Up

Director: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Writer: Bob Peterson
Cast: Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson
Language: Czech, English
Theatrical Release Date: September 17, 2009
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
Awards: Winner: 2010 Academy Awards Best Animated Feature Film, 2010 Academy Awards Best Picture
On The Web Film Website IMDB Entry homepage

Synopsis: 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. [Synopsis courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures]

Round-up: Pixar's latest, "Up", the first animated film to open the festival, was an almost unqualified triumph. Reporting on the screening, indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez writes that the film "is a grand visual... spectacle on a big screen, pulling viewers into a striking three dimensional world and eschewing the sort of visual sight gags found in typical 3-D movies. Quite emotional at times, some viewers had to wipe tears from beneath their 3-D glasses today while experiencing the emotional story of an aging man and a young boy who set out on a dramatic adventure together." Echoing his praise, Daniel Kasman, blogging in the Auteurs Notebook, calls it "the animation studio’s simplest, truest, and strangest film yet," while the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw notes that the film got the festival "off to the most sublime flying start... It really is a lovely film: smart, funny, high-spirited and sweet-natured, reviving memories of classic adventures from the pens of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne, and movies like Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life' and Albert Lamorisse's 'The Red Balloon.'"