Mostly Harmless

Up begins with the sweetest animated love story I’ve ever seen. In a few short minutes, we see the budding romance, young marriage, love and loss of Carl and Ellie. It’s one of the most touching moments I’ve seen in a movie, and that’s only in the first few minutes of the film, and brought tears to my eyes. The rest of the movie is great, but pales in comparison to those few short moments.

Carl & Ellie’s dream was to build a house at Paradise Falls in South America. Instead, life got in the way, and in the first few minutes we get to see snippets of that life. They aren’t able to have any children, and Ellie passes away, leaving Carl a lonely and grumpy old man. He is about to be remanded to a nursing home, when he gets a crazy idea to float his house to Paradise Falls. Because this is a movie, houses are obviously able to float*, and also, because it’s a movie, there is a little boy scout named Russel trapped in the house with Carl**. Improbably, the house crash sort of lands about four miles away from Paradise Falls, and Carl gets the bright idea to have him and Russel lead the house around the valley, leading it by the garden hose.

That’s when the dogs who can talk show up, and the crazy colourful bird, and Carl’s evil childhood mentor, and antics occur. But I know that deep down, this film is about Carl’s loss, and about showing just how far he would go to make his wife’s dreams happen. All that colourful, noisy stuff is for the kids, but I’m sure the adults in the cinema got more from the film than their children. Of course, in the end, Carl is de-grumpified and becomes a grandpa-figure to the annoying little boy, helping him get his level-up in Scouting or something like that.

The film is worth going to see just for the short montage of Carl and Ellie’s life. The antics are all good fun and well done, but are secondary in my mind to Carl’s reaction to his loss, and his journey to learning how to move forward without his beloved. Up is available in 3D. We didn’t see it that way, but I doubt it would really add to the experience at all, and may indeed make it more frustrating to see. Also, 3D is more expensive, so meh.

Everyone should go see Up. I f you don’t have kids, I’d suggest waiting to go to a later showing so there are fewer obnoxious kids around***.

*The Mythbusters showed how improbable this is in an early episode… I tried to link this, but all I found was websites about how hot Kari Byron is. I’m disputing the fact, cause she is indeed hot, but I was hoping from more from the Interweb.

**I found Russell insufferably annoying, as I often find children in movies. However, I don’t think it’s him, it’s me. I also find children in movie theatres annoying.

***I’m going to be such a great babysitter for all my friends who have just had / are about to have babies.

I love Rancid. The first album of theirs that I picked up was Let’s Go, and I purchased it at a Sarnia pawn shop back in high school. It was unlike any of the pop-punk I’d listened to at the time, much harder and edgier. The combination of Tim Armstrong’s mumbling, growling lyrics and Lar Frederickson’s harmonies sets Rancid apart from most punk banks, and their hints of reggae and ska help make Rancid a punk band that has more to offer than just loudness, angst, and awesomeness.

It’s been six years since their last album, Indestructible, was released, and I wasn’t sure if they were even together any more, but as it turns out, they are! Also, Rancid’s new CD, Let The Dominoes Fall, comes out today. I found it on the Internets last week, and let me tell you, it’s lovely. It falls in line with Indestructible and Let’s Go, and there’s even a couple of radio-friendly tracks on the album. Surprisingly, the album also offers a couple of touching acoustic-guitar based songs, one of which is about Tim Armstrong’s brother, a US Army veteran. I found it a lot more accessible than either of their self-titled albums, and though there aren’t any hit’s akin to Ruby Soho or Time Bomb, it’s a great album, that I would highly recommend to any fan of loud, fun music.