My family went to see Up on my grandpa’s 70th birthday back in 2009. When the movie was over, I remember everyone being ecstatic - and undeniably moved. At age 9, I think it was probably the first time I’d seen my parents shed tears in a movie. My dad immediately dubbed the first 15 minutes of the film “The Robot Test” - because “if you don’t cry in the first 15 minutes, you’re a robot.”
My grandpa, Jim, loved…
a movie about a girl, who reads a book about a man, who hears a story about a lobby boy, who meets a man who runs a hotel, a hotel for which the story, the book, and the movie are named for
the real innovation here is not that the movie looks like Spider-Verse—because, if anything, it looks like a distant cousin—the real innovation is that this is an animated kids (??) movie that is grubby as hell. seriously. all the humans here look disgusting. the city of New York is filthy. the various mutated animals and twisted creatures onscreen border on body horror. in the midst of it all, the turtles are the only characters that are appealing to look at,…
