Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of animated movies but I absolutely loved Up.

While at times I did wonder if some of the story elements were a little too grown-up for the mainly booster-seated audience, it’s a really gorgeous little movie that will have you leaving the cinema with a smile in your heart and probably one on your face too.

Up

The basics

Meet Carl & Ellie, childhood friends and “adventure enthusiasts” who grow up and spend the rest of their lives together. After Ellie passes away, Carl decides to satisfy a long-held pipe dream of his darling Ellie – to move to Paradise Falls in South America. And so the tale unfolds of how Carl and his young scout recruit Russel move house (literally) to South America and the adventures and characters they meet along the way.

• It’s visually stunning – it is Pixar after all and while living up to their usual high standard and the 3D adds a nice gloss overall
• It’s moving – although Ellie the “living” character is only on screen for minutes, she is a huge presence for the rest of the movie – suffice to say I shed a tear or two!
• It’s entertaining – at heart, it’s an adventure movie and there’s plenty of gasps & laughs all the way
• It’s positive – you would have to be made of stone not to leave the movie happy and smiling.

It was actually so good I’m finding it hard to get that across so check out what others have said on Culch.ie and Movies.ie

Up is on general release from 16 Oct 2009, check your local cinema for preview dates. The official site has some lovely images & snippets here.

Whatchyousayin buoy?

Yeah, lot of small random things I need to throw out into the blogosphere.

First off, happy birthday to the little sister Niamh who enters the last year of her teens today. Bless. 

So yesterday Rick kindly inducted me into the wonderful fold of contributors on Culch.ie – I really enjoy reading it with the variety of subjects and voices that all come to mix there, here’s hoping I can bring something worthwhile to the place.

Stu sees the ‘Pea rapist’ in the latest Bulmers product push that’s happening at http://www.embracethepear.com. Incidentally, www.embracethepair.com is still available for purchase. Just sayin’.

I finally called up Apple Care yesterday afternoon to sort out the long-dragging dodgy iPhone situation. I was delighted by their politeness & pro-active vibes, right down to the “oh no, I’m so sorry to hear it’s not working for you – that’s really awful”. Genuine or not (hard to tell with the lovely American tones!) a box arrived this morning from Apple with all the lovely packaging you’d expect from Apple and an express UPS bag for me to send off my iPhone to the iPhone doctor. Now here’s hoping it’s fixable coz I am totally lost without it.

I’m going to attempt organising a Tweet-up of sorts in and around or for the Siege of Ennis world record attempt next Sunday May 17th – those of you on the western seaboard, your help & presence is required! If anyone from anywhere else wants to head down, I can investigate digs either chez moi or in me lovely Ballyvaughan. Best email me in this case.

There’s a photowalk happening on Sunday in Drogheda. Shane Murphy has the skinny. Not looking like I’ll make the photowalk sadly but I’m certainly hoping to make the afters. Details later when I have em from the ‘organisers’.

Scoozi’s in Cork is still one of my favourite places on earth to eat – I was once again blown away by the service in there last weekend, never mind the delicious food on offer. Well done guys, you’ve got an often overlooked yet essential element of catering down to an art. 

There’s 2 lovely apartments up for rent in the little complex where I live in Glasnevin, you could do a lot worse than rent one of these places. Number one and number two (sexier) on daft.ie, who seem to be allowing users to list their ‘broadband options’ on ads now.

Finally, if you’re going along to the Open Cinema event in Meeting House Square tomorrow evening courtesy of Mini, be prepared for possible nasty wet weather. And if you have potatoes, well I hope you’re spraying them for blight