeing and aspirational, something everyone wants at some point,” director Pete Docter says in an email. “Getting away from everything, in the comfort of your own house—that’s where we started.”

But Docter knew that one good idea wasn’t enough to make a whole movie. During the 2009 animated film’s development, he and codirector Bob Peterson landed on making their protagonist a grumpy old man named Carl Fredricksen—it made sense that a widowed balloon salesman would want an escape. Still, that didn’t explain his mode of transportation. “Where was he going?” Docter says. “And why couldn’t he take a plane?”

The animators knew that Carl would need a backstory to answer those questions. They decided to tell it with a prologue that details the character’s life from his childhood to his golden years. But these early scenes reveal that Up isn’t only about Carl—it’s also about his relationship with his wife, Ellie. They’re kids when she bursts into his life with a shock of red hair and a passion for exploration, and the interaction leads to a deeply felt, lifelong connection.

“I remember Pete saying Ellie was the spirit of adventure,” director of photography (camera) Jean-Claude Kalache says. Indeed, the two characters bond by spending time in the abandoned shack that Ellie has fashioned into a clubhouse. While visiting Carl one evening, she shows him “My Adventure Book,” in which she illustrates her dream: to one day travel to the mythical Paradise Falls. She even makes Carl swear that he’ll take her (and her clubhouse) there. In a flash, Up snaps into a montage of their life together: the two pals fall in love, get married, buy what was once Ellie’s hideaway and turn it into a home of their own. But as they age together and life grows more complicated, their bucket-list trip becomes more and more elusive. Then, it’s too late. “We figured the best way to make the audience understand—and care —would be to connect his house to a relationship, and unfinished business,” Docter says. “We worked hard to visually train the audience to associate the house with his wife, and the unkept promise of an adventure in South America.”

The opening of Up , however, is more than just a narrative device. The movie-within-a-movie is as emotionally heavy as Carl’s helium-lifted house is buoyant. It is, without a doubt, one of the most moving film sequences of the past 20 years. “It’s the heart of the movie,” says director of photography (lighting) Patrick Lin. “I remember seeing it for the first time and, of course, crying. Actually, three times throughout production.”

It’s cliché to point out that Pixar is excellent at making children’s movies that appeal to adults. But the amount of humor, romance, sadness, dazzling visuals, and entrancing music packed into such a short stretch is startling even for a studio whose creative success was built on a mix of all of those things. The beginning of Up elevates a form that the company had already taken to new heights. “Animation is capable of so much more than we give it credit for—we tend to think of animation as just fart jokes made for kids,” Docter says. “Granted, that does describe a lot of it, but animation can do anything!”

The opening of Up lasts only about 10 minutes, but it didn’t start out so short. “With most of our stuff, we overwrote that opening like crazy,” says Docter, who also directed Pixar’s Monsters, Inc ., Inside Out , and Soul . “I would guess we had 30 to 40 minutes of material that we slowly whittled down.”

The sequence can be broken into two parts: the first, Carl and Ellie’s childhood adventures; and the second, their marriage. But before they can get hitched, Ellie and Carl have to meet. And before that , Carl needs to be introduced to the audience. The first shot of his younger self is in a movie theater, where he’s watching a Prohibition-era newsreel about his hero: the intrepid—but discredited—explorer Charles Muntz. The boy’s hair is a long way from graying, but he’s wearing his signature square-frame glasses. Right away, the movie’s unique visual style is apparent. Like most of the characters, Carl seems to be built from different blocks. “We used to say ‘chunkify,’ everything,” Kalache says. “If you look at Carl, his fingers are very, very big and stubby.”

With Up , Docter told Kalache that he wanted to try something different. “It slowly shaped itself into a very theatrical approach to lighting the movie where nothing mattered at the edge of the frame,” Kalache says. “It was all about the characters. It was about the expressions, the emotion, the performance.” Whether it’s Carl staring at the movie screen or Ellie interrogating Carl when he stumbles into her clubhouse, the camera stays glued to their expressive faces. From the outset, young Ellie’s adventurous spirit is on display; the filmmakers gave her a visible aura. “I remember saying, ‘How do we capture that in color?’” Kalache says. “So throughout the movie, even when Ellie is not there, we have her spirit, and we decided, ‘Let’s pick a color.’ And pink became that color.”

As soon as they meet, Ellie is pushing Carl to match her level of boldness. Literally, at first. After he accidentally lets go of his blue balloon—with the name of Muntz’s airship, “The Spirit of Adventure,” scribbled on it—she takes his hand and guides him to the attic where it’s drifted. Then she shoves him onto a single plank leading to his lost prize. Naturally, the board snaps in half when he takes a step and he falls and breaks his arm.

Voiced by Docter’s daughter Elie (with one “L”), Ellie makes it up to Carl by sending a blue balloon up through his bedroom window. This leads to her showing Carl her adventure book and their vow to travel to Paradise Falls. At the end of their fateful visit, she climbs back out of the window. But before leaving, she pokes her head back up and says, “You know, you don’t talk very much. I like you.”

