A Statement About UP, But Really Partly Cloudy

So UP rocks, sparkling reviews, Oscar shoo-in.

Blahdy blahdy blah blah.

I don't really think you need a post telling you all of that, since there have been thousands so far, so instead I am going to use this space to mention the less-talked about Partly Cloudy, the short that appears before UP in the theater and will undoubtedly be nominated for an Oscar of its own.

Let's just get it out of the way to start that for me, Pixar can pretty much do no wrong in all aspects, but especially especially in the short film arena. In fact, I was almost more excited to see the short than to see the feature. Not going to lie.

Partly Cloudy is the story of how babies are made-- all kinds of babies-- by the clouds and carried down to Earth by storks. The pretty clouds produce pretty babies; kittens, puppies, chicks, humans, while there is one lonely, dark cloud below who creates the more-or-less undesirable babies; porcupines, sharks, rams, electric eels. And this cloud's poor stork is harried, bruised, battered, stabbed and swallowed on a regular basis. The conflict comes when our cloud produces what is obviously a baby shark, and the stork takes off in a panic to one of the friendlier clouds. A friendly cloud who has already proven itself to produce football equipment. The cloud gets upset by the abandonment, but soon recovers when his friend returns with pads and a helmet to keep him safe while he carries the shark down to its mom.

What can I say about this film? Per usual, frakking glorious. Just a little parable about how sometimes you have to do crappy things, but if you have a friend who can get you through (a loyal friend, natch) it'll be all good in the end. Teared with joy, sent a copy over to Lady Liberty to say je t'aime.

Up next? Probably a breakdown of a little film called Tranformers, which I will probably see at midnight, or at least on opening day, with a certain Transformers geek that I don't live with. And I'm not talking about my brother.