Squirrel!

Title: Up
Format: Drive-In Theater
Rating: A+

Pixar has done it again!

Description (from official movie website): From Disney-Pixar comes Up, a comedy adventure about 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip: an overly optimistic 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. Disney-Pixar's Up invites you on a hilarious journey into a lost world, with the least likely duo on Earth.

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I don't want to give anything away, because this movie is still out in theaters, so I'll avoid discussing the plot. All I will say is that it was a great concept that was fun and exciting and silly. A Disney-Pixar masterpiece.

I saw this on Saturday too, the other half of the double feature at Warwick Drive-In. This was the movie that brought in the crowds that night. And now I understand why.

The characters of Up seem so real, so true to reality that you can't help connecting with them on a personal level. After watching Carl's married-life sequence in the beginning of the movie (which, I'll admit it, I cried during), you feel as if you know everything about him. You can understand why he reacts certain ways. And Russell is your average 8-year-old Boy Scout- curious, silly, completely lacking in tact, but equipped with a heart of gold that just wants to help his friends.

And then there's Dug. Dug is the best part of the whole movie. The best! The idea of giving dogs specialized collars so we can understand what they're really saying when they speak could have been a mistake, if they had made the dogs too intelligent and completely coherent. Anyone who has a dog knows that the voice coming out of that collar needed to be gullible, loving, and suffering from a severe form of A.D.H.D. Dug definitely embodies all of those, and I just couldn't help loving him.

Some totally awesome quotes:

Dug: "My name is Dug. I have just met you, and I love you."
Carl: "Wha..."
Dug: "My master made me this collar. He is a good and smart master and he made me this collar so that I may speak. Squirrel!!........... My master is good and smart."

Carl: "Do you want to play a game? It's called See Who Can Go the Longest Without Saying Anything."
Russell: "Cool! My mom loves that game!"

Carl: "What a joke."
Dug: "Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, 'I forgot to gather acorns for the winter and now I am dead.' Ha ha! It's funny because the squirrel gets dead."

I would recommend this movie to... everyone! A+