With the pop of a balloon and the flash of a camera bulb, Carl and Ellie’s story jumps forward to their wedding. All of a sudden, the pace picks up and the film starts to feel like a home movie. “The camera doesn’t really start moving until after they get married,” Lin says. “And I would use a very gentle lateral camera movement of tracking and panning just to kind of say that, ‘OK, they’re going through life.’”

Originally, the montage had dialogue. But according to Docter, storyboard artist Ronnie del Carmen suggested that they should let composer Michael Giacchino’s piece, “Married Life,” do the talking. “Being [a] fan of silent films, I kept pushing to see how much we could take out, and discovered that it seemed like the less we had the more emotional it felt,” Docter says. “No dialogue, no sound effects—just music and visuals. It’s pretty tight. Every shot is a setup for elements we use later in the film.”

The “Married Life” section begins like a fairytale. Carl and Ellie work together at the zoo. They buy their house, renovate it, and give it the same multicolor paint job that Ellie had long ago envisioned. They picnic in the park, where they look up and see clouds shaped like turtles, flying elephants, and babies. Soon, they’re decorating a nursery with a stork mural and a mobile made of little dirigibles.

But then a slow camera pan to a darkened doctor’s office brings Up ’s first profoundly emotional moment. Ellie is crying and Carl is resting his hands on her shoulders. A physician is explaining that she’s suffered a miscarriage. The next scene—Carl looking out the kitchen window at Ellie, who’s sitting on a chair in the yard, eyes closed, red hair blowing in the light wind—is crushing. And to the chunk of the audience that still considered Pixar to be nothing more than kids stuff, the sudden seriousness was legitimately shocking.

Welcome to Pixar Week! Over the past three decades and 25 movies, Pixar has filled its universe with countless unforgettable characters. Ahead of Lightyear , it’s time to celebrate them—and to decide who’s no. 1.

Vote for your favorites in the Best Pixar Character Bracket now!

But the makers of Up knew that even feel-good stories need pathos, and like a real couple, Ellie and Carl’s lows were as important to their relationship as their highs. When the movie was still in the storyboard stage, the filmmakers considered cutting that plot point. “There was a time that a few people at Pixar felt that the miscarriage went too far, so we tried editing it out,” Docter says. “Without it, that montage was not as emotional, of course—but interestingly the rest of the film suffered without it and we didn’t care as much through the whole movie. So of course we cut it back in.”

Thankfully, Carl and Ellie’s story doesn’t end there. While they’re mourning, he makes her smile by bringing out her childhood book. From then on, they joyfully start to save money for a trip to Paradise Falls. But various expenses that crop up cause them to dip into the jug of cash that they’ve set aside, and before they know it, they’ve grown old. By the time Carl finally is able to buy two plane tickets to South America, Ellie has fallen too ill to join him. The last time we see them together is when he visits her in the hospital, where Carl announces his arrival with a message in the form of a blue balloon. Ellie is looking through her old scrapbook, which she eventually nudges toward him. It’s her final gift, and also a charge—she wants him to pick up where their adventures together left off.

After Ellie’s funeral, which is decorated with pink flowers and balloons, Carl heads back to the house that now belongs only to him. This is where their home movie ends. “We have a really, really small camera pullback,” Lin says. “It’s almost imperceptible. And then the camera comes to a stop.” When Carl opens the door and walks inside, the soft pink light shining on the house dims out.

To Docter, the puzzle of the four-and-a-half-minute “Married Life” sequence took a while to solve. “We made lots of changes and adjustments, and it was really hard to know whether we were making it better or breaking it,” he says. “Some days it would be super emotional, and other days we wouldn’t feel anything at all. Oh no, we took out three frames—did we break it ?”

His anxiety was understandable. After all, the sequence had to tell Carl and Ellie’s story and set up the rest of the movie. But Docter and his team’s tinkering ended up working. “Through the rest of the movie,” the director says, “when you look at the house being pulled across a mountaintop, you fill in all the emotion of that failed promise.”

But that doesn’t mean that what happens after the first 10 minutes is as heavy as everything that comes before it. Up, after all, is still for children. “The concern is really about having a cartoon [about] a 70-year-old man,” Lin says. “That is always the concern. ‘Well, are kids going to be interested in that?’ That’s why we added other elements.” There’s a villain in Muntz, a talking dog named Dug, a bird named Kevin, and most importantly, an 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer scout named Russell who the Ed Asner–voiced Carl befriends.

Yet in Carl’s thoughts—and in the world of Up —Ellie is never far away. Late in the movie, when Carl looks through her adventure book for the last time, the filmmakers bring the audience back to the beginning. “We started calling back to the same type of camera shots,” Lin says, “which is the lateral movement and pushing so that it brings the audience directly back to Carl’s married life.”

Up opened Cannes in 2009 and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won two: Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. But more than anything else, the massive hit will be remembered for its first 10 minutes. “It definitely reaches very deep,” Kalache says. “It’s Pete Docter’s style. He really knows how to connect with the audience on a very, very deep level. I remember when we watched the movie with friends and family, we took my kid’s class, and the average age was maybe 10, 11. They were all crying after this sequence. I mean, it’s so powerful.”

