Though I can’t say that I’m an unabashed fan of the recent Pixar animated film Up (see my review of Up), I did enjoy it and certainly feel that the first 30 minutes or so stand up as some of the best scenes in a motion picture I’ve ever seen, animated or otherwise.
The packaging is quite revealing too, and it’s clear that while the commercial success of Up might rest on the boy Russell and Dug, the talking dog, for the awards, it’s that back story, the first thirty minutes that I referenced earlier, that are the foundation of Pixar’s hopes for the awards season.
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Open up the Awards Screener DVD holder and you find that they’ve boldly listed all the categories where they believe it’d be appropriate for them to be nominated for – and, of course voted to win – an award, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction:
Included with the package was another neat addition: a 5×8 book that was the script of the film Up. Here’s how it starts:
Oh, and one more thing was included in the package. The score. Not the soundtrack, but quite a few more musical segments, fifty of them, actually:
That’s the full package and it’s very cool. Thanks, Disney/Pixar, for sending it along. If you’d like to read my review of the film, please click on Review: “Up”.
I’m really rooting for Up to be nominated for Best Picture. It probably won’t win, but with doubling the number of nominees, it would be an unfortunate oversight if it’s not included on the list of ten. No other film I’ve seen this year has made me feel as much as Up did. It was visually stunning (in 3D) and the score was fantastic.
The awards were all about movies crowing about their woman or black director, good or bad black parts, etc, but when Pixar finally puts in a fabulous Asian American lead character, they completely sweep any Asian American connection under the rug, his picture isn’t in this kit, or on the picture at the awards, and Jordan Nagai wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the publicity unlike Ed Asner. Boo.