Webster's online dictionary gives the noun "genius" five definitions. They should add one more: Pixar. Twenty-two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and three Grammys qualify the studio.
Pixar's genius has many paths. Sometimes it's splashy, in-your-face, reinventing of state-of-the-art effects. At other times it's perfect writing, grand, over-the-top characters and gobs of humor. Then there's what Pixar does better than anyone: quiet, unpretentious, basic genius.
That's Up.
Carl Fredricksen, voiced by veteran character actor Ed Asner, is a widower who thinks life has passed him by. Inspired by fabled explorer Charles Muntz, he and his wife Ellie dreamed of traveling to an unexplored region of South America and standing next to the dazzling Paradise Falls. Fate has different ideas, and Carl and Ellie live ordinary lives.
When Ellie dies all dreams of adventure die with her, and Carl becomes a curmudgeon preferring to spend his days alone in his old, memory-filled home. Life, of course, goes on. The neighborhood is replaced by modern development, and Carl is the lone holdout.
Forced by the courts to move to a "retirement" home, Carl inflates thousands of helium balloons and floats his home to South America. Once there, he and Russell, a young boy and accidental stowaway, encounter Muntz -- who Carl thought was long dead -- his talking dogs and a giant bird named Kevin.
Like Carl, Up is rather average. All the 3-D -- and do see this in 3-D -- does is give a little depth to the story. There's nothing flashy about the effects. Directors and writers Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) and Bob Peterson (Finding Nemo) don't overwhelm you with visuals.
The opening sequences set up the story. A young, quiet Carl meets ebullient Ellie. She's blabby, he's underwhelming. From there you are shown a 10-minute wordless series of scenes depicting their lives. It is one of the most beautiful and eloquent definitions of love ever done in an animated film.
Ellie and Carl are interesting. Their love story sticks with you and makes you want more. A run-of-the-mill Carl and the commonplace kid going through a modest, straight-ahead good guy verses bad guy plot that winds down to an expected ending isn't that interesting.
Ordinary is the downside of Up. Ironically, that simplicity is also what makes this unremarkable film so remarkable.
The Last Emperor
Writer-director Bernardo Bertolucci's bio-pic of China's last emperor Pu-Yi is a visual masterpiece. Bertolucci bounces back and forth through time to tell Pu-Yi's story from birth in 1906 to his death in 1967. You are given flashbacks of his experiences of being practically worshipped by his own people, with power hungry Japan before and during World War II and his imprisonment by the Communists in 1950.
Crowned at age 3, he is spoiled rotten by the eunuchs and wet nurse that care for him. Under an agreement during a revolution, Pu-Yi is allowed to keep his throne, but is confined to the Forbidden City.
His teen years and the educational tutoring by Scotsman Reginald Johnston, played nicely by Peter O'Toole, are fascinating and set the tone of a man imprisoned by his status and an over-inflated sense of destiny.
Bertolucci's failure is an inability to connect you to the character and the social flavor of the times. Even in the extended director's cut, Bertolucci doesn't get you very deep.
Others will see it differently. The Last Emperor won nine Oscars in 1988. It didn't resonate in the acting categories, but it was 1987's best of everything else: picture, director, writer, cinematography, sets, and on the list goes.
At 160 minutes -- 220 for the director's cut -- The Last Emperor is too long. In spite of that, history buffs and those in love with cinematography, sets, costumes and the like will find the film is a nice ending for the Battelle Film Club's spring series.
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