Movie review - UP - finally, a kids movie for grumpy old men
I was looking forward to this latest Disney/Pixar animated tale and I'm delighted to say my anticipation was justified. It's quite usual these days for such movies to aim at multiple levels, knockabout fun and games for the kids and grown-up story elements, in-jokes and adult references for mum and dad.
I wasn't surprised to hear young voices expressing confusion around the cinema in the first 20 minutes, a beautifully structured account of the lives, love, joys and disappointments of our protagonist Carl and his departed love, Ellie. It's not the first time I've been moved by an animated film, (Wall-E was beautiful in parts and there's a scene in Cars, no, don't get me started, damn, I'm welling up just writing this...) .... anyway ... this was a very lovely piece of cinema.
The film moves back into junior territory as the balloons burst from the chimney and there is real beau
ty as the house takes to the sky and the tale unfolds, great human and animal characters (the dogs as house staff were very neatly done), it's a continual visual joy and despite the more frantic pace of the latter stages enough senior moments to keep mum and dad as involved as the young 'uns. I was particularly amused by the fight between the two old men punctuated by moments of simultaneous arthritic paralysis.
It's not just a very fine animated film, It's a very fine film, clever, moving and beautiful. If you can find a handy kid, grab them and go see it, if you can't find a kid, go anyway, you'll love it.
The Haiku was hard
multi coloured tale
gleeful and thoughtful, truly
a moving picture
Medical update ........................ there's more dirty work afoot
So after two weeks of crutch-work, limping, cursing and hobbling I was summoned to see the surgeon for an extended session of tutting and sharp in-taking of breath. "Did you get the wound wet at all?" he asked. Gentle reader here's the rub,I'd not had a bath for about 3 years, I'm a two-shower-a-day-man and after ten days of occasionally lying in a bath with an outrigger foot I'd got to the end of my tether, so, the cunning application of two layers of plastic carrier bag and prodigious amounts of duct tape (not sure why you ladies spend so much on Veet when duct tape is so cheap by the way) and I was able to take my first proper shower.
I stepped out, scrubbed, refreshed, smelling pleasantly of tea-tree, spearmint and lime and with about two litres of water trapped in the bags around my "never,ever get this wet" dressing.
Anyway sent off with a flea in my ear (apparently some form of homeopathy) and a course of antibiotics.
It's now Friday the 9th, nearly a month into my 2 week recuperation period and I'm hoping to be signed off on Wednesday next to start taking exercise again, I've never enjoyed exercise but I certainly miss it when I can't do it.
Here's hopping, sorry, hoping.
Movie review => District 9 ... and it turns out I've an allergy to analogy
Apologies, gentle reader, I've been a little tardy in posting my response to this movie and I suspect that is partly because I was not sure about it, not whether I liked it, I didn't really, but more
about whether it was a good movie.
It has that trendy hand-held faux documentary look to it, it sets up the situation well and it tells the story well, albeit with a heavy hand on the yuck! button. The yuckiness and the motion-sickness-inducing camera effect made Mrs S less than comfortable but for me it was the vast number of gaps, holes, inconsistencies, illogicality's and implausibilities that the film generated.
I've a resistance to being forcibly subjected to continual beating with the analogy stick and the combination of that and the repeated reliance on "just accept it" stretched my ability to allow the film makers license well past my tolerance point.
It's a clear case of 'emperors new clothes' for me and I found the emperor to be skinny, lacking in substance and generally unappealing once the (admitted) finery of CGI was stripped away.
ty as the house takes to the sky and the tale unfolds, great human and animal characters (the dogs as house staff were very neatly done), it's a continual visual joy and despite the more frantic pace of the latter stages enough senior moments to keep mum and dad as involved as the young 'uns. I was particularly amused by the fight between the two old men punctuated by moments of simultaneous arthritic paralysis.