Thirteen years later, it still makes Kalache cry.

By now, Docter is used to being told that the opening of Up is a tearjerker. “Pretty wild to think that something we created as an explanation for something else still affects people like that!” he says.

To him, the reaction to “Married Life” remains as uplifting as thousands of helium balloons. “A woman just today told me she was 16 when she saw it and bawled her eyes out,” Docter says. “Obviously a 16-year-old has never had a spouse die. But I figure there’s something universal about the desire to have a lifelong partner, and even the thought of that loss must be pretty foundational to us as humans.”

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Welcome to pixar week.

And the Winner of the Best Pixar Character Bracket Is …
Inside the Brilliant, Heartbreaking First 10 Minutes of ‘Up’
The Best Pixar Character Bracket: Round 2

‘Civil War’ With Alex Garland! Plus: The 10 Most Anticipated Movies Out of CinemaCon.

‘shogun’ episode 8, ‘ripley’ episode 3, and ‘top chef’ episode 4, covering the campaign and trump’s third run for the white house with new york magazine’s olivia nuzzi.

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78-year-old Carl Fredricksen travels to Paradise Falls in his house equipped with balloons, inadvertently taking a young stowaway.
As a boy, Carl Fredricksen wanted to explore South America and find the forbidden Paradise Falls. About 64 years later he gets to begin his journey along with Boy Scout Russell by lifting his house with thousands of balloons. On their journey, they make many new friends including a talking dog, and figure out that someone has evil plans. Carl soon realizes that this evildoer is his childhood idol.
78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen is about to fulfill a lifelong dream. Tying thousands of balloons to his house, he flies away to the South American wilderness. But curmudgeonly Carl's worst nightmare comes true when he discovers a stowaway aboard: a Boy Scout named Russell. — Jwelch5742
Determined to save his home and keep the promise he made to his wife, widower Carl Fredricksen embarks on a journey to the mysterious Paradise Falls in an airship of his own invention. Along the way he meets his childhood hero, forms a bond with a boy who has an absent father, and realizes the preciousness of the life he lived as well as the one he now lives. — David J. Rizzo
From the revolutionary minds of Pixar Animation Studios and the acclaimed director of Monsters, Inc. comes a hilariously uplifting adventure where the sky is no longer the limit. Carl Fredricksen, a retired balloon salesman is part rascal, part dreamer who is ready for his last chance at high-flying excitement. Tying thousands of balloons to his house, Carl sets off to the lost world of his childhood dreams. Unbeknownst to Carl, Russell, an overeager 8-year old Wilderness Explorer who has never ventured beyond his backyard, is in the wrong place at the wrong time - Carl's front porch. The world's most unlikely duo reaches new heights and meets fantastic friends like Dug, a dog with a special collar that allows him to speak, and Kevin, the rare 13-foot tall flightless bird. Stuck together in the wilds of the jungle, Carl realizes that sometimes life's biggest adventures aren't the ones you set out looking for. Up reaches new heights and it's an adventure that will send your spirits soaring. — Disney
Young Carl Fredricksen ( Jeremy Leary ), a quiet bespectacled boy wearing an old pilot's cap and goggles, watches a film reel in a theater depicting his hero Charles Muntz ( Christopher Plummer ), a famous explorer. The reporter speaks of Muntz's various accomplishments and discoveries before commenting that he was recently dishonored by scientists who believed his latest find, the large skeleton of a bird, was a hoax. Intent on proving them wrong, Muntz is seen boarding his zeppelin with his team of dogs and promises to return once he has brought back living proof of his find. After the show, Carl runs down the street with his balloon, named after Muntzs zeppelin The Spirit of Adventure. He passes an old, rundown house where he hears someone shout out Muntz's famous slogan: Adventure is out there! Carl goes inside to investigate and meets a young, outgoing tomboy who shares his passion for exploration and admiration of Charles Muntz. Startled by her loud, boyish demeanor at first, Carl loses his balloon in the rafters. The girl, Ellie ( Elie Docter ), helps him retrieve it, though Carl falls from a beam and breaks his arm. Ellie sneaks into his room that night and shows him her adventure book where she expresses a desire to one day move to the top of Paradise Falls in South America, showing him a picture that she 'ripped right out of a library book'. She makes him promise that they will go together someday before leaving. A musical montage shows Carl and Ellie eventually getting married and moving into the old house where they first met. Their marriage is blissful and they get jobs as a balloon salesman and zookeeper, respectively. When they discover that Ellie is unable to have children, they make a pact to save money to travel to Paradise Falls. However, as the years pass, they are forced to dig into their Falls fund for other obligations. One day, an elderly Carl realizes that, despite living happily together, they never fulfilled their old promise and decides to surprise Ellie on a picnic with tickets to South America. However, Ellie's declining health puts her in the hospital and she eventually passes away, leaving Carl alone. Carl remains in his home, a retired and sour recluse, as the city grows around him. He is encouraged to move to a retirement home due to increased construction, but often argues with the foreman ( John Ratzenberger ) and refuses to leave. One day, he meets Russell ( Jordan Nagai ), a young wilderness explorer scout who attempts to assist Carl in order to earn his 'assisting the elderly' badge. Carl tricks Russell into 'assisting' him by telling him to find and get rid of a 'snipe' that invades his yard. When a construction worker accidentally breaks Carl's mailbox, a part of the house and a part of Ellie that Carl cherishes, Carl hits him over the head with his walker. The assault lands him in court where he is forced to move out of his home by the next day. Workers from Shady Oaks retirement home arrive to pick him up the following morning but are shocked to find Carl releasing millions of helium balloons into the air which detach his house from its foundation, lifting it over the city and into the sky. Comfortably away from the city, Carl sets a course for South America and rests in his chair until hes interrupted by a knock at the door. Upon answering, he discovers Russell hanging on to dear life on his porch; apparently, Russell had been snipe searching under Carls porch. Carl lets him in and decides to descend to return Russell home before a severe storm hits. The house is knocked around in the turbulence