Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
House inflation: widower Carl and stowaway Russell escape to South America in a flying home in Up
Pausing only to allow the hordes of photographers to get this year’s money shot — a Cannes audience decked out in wraparound 3D specs — the Festival du Film got underway today with the Disney/Pixar film Up.
This is not the first time Cannes has shown a cartoon, but it’s the first time the prestigious opening slot has gone to an animated film.
It’s also the first time Cannes has opened with a 3D movie, bestowing the ultimate cinematic respectability on what will, hereafter, no longer be referred to as a gimmick.
Like other recent 3D flicks, Up doesn’t waste time throwing things at the audience: it simply uses the new format to give depth— in every sense of the word — to the story, and the result is stunning.
Forget the slightly iffy premise —grumpy old widower Carl, voiced by the estimable Ed Asner, ties helium balloons to his house to avoid being sent to an old people’s home and flies off to South America accompanied only by a cute if chubby eight-year-old stowaway, Russell.
Directed by Pete Docter, Up is a delightful combination of wry humour, deft characterisation and adventure (believe me, the 3D format really pays dividends when it comes to exploiting the many vertiginous possibilities provided by aerial pursuits at 20,000ft).
Though there are occasional dips into sentimentality — this is, after all, a Disney film — the real reference points are such classic crowdpleasers as The Wizard of Oz and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
With the shots of the house in flight there is also more than a nod towards Terry Gilliam’s short film, The Crimson Permanent Assurance, in which a City insurance office likewise goes on a trip, albeit under sail and as a pirate ship.
The South American scenes add in a 13ft multicoloured bird called Kevin, a pack of talking dogs (think the seagulls from Finding Nemo, but with deeper voices) and a hissable villain voiced by Christopher Plummer, who is intent on caging Kevin (who turns out to be a female) and getting her back to New York.
Running a mere 89 minutes, Up has one or two moments when it threatens to deflate (a gag involving the butch lead dog’s voicebox malfunctioning and making him squeaky isn’t as funny as the film-makers seem to think), but otherwise vies with Monsters Inc and Wall-E as the best and most inventive of the Pixar films — with, as it were, added depth.
Indeed, some scenes, like the floating house dropping slowly out of sight through the clouds, have an element rarely associated with Hollywood cartoons: great visual beauty.
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