Ellie's Badge

Remember how as kids, we used to hoard our earthly (and grubby) treasures in a shoe-box? They could be anything from a pressed leaf or flower…ticket stubs from your first movie with friends…a feather from a bemused chicken…a brightly patterned paper napkin flicked from a posh dinner table or even the metallic badge, garily painted and worn proudly on every.single.outfit, be it the trusty dungarees or the Sunday-best (much to your mum's chagrin)

When I saw UP the other day, I was transported back in time. Ellie, as a scrappy l’il tomboy had a Grape Soda Bottle-Cap Badge which according to her represented the highest honour an adventurer can receive. It was a memento that Carl carried into his adult life..a something-small that bound him to his lovely Ellie...

Native American Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit,whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.

~american indian - lakota - chief yellow lark - 1887

UP!

Carl Fredrickson is a chubby,nerdy lil boy in awe of the intrepid adventurer, Charles F.Muntz. Sharing his enthusiasm is the talkative tomboy Ellie. Ellie hopes to someday fulfil her dream of moving her clubhouse on the legendary Paradise Falls in South America.

As time goes by, Ellie and Carl get married and have an almost-idyllic life. Despite their inability to have children (or maybe because of it), they hold on to the dream of someday reaching the elusive falls. But financial obligations always intrude and just when the cherished trip is within sight, Ellie falls ill and passes away.

Carl is now a lonely, crotchety old man hanging tight to his memories and his cottage. All around him, the concrete jungle is laying down roots and threatening his little space. An unfortunate altercation with one of the site-men and Carl is ordered by the court to move into a retirement home.

But Carl (who was once a balloon salesman) has other plans up his sleeve. He uses what seem a like a gazillion helium balloons to lift his house UP and away from it’s foundations. He intends to fulfil the promise he made to Ellie. However he is unaware that he has an hapless stowaway in the form a Russell,
a Wilderness Explorer trying to earn his final merit badge for "Assisting the Elderly".

Together the two set off on an adventure of a lifetime, encountering a tropical flightless bird, Dug the dog with a talking-collar and an unlikely villain complete with a snarling team of henchmen (read:dogs).

UP is beautiful in it’s simplicity. Using an aging man as the protagonist, PIXAR weaves a tale that touches even the grittiest of hearts. One of the truly memorable bits is the montage of Carl and Ellie’s married life…silent shots accompanied only by the strains of a haunting melody, it leaves you with a knot in your throat.

And in the midst of the reaching-for-the-tissuebox moments, PIXAR does what it does best….full-on action, breathtaking animation, quicksilver dialogue. What you have is a film that offers something for all ages.

UP - Ellie and Carl's Life Montage

Cristo Redentor (Rio de Janeiro)

Beginning the month of Christ with one of my favourite pictures :

Life has bigger plans for you than you can possibly ever know, so trust
that wherever you are at any given time is exactly where you were meant to
be

~ Anonymous

All-American Girl

Top Five Reasons why Samantha Madison’s life isn’t a bowful of cherries:

#5 : Sam lives in Washington DC, a hop-skip-and-jump away from the White House (ergo, perennial traffic jams caused by the never-ending presidential motorcades)

#4 : Sam is the middle-child, stuck between the perky-cheerleading elder sister Lucy and girl-genius-going-to-special-school younger sister Rebecca (ergo, she is the source of constant disappointment to her parents, teachers and the rest of her school-mates)

#3 : Sam’s one great talent is that she can draw. Drawing is the one thing in her under-achieving world that she is confident of (ergo, her mum promptly enrols her into the renowned Susan Boone’s Art Class and the renowned Susan Boone promptly redresses Sam’s high-falutin’ opinion of her artistic abilities.)

#2 : Sam is considered to be a freak of humungous proportions thanks to her decision to dye all her clothes black for the new school year (ergo, a non-existent social life)

#1 : Sam has never had a significant other, mostly because the significant other she desires is her sister Lucy’s boyfriend, Jake. Jake is the epitome of the sensitive artist and Sam is convinced that he is her soulmate (ergo, she moons from afar and eats her heart out on the kitchen table)

So there you go : Samantha Maddison, a typical American teen with her typical baggage of teenage angst . But one fine day while slacking off from art class, she saves the American President from being assassinated by a trigger-happy psycho. Overnight, Sam is a national hero. Everyone wants to know her and congratulate her. Reporters routinely fling themselves on the family-car just to get a candid shot. She’s having dinner at the White House. She gets appointed as the United States Teen Ambassador to the UN. AND she is hobnobbing with the president’s son, David (who is quite easy on the eye).

All-American Girl is one of Meg Cabot’s finer teen reads. The characters are a blend of the predictable and the unexpected. The plot is fresh and handled with the characteristic wit of Ms.Cabot. Homilies are effectively stitched in and you come away with a little smile playing on your lips.