but Carl manages to tie most of his items down before falling asleep. He's woken the next morning by Russell, who tells him that they're over South America (thanks to a GPS device that he accidentally throws out the window), though the ground is hidden by a dense fog. Carl releases some balloons to descend but they hit ground early and are knocked out of the house. They manage to hold onto it using a hose attached to the porch while the fog lifts to reveal that they are standing on a high plateau opposite Paradise Falls. Unable to climb back into the house, they resolve to walk to the falls before the helium in the balloons lets out. Meanwhile, a chase is progressing in the jungle. Three dogs with red lights on their collars are in hot pursuit of what appears to be a giant bird, but they lose the trail when their sensitive ears pick up the fine tuning of Carl's hearing aid. Russell stops to go to the bathroom and happens upon a giant bird which he lures closer with a chocolate bar. He introduces the colorful creature to Carl and gives it the name Kevin. Kevin follows them as they continue their journey but runs off when they approach the silhouette of a man who calls out to them. However, they see that the man is nothing more than a trick of the eye caused by overlapping stones. They are then approached by a golden retriever with a red light on his collar. Russell tells him to sit and speak and is surprised when the dog answers, using the device on his collar. He tells them his name is Dug ( Bob Peterson ) and that he is a tracker looking for a bird, at which point Kevin tackles him. The foursome continue their journey, Carl begrudging the additional company. At one point, Kevin loudly calls out and is answered by smaller calls. Dug says that Kevin is calling to her babies and Russell realizes that Kevin is a girl. Meanwhile, the three dogs seen chasing the bird earlier have picked up the scent of Carl and Russell, who they nickname the mailman. The leader Alpha ( Bob Peterson ), a doberman pinscher, tells Beta ( Delroy Lindo ), a rottweiler, and Gamma ( Jerome Ranft ), a bulldog, that they must be vigilant and continue their search. His speaking device appears to be damaged, causing him to talk in a high pitch. Using the device on Gamma's collar, Alpha calls to Dug, who they'd sent on a false mission in order to get rid of him, but finds him in the company of the bird they'd been after. They soon track him down and come upon Carl and Russell, but Kevin has already run off. Instead, they choose to take Carl and Russell to their master. Entering a large gorge, Carl and Russell meet a large pack of dogs, all with high-tech collars on, before meeting their master -- who turns out to be none other than an elderly Charles Muntz. Muntz invites them into The Spirit of Adventure as guests, but his behavior soon turns hostile when he finds out that Russell has adopted a new pet bird. Carl is shocked to see that Muntz has spent all the past years hunting for the bird which he was deemed a fraud for and has gone mad as a result. Muntz reveals a table of head mannequins wearing various headgear and grimly knocks each one off with his cane as he describes the stories their wearers told him; claiming that each one was actually after his bird. Carl and Russell run away from the zeppelin just as Muntz discovers the bird calling out from the roof of Carl's home. Riding on Kevin's back and assisted by Dug, who calls Carl his new master, they barely escape capture by Muntz's dogs, though Kevin is injured in the process. Carl agrees to help Kevin get back to her babies safely but, just before Kevin can re-enter her labyrinth home, a net flies out and captures her. Muntz and his dogs have arrived in the zeppelin, led to the spot by a tracking device on Dug's collar. Muntz throws a lantern beneath Carl's home, setting fire to it. Carl ignores Kevin and runs over to extinguish the flames as Muntz takes Kevin on board and leaves. Angry and disheartened, Carl yells at Dug and tells Russell that he's taking his home to Paradise Falls if it kills him. He manages to set his house down on the Falls, but loses Russell's respect for leaving Kevin. Carl goes inside the house and sits down to look at Ellie's adventure book. Saddened that she never got to see the Falls, he is about to close it when he discovers added pictures near the end, documenting their life together. On the last page is a note written by Ellie that says thanks for the adventure, now go have a new one! Enlightened and inspired, Carl goes outside in time to see Russell take off with a few balloons, using a leaf blower as propulsion. Carl empties his home of extra furniture, allowing it to become airborne once again, and follows Russell. He finds Dug on his porch and happily exclaims that Dug is his dog and he is his master. Russell manages to sneak aboard Muntz's zeppelin but is quickly caught and tied to a chair. Muntz sits him on the ships bomb-bay doors and flips the switch for them to open. Carl flies in and manages to rescue Russell in time, setting him inside the house while he goes into the zeppelin with Dug to fetch Kevin. Hes able to distract the guard dogs with a tennis ball from his walker and frees Kevin but is confronted by Muntz. They engage in a sword fight (albeit Carl uses his extended walker) while Russell, freed of his ties, fights off a squadron of dogs in fighter planes. He regains control of the house and returns to help Carl, who has climbed to the top of the zeppelin with Kevin. Dug has, meanwhile, faced off against Alpha and outsmarted him, effectively becoming the new alpha, and runs off to meet the others topside. Kevin, Dug, and Carl run for the house which Russell has landed on the wing of the zeppelin, but Muntz appears with a rifle and shoots at them, causing the house to slip and dangle in the air. Carl struggles to hold onto the house with the hose while Muntz goes in after Kevin. Carl lures Kevin, carrying Dug and Russell, out of the house with chocolate and Muntz attempts to jump out of the window after them. He doesn't make the jump as his foot gets caught in some balloon strings and, weighing too much for the balloons to support him, he falls to his death. As Kevin, Dug, and Russell make it back to the zeppelin, Carl is forced to release his house, which slowly descends into the clouds, a loss which Carl accepts as being for the best. Kevin is returned to her three chicks and Carl takes Russell and Dug home where Russell attends his senior explorer ceremony. When Russell's father fails to present him with his final badge, Carl fulfills the role and gives Russell a grape soda badge that Ellie gave him when they first met, calling it the Ellie badge. Afterwards, they sit on a curb together in front of an ice cream shop, Carl acting as a surrogate grandfather to Russell, The Spirit of Adventure anchored above them. At Paradise Falls, Carl and Ellie's house has landed right at the spot where it was meant to be: on the cliff overlooking the falls.

