'Up' vs. the upstart 'Mr. Fox': My secret reservation about Pixar

I haven’t seen Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I want to. However, I absolutely love UP. I have it on DVD now, and enjoy it more on repeated viewings. I honestly like it much more than I like WALL-E, which I still did like. Ratatouille was a film I didn’t care much for initially, but I like it a LOT more after repeated viewings. I absolutely LOVE the Toy Story movies, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo. I even enjoy A Bug’s Life and Cars, just to a lesser degree than the others.

I had the same problem with Fantastic Mr. Fox that I do with all of Wes Anderson’s films: I admired it, but I didn’t feel for it. Up, on the other hand, reduced me to a blubbery mess all the way through. Yes, the movie is never as good as the opening 20-30 minutes, but it never failed to resonate emotionally with me. And that was the element that was missing, for me, from a lot of the other Pixar films (excluding Monsters, Inc.). The emotional resonance of Up is what made it my favorite film of ’09.

I find these comments to be very much in line with pretty much every other exhausting person who’s trying to claim Pixar’s losing it. People are spoiled by Pixar, they’re 10 for 10 and we now act like every new film has to destroy the previous one. I loved Fox, don’t get me wrong, but it will not be around 20 years from now, it will not be seen as a standard, Up will be. Up WAS a surprise, no one saw the first half of that movie coming and really, come on, of the general public, who expected talking dog collars, old people fighting, and a giant female bird named Kevin? There’s this strange sort of “we love you/we hate you” thing going on with film “experts” and Pixar. They win too much so you want to see them go down, great, but you still praise those films anyway. You know why? Because they are so stinkin’ good and those people in Emeryville put every fiber of themselves into those movies, you HAVE to give them their due. Also, Ratatouille was not overpraised, Slumdog was.

Why do they have to compete just because they are both animated? Why can’t Fox compete with the more imperfect Inglorious Basterds just because the first is animated? Why can’t UP compete with A Serious Man once the “for kids” bias is conquered? Up is not a perfect movie, I found Ratatouille more perfect. Fox is an incredible acheivement, more novel than most films this year and it deserves a special emotional feeling from those who enjoyed it the most, but for me it just doesnt reach that far as a story in film. The visual detail, and its meaningfulness, are more easily appreciated on Mr. Fox at first sight, but I think when it comes to the art of film with story, dialogue, meaning and all the details that enrich them, UP reaches a bit higher in a more long lasting way. Yes, the animation is a bit less novel, but so is the one with human actors and that doesnt take from the genius of a filmmaker that uses them. From the movies I have mentioned here from 2009, for best movies I would probably put A Serious Man first, then UP, and most definitely after them I would place Mr. Fox and then Inglorious Basterds. Now, if we were talking about novelty, maybe it would be different even if the four would be also among the highest of the year.