When dreams take flight

Made use of Orange Wednesdays for the first time in ages (but the Orange Men skit seems to be no longer running - another victim of the recession as Orange retrench?) and we saw Up. A gloriously simple title for a cleverly expansive flick. Up is an intelligent film but one where EQ emerges more strongly than IQ. It is not afraid to ask dark questions but Touy Story pondered such forays more deeply.
At the heart of this latest Pixar offering is light-touch absurdity. If you can buy into a house being hoisted into the air by hundreds of balloons, them for example, dogs possessing collars that translate their thoughts into English (or indeed such hounds possessing a smattering of culinary talent) should not overly raise eyebrows. Naturally, anthropomorphism is a key component therefore, without being intrusive. The moral, aside from not meeting your childhood heroes, was against obsession (and, latterly, implicitly critical exhortations of materialism) and how it can be detrimental to the things that really matter. This defeated the villain but not the ultimately heroic old man.
There were smart little touches to apprecaite alongside the pleasure of the grander set pieces. A selection consists of the wife's funeral taking place in the church she was married in, the chief construction developer laying a proprietorial hand on the agte post to the old man's property after a clash spun out fo control, as well as the canine cluster each being named after letters of the ancient Greek alphabet, except the friendliest who is just Doug (Dog?); there is a detail to keep you thinking after the ending that even the villain might escape the severest of punishments, to resolve the narrative without being too cruel (and one remember that children are as much the audience here as adults).
Up is a warm-hearted, generous story that manages to be iconoclastic and up-to-date in tis mix too, deserving all the plaudits and box office it will certainly receive.