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‘Scoop’ Review: Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper Go In for the Kill in an Engrossing Look Behind Prince Andrew’s Fall From Grace

The controversial royal claimed he couldn't sweat, but viewers might get clammy during director Philip Martin's taut dramatization of that infamous BBC Newsnight interview.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

‘Scoop’ Review: Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper Go In for the Kill in an Engrossing Look Behind Prince Andrew’s Fall From Grace 1 week ago
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Popular on Variety

In a canny stroke of casting, McAlister is played by Billie Piper , the former teen pop star who overturned a lightweight public image to become a heavily laureled actor of stage and screen. All bottle-blonde curls and unsubtly flaunted designer labels, she enters the film with brash something-to-prove energy, striding into the BBC headquarters to the strains of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” — which just so happens to be her ringtone too.

“Why don’t they see me as one of them?” McAlister sighs to her mother, while simultaneously berating her BBC cohorts for their principled snobbery, vocally wishing they had “half the instincts and a quarter of the contacts of the average tabloid paparazzo.” Specifically, she’s thinking of New York-based shutterbug Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells), who’s been monitoring Epstein for years — and whose gotcha 2010 snapping of Prince Andrew in conversation with the disgraced financier is tensely portrayed in the film’s pre-credit prologue.

Nine years later, the men’s high-powered friendship is hardly news, but McAlister senses another shoe about to drop, courting the Prince’s private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes) for interview access. Thirsk plays coy, while “Newsnight” producer Esmé Wren (Romola Garai) isn’t sure they have a story. When Epstein is arrested for sex trafficking, both women take McAlister a lot more seriously.

If Piper gives “Scoop’s” first half a doughty, forceful heroine, it’s merely the fault of McAlister’s job description that her grip on the narrative loosens once the interview is fixed, and the emphasis shifts to the more public showdown between Maitlis and the Prince. Played with just the right temperature of dry, dour aggression by Rufus Sewell — his knife-like features convincingly blunted by prosthetics — he’s as foggy and evasive as Maitlis is precisely focused, but just snappish enough to bring some dramatic fizz and friction to an encounter we’ve already seen play out.

Martin and editor Kristina Hetherington cleverly tease out the ultimate dynamic of the broadcast, at one point cross-cutting between their respective rehearsals of questions and answers, before the film succumbs to the simpler pleasures of pop-cultural reenactment: There’s a tingle of camp to Anderson and Sewell’s faithful readings of exchanges that have already been endlessly memed, from the memorably banal “Pizza Express in Woking” alibi to the ludicrous no-sweat defense.

At this point, “Scoop” can offer no surprises to any viewers who were remotely acquainted with news media five years ago, though the simultaneous absurdity and horror of the interview — leaving its royal subject at once defeated and recalcitrant — startles us once more. Condensing the aftermath into a few short scenes and title cards, plus a montage of aghast social media reactions, the script finds a sense of victory in Andrew’s subsequent royal demotion, cheering the integrity and influence of the national broadcaster in holding power to account. (It’s a light irony that this celebration comes bound in a Netflix production.)

Reviewed at Netflix screening room, London, April 3, 2024. Running time: 102 MIN.

