Andy Gapin

Up

I LOVED THIS! It was sooooo good! Entertaining from beginning to end.

Unlike most movies, Up starts off really sad in the first twenty minutes. You meet Ellie and fall in love with her and her and Carl’s relationship. They’re so cute together! Then you watch them get old and eventually watch her die, leaving Carl all alone. It’s a sad way to start off a movie, but it works and is almost necessary to make the rest of the film work. Carl becomes a bit bitter and irritable, but rather than disliking him for it, you feel for him instead and relate to him. You understand where he’s coming from and you know that this isn’t a character flaw, but more the effect losing the love of his life.

From then on, the movie is very funny and even though the story moves along predictably. Things are a bit less tight in Up than in previous Pixar movies as the story gets a bit haphazard in places, but it all seems to work out well and the main plot stays intact.

I don’t know how many times I can say this, but I don’t think Pixar can do any wrong. They continually pump out movies that are hilarious, complex with real stories, and appeal to any audience. It’s really impressive, actually.

Rating: A

Bolt

Somehow, I missed this one until I was on the flight home from my London trip. It had just been another movie on a never ending list of flicks that I wanted to see. I don’t think I really heard much about it from anyone either while it out so that didn’t help bump it up. But I liked it a lot! It was cute, fun, and everything that it should have been. It wasn’t over the top funny or anything like that, but I did giggle out loud on the plane at a few points causing my brother to look over wondering what the hell I was laughing at. Everything moves along pretty quickly and the movie is over before you know it, but not without giving you the expected happy ending and all of that feel good stuff.

Bolt should definitely appeal to anyone that’s like me and and loves dogs and CGI movies. It’s a fun and entertaining movie, but it’s not something that I would anyone needs to rush out and see.

Rating: B-

Frost/Nixon

I’m not quite sure how to start this one. Frost/Nixon was very intense and an extremely short two hours, it seemed to fly by. I just wish that I hadn’t wasted so much time getting around to seeing it. This is was a great film, though that greatness doesn’t fully hit you until the last twenty minutes. It moves along at a nice pace without being overly engaging until the end when you pretty much get punched in the face. The final interview of the four really hits you hard, emotionally. It’s intensely powerful and almost makes you feel for Nixon a bit. Not that you are okay with him or think that anything he did was alright, but you can actually feel what he was feeling as he realized the mistakes that he made and what they were really going to cost him. It was very moving.

Rating: A