Up - a Computer-Animated Movie by Pixar Animation Studios

Up is a computer-animated movie by Pixar Animation Studios and it opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It was awarded the Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score in 2010.

The movie tells a story about a man wanting to settle his house beside a fall. Young Carl Fredricksen was a shy, quiet boy who idolized renowned explorer Charles F. Muntz. One day, Carl befriended his future wife---an energetic and somewhat eccentric tomboy named Ellie who was also a Muntz fan. She had always had the dream to move to the "Paradise Falls" with which Carl promised to help her. They had been saving for the trip from the day they were married but Ellie didn't live to the day it came true. After Ellie died, Carl, trying to keep his promise to Ellie and also to protest to the construction company which want their house, turned the house into an airship using thousands of helium balloons to lift it off its foundations. Unexpectedly, a young Wilderness Explorer named Russell became an accidental passenger. After surviving a thunderstorm, the house landed near a large ravine facing Paradise Falls. Carl and Russell harnessed themselves to the still-buoyant house and began to walk it around the ravine, hoping to reach the falls before the balloons deflate. They later became friends with a tall, colorful flightless bird, whom Russell named "Kevin", and then a dog named Dug, who wore a special collar that allowed him to speak. Dug's master turned out to be the elderly Charles Muntz. Muntz invited Carl and Russell aboard his dirigible, where he used to search for the giant bird like Kevin. When Russell innocently revealed his friendship with Kevin, Muntz became disturbingly hostile and wanted to capture Kevin. He forced Carl to choose between saving the house or Kevin. Carl chose the house and eventually reached the falls, but Russell was angry with Carl. Settling into his home, while Carl was reading through Ellie's "adventure book", he surprisingly found Ellie called their married life an "adventure". Reinvigorated, he went to find Russell hoping to save Kevin with him, but Russell was already captured by Muntz. While Carl was trying to release Russell, Dug and Kevin, Muntz snagged his foot on some balloon lines and fall to his death. Freed from its tether, the house descended out of sight through the clouds. Carl and Russell reunited Kevin with her chicks, and then flew the dirigible back to the city.

Normally I am not the type of person that will shed a tear while watching a movie, especially an animation. But just at the beginning of Up, my tears filled my eyes. The director Pete Docter brilliantly compresses Carl and Ellie's life into some four wordless minutes during which the couple meet each other, become married, dream together, face crushing disappointment and grow happily old side by side and eventually, endure Ellie's departure. Carl was left to keep a whole

...