On tonight’s episode of “How Freaking Sheltered IS Banafsheh?!”… :p
Yes. At long last I watched Up. Partly to catch up, and partly to study it. After all, several people have said that the montage of Carl and Ellie’s love is a masterclass in hooking the audience and getting them up to date, and I can finally see why. In just 4 minutes an entire lifetime is told, and we feel like Ellie was our wife that we lost and will always miss.
And of course the adventure aspect is brilliant, as well as Carl coming to bond with Russel, and Dug, and Kevin. Honestly the whole movie is a masterpiece.
What’s your favourite part, and what else do you recommend I watch next?
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Listen Banafsheh Esmailzadeh this entire movie is a masterclass. So many parts are my favourite. The Carl and Ellie story being my favourite. Told with action and no dialogue yet you felt it so hard. I loved whe Russell came over and started reciting his script to Carl and Carl kept shutting him out. Only to realise Russell was still with him when the house took off. Every scene with dug and the plot twist with Carl’s childhood hero.
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Banafsheh Esmailzadeh, I love this so much, and welcome to the Up appreciation club. That opening montage really is one of the best examples of visual storytelling doing all the heavy lifting, no exposition, no over-explaining, just pure emotion. The fact that it makes you feel that deeply in such a short amount of time is exactly why it’s studied so often. I cried when I watched it in theaters for the first time.
If you haven’t watched them yet, I highly recommend Into the Spider-Verse and the Netflix series Arcane. Both are incredible examples of animation pushing storytelling in different ways. Spider-Verse is a masterclass in style, pacing, and character voice, while Arcane dives deep into emotional complexity, world-building, and layered character arcs.
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True about the opening montage. I never experienced a film that could have you crying before the inciting incident! For me, it is their best film.
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Love when they finally reach the falls and Carl just sits. Quiet. No speech. Perfect. One I'd recommend is Inside Out. The control panel scene hits just as hard.