Production: (U.K.) A Netflix presentation of a Lighthouse Film and Television production in association with Voltage TV. Producers: Radford Neville, Hilary Salmon. Executive producers: Sam McAlister, Sanjay Singhal. Co-producer: Eimhear McMahon.
Crew: Director: Philip Martin. Screenplay: Peter Moffatt, Geoff Bussetil, based on the book "Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews" by Sam McAlister. Camera: Nanu Segal. Editor: Kristina Hetherington. Music: Anne Nikitin, Hannah Peel.
With: Billie Piper, Gillian Anderson, Keeley Hawes, Rufus Sewell, Romola Garai, Connor Swindells, Lia Williams.

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‘Scoop’ Review: Prince Andrew’s Catastrophic Jeremy Epstein Interview Gets ‘The Crown’ Treatment in Unfocused Netflix Thriller

David ehrlich.

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It makes sense that Netflix leapt at the chance to adapt Sam McAllister’s “Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews,” as the story that screenwriter Peter Moffat has pulled from it feels like nothing so much as an episode from season eight or nine of “The Crown” — the most compelling thing about this film might be the case it makes in support of the streamer’s decision to end that series after season six.

Is this, like so much of “The Crown,” a story about the monarchy’s failure to mature with the times? Is this a “Spotlight”-flavored story about a brilliant TV producer — Sam McAllister herself, played here by the great Billie Piper — who recognizes the gravity of Prince Andrew’s (alleged) misconduct, and wills the other women at “Newsnight” to make him pay for his (alleged) involvement in the assault and sex trafficking of underage girls? Is this a story about how charm, title, and power can blind people to the most obvious forms of moral rot, even when it manifests within themselves?

The call doesn’t come until a few months before Epstein’s death, as Sam — a blustery single mom whose job is to book the kind of guests that other shows can’t — identifies Prince Andrew’s connection with Epstein as a potential “Newsnight” story. Her peers might scoff that it’s too scandalous and trashy for their hard news show, but the program is struggling to balance journalistic integrity with its desperate need for ratings, and Sam is convinced she’s found the perfect thing to split the difference.

When Epstein is arrested for the ickiest crimes imaginable — again — and then found hanging in his prison cell, the Prince Andrew of it all immediately goes from tabloid fodder to front page news in a way that changes the stakes of a potential interview. Amanda had been wary of allowing the Prince to appear on a hard journalism show without any red lines or pre-approved questions, but as the scandal goes nuclear in a way that threatens the reputation of the entire royal family, she recognizes the potential upside of allowing her boss to speak his peace on the only credible program that will give Prince Andrew proper time to clear his name. “An hour of television can change everything,” someone says. “It’s like magic.” And so both sides begin feverishly practicing to cast their respective spells over an audience of millions.

After spending 60 years ensconced in the empire’s tightest echo chamber, Prince Andrew has lost all perspective as to the seriousness of this or any situation, and to how ridiculous some of his answers might seem in light of what Emily Maitlis’ questions will imply. “Scoop” is happy to see Prince Andrew as an easy punchline (his last appearance in the movie finds him standing butt-naked in his bathroom as tweets of doom begin to ding across his phone), but the film is never more textured or humane than when it focuses on Amanda’s dawning awareness of the pathetic man she’s enabled like a duty. This movie needed to have a character who’s effectively hearing Prince Andrew for the first time, because most of the people watching it on Netflix won’t have the same luxury.

Amanda becomes even more important because of how little there is for Sam to do once the interview is confirmed. She’s relegated to the background as the brunt of the responsibility is shifted onto Emily’s shoulders, and whatever momentum the movie has cultivated around her character arc is relegated to the background along with it.

It’s true enough that good broadcast journalism is still an effective bulwark against the vicissitudes of the 21st century, but it doesn’t seem right for “Scoop” to so triumphantly settle on that moral as the big idea that might collect this movie into something more than news media cosplay. There’s no doubt the “Newsnight” team deserved a pat on the back after giving Prince Andrew enough rope to hang himself on national TV, but the victory lap they’re given here is wildly unearned at the end of a film that struggles to find a story beyond its own sensationalism.

“Scoop” will be available to stream on Netflix starting Friday, April 5.

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Disney lets Deadpool drop f-bombs, debuts new 'Captain America' first look at CinemaCon

LAS VEGAS – Deadpool? And Wolverine? In Vegas? That's what you call a jackpot.

Marvel's two extremely stabby superheroes – Ryan Reynolds ' masked Merc with a Mouth and Hugh Jackman 's iconic X-Man – made quite the splash at Disney's presentation at CinemaCon Thursday. Director Shawn Levy debuted new footage from "Deadpool & Wolverine" (in theaters July 26), Pixar showcased the first 35 minutes of its upcoming sequel "Inside Out 2" (June 14), Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson made an appearance to debut a sneak peek at the new animated sequel "Moana 2" (Nov. 27) and director Barry Jenkins gave theater owners a taste of what's coming in the live-action prequel "Mufasa: The Lion King" (Dec. 20).

Plus, there were so many f-bombs that Mickey Mouse is probably going to get Deadpool a swear jar.

Here's all the news and highlights from the Disney panel:

Dwayne Johnson says 'Moana 2' is 'deeper than a movie for me'

Dwayne Johnson arrives with island drummers and dancers – and does a few moves himself – to say "Aloha!" and preview the new animated sequel "Moana 2" (Nov. 27). He says the character Maui is inspired by his grandfather, "High Chief" Peter Maivia. "It's so much deeper than a movie for me," says Johnson, who's presented with a Spirit of the Industry Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners. He also introduces a sneak peek, including a new song, "We're Back," sung by Moana (Auliʻi Cravalho) as she returns home from a seafaring trip.

Barry Jenkins previews 'Lion King' prequel 'Mufasa'

Director Barry Jenkins says taking on the prequel "Mufasa: The Lion King" (Dec. 20) is "one of the best decisions of my life." The "Moonlight" director adds that it's "a very personal film for me": He watched the original animated "Lion King" "maybe 200 times" with his nephews. The prequel "explores Mufasa's rise to become the king that he is" and helps kids understand "how people who are great become the way that they are."

Marvel debuts nine amazing minutes of 'Deadpool & Wolverine'

The first "Deadpool" footage doesn't disappoint: Director Shawn Levy shows nine super-fun, foul-mouthed minutes, where Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool has literally hung up the tights and is now selling cars. But when he's captured by the Time Variance Authority, a mystery man named Mr. Paradox (Matthew McFadyen) gives him a chance to jump from his timeline to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "Suck it, Fox! I'm going to Disneyland," Deadpool proclaims.

Deadpool popcorn bucket is coming, new 'Captain America' gets a trailer

Yes, you read that right: Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige says Deadpool is "designing" his own popcorn bucket a la that "Dune Part Two" travesty. In other news, "Thunderbolts*" (out May 5) now has an asterisk in its title (apparently that will make sense later) and "Captain America: Brave New World" (Feb. 14, 2025) will be a political thriller. "It's been amazing," Anthony Mackie says of taking on Cap's shield. He introduces a sneak peek where Sam Wilson (Mackie) meets President "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford) in the Oval Office, and POTUS wants him to rebuild the Avengers.

'Inside Out 2' debuts some new emotions as Joy meets Anxiety

After a first trailer for "The Young Woman and the Sea," a period biopic with "Nyad" vibes, Amy Poehler arrives to introduce the first 35 minutes of "Inside Out 2." The now-teenage Riley navigates changing friendships and fitting in at hockey camp, and Joy (Poehler) and the old emotions are challenged by Anxiety (Maya Hawke) and a new crew.

'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' premieres new footage

Next up: 17 minutes from "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" (May 10), which is set several generations in the future as apes rule the world instead of humans. Two scenes show the atmosphere and breathtaking effects as young ape Noa seeks hawk's eggs with his friends and picks up the pieces after a tragic attack.

Wolverine and Deadpool kick off the show!

Our two fun-loving antiheroes begin the presentation with a video of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine launching into a curse-laden rant at folks to turn their phones off. "So much testosterone," Deadpool quips. That's followed by a sizzle reel of past and future movies, including a look at Gal Gadot's Evil Queen in upcoming live-action "Snow White" – so evil! – and Harrison Ford's President "Thunderbolt" Ross in Marvel's "Captain America: Brave New World."

What have been the highlights at this year's CinemaCon?

Disney is the last studio to roll out a presentation this week, but the rest brought out a lot of good stuff. A few noteworthy items:

Paul Mescal starred in the epic first footage from Ridley Scott's sequel " Gladiator II ."
John Wick is back! Keanu Reeves makes an appearance in the new spinoff "Ballerina."
Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo talked about their roles in the upcoming "Wicked" musical .
"Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" spooked with a sneak peek featuring returning star Michael Keaton.

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Up movie review & film summary (2009)
BLT Films Reviews: Pixar Week: Up Review
Pixar Up Movie
'Up' Review: 2009 Pixar Movie
Three New Pixar's UP Movie Posters
17 New Images From Pixar’s UP

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First Time Watching *UP*
[4K] Up [Edit] (Memory Reboot)
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Movie Review: Up by Pixar/Disney

COMMENTS

Up movie review & film summary (2009)
Up. Balloons, house, dog, boy, man: "Up." "Up" is a wonderful film, with characters who are as believable as any characters can be who spend much of their time floating above the rain forests of Venezuela. They have tempers, problems and obsessions. They are cute and goofy, but they aren't cute in the treacly way of little cartoon animals.
Up
A movie with original thought and lives up to the name of the other Pixar movies. Show Less Show More. epicladysponge r Super Reviewer. May 12, 2014.
Up
Eventually, the two bond on their way to Paradise Falls, and the irascible Carl discovers both the son he never had and his own youthful self by fulfilling the adventure he and Ellie didn't manage ...
'Up' Review: 2009 Pixar Movie
'Up': Film Review. Winsome, touching and arguably the funniest Pixar effort ever, the gorgeously rendered, high-flying adventure is a tidy 90-minute distillation of all the signature touches ...
Up (2009)
User Reviews. Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) as a young quiet kid idolized explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) and his discovery of Paradise Falls. Ellie is much more animated and also a great fan of Muntz. Together they would marry and live their lives together until the day she dies.
Up
The geniuses at Disney/Pixar continue to elevate the art of the animated film with Up, their latest cinematic achievement. Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 13, 2018
From Pixar, the House That Soared
Up. Directed by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson. Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family. PG. 1h 36m. By Manohla Dargis. May 28, 2009. In its opening stretch the new Pixar movie "Up" flies high, borne ...
Up (2009)
Up: Directed by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson. With Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson. 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen travels to Paradise Falls in his house equipped with balloons, inadvertently taking a young stowaway.
Up
Up is a comedy adventure about 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip: an overly optimistic 9-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. (Walt ...
Up Review
Original Title: Up. In 1982, Werner Herzog made Fitzcarraldo, the story of an over-zealous Irishman (bonkers Klaus Kinski) who, in his quest to bring opera to the South American jungle, drags a ...
Up
Up. T he latest Pixar-Disney animation from director Pete Docter, available in 2D and 3D, is a lovely, charming and visually stunning family comedy which can leave no heart unwarmed, although very ...
'Up' Review: Pixar's 2009 Adventure Soars
At just 89 minutes, "Up" is unusually short for a Pixar film, and the action climax comes on rapidly. One setpiece features the two old-timers, Carl and the swashbuckling Muntz, going mano a ...
Movie Review: Up
[This review contains plot details revealed in the first 10 minutes of Pixar's Up]. Pixar's movies have always depicted fantastical worlds spun out of reams of boundless creativity.
Up (2009)
Pixar Animation Studios has captured it before, but never so precisely as in Up. The themes throughout the picture address li. ... Review by Brian Eggert May 29, 2009. Director Bob Peterson, Pete Docter Cast Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Delroy Lindo Rated PG
Up (2009)
A cross-generational odd-couple buddy movie; a story of man and dog. A tale of sharply observed melancholy truths and whimsically unfettered nonsense. Directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson. Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft. Disney/Pixar.
Movie Review: Up (2009)
Instead, this film may be their strongest showing yet. Continuing through the door that WALL-E ripped open, Up too, tells a powerful tale without wasting words or packing the 96 minute running time with unneeded filler material. It gets going with an unexpectedly moving and heartfelt montage laying out the younger years of Carl Fredericksen ...
The film that makes me cry: Up
The somewhat unexpected hero of this 2009 Pixar classic is Carl Fredricksen, a balloon salesman in his late 70s who lives alone after the death of his wife Ellie. The animation starts further back ...
Up (2009 film)
Up is a 2009 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures.The film was directed by Pete Docter, co-directed by Bob Peterson, and produced by Jonas Rivera.Docter and Peterson also wrote the film's screenplay and story, with Tom McCarthy co-writing the latter. The film stars the voices of Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer ...
'UP' Review
There's nothing better than an easy review: Pixar's latest summer offering, UP, is a fantastic film.Simply fantastic. Seriously, if Ratatouille and Wall-E deserved to be in the running for Best Picture of the Year (as many said they did at the times of their releases) then UP certainly does.. It's that good.. The film - which was written by Bob Peterson (Finding Nemo, Ratatouille) and directed ...
Up Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 249 ): Kids say ( 263 ): Pixar has brought to life a multi-generational odd couple in a film that's visually stunning, surprisingly touching, and unsurprisingly delightful. After nine films, Pixar's legend is well known; it's the only studio with a perfect record both commercially (each of its releases has grossed more ...
Inside the Brilliant, Heartbreaking First 10 Minutes of 'Up'
By Alan Siegel Jun 14, 2022, 6:30am EDT. Disney/Pixar/Ringer illustration. Ahead of the release of , is hosting Pixar Week—a celebration of the toys, rats, clown fish, and more that helped ...
Up (2009)
78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen is about to fulfill a lifelong dream. Tying thousands of balloons to his house, he flies away to the South American wilderness. But curmudgeonly Carl's worst nightmare comes true when he discovers a stowaway aboard: a Boy Scout named Russell. — Jwelch5742. Determined to save his home and keep the ...
What is so great about Pixar's UP? : r/flicks
However, the rest of the movie is still a charming and emotionally engaging movie. The relationship between Carl and Russ I think is a highlight in the Pixar catalogue. The humor is also excellent. The movie does suffer from a lackluster villain and 3rd act. For me, it's high-mid tier Pixar. chicasparagus.
'Scoop' Review: Gillian Anderson in a Gripping Prince Andrew ...
Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper and Rufus Sewell star in 'Scoop,' a taut dramatization of Prince Andrew's infamous BBC Newsnight interview.
'Scoop' Review: Prince Andrew's Catastrophic Jeremy Epstein Interview
Billie Piper and Gillian Anderson lead a thin but propulsive journalistic thriller about the making of the November 2019 "Newsnight" segment in which Prince Andrew self-immolated on national ...
Disney's biggest Marvel, Pixar highlights at CinemaCon
Disney closed out this year's CinemaCon and debuted new footage from "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Captain America: Brave New World" and "Inside Out 2."