UP is UPlifting..UP you go :)

Picture courtesy : Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures

This is the first 3D animation from Pixar, yet another triumph for them.Pixar and Disney have done it again.

Indeed, Up is a charming and such a sweet movie. In some of its scenes, it touched me more than any non-animation movie. There are such real emotions in the movie that you might actually want to shed a tear or two while watching some scenes.After Ratatouille and Wall E, its UP :) And yes UP is going to go very up in its ratings.Currently, its IMDB rating is 8.5. And the tomatometer is 98% :) yey!!!

The movie's characters exude such warmth. Carl and Ellie as a sweet couple, taking life's ups and downs with a smile and Russel, the cute plump wilderness scout who is keen to earn an elderly assistance badge.Kevin, the trotting peacock-like bird, Dug the talking dog :D

In the beginning of the movie I thought its similar to Wall-E where there were such minimal dialogues. Since early in UP too, there is a non-verbal set of scenes potraying how Carl and Ellie met, fell in love, got married, could not have any children and finally slipped to old age. What superb story telling without a single word. And so profoundly moving.   

Carl and Ellie share this dream of having a Venezulean trip to the Paradise falls. Which Carl gets an urge to fulfill after Ellie expires. I love the balloon scene :) The house soaring with a bouquet of balloons...its such a happy scene :) its a balloon house cum plane :D looks so cool,so swell, so colorful in the blue sky..people exclaiming at it sight.What imagination!!  How Carl and Russel in their eventful journey bond and come to like each other, how Carl fulfills Ellie's dream and also learns an important lesson about what really matters in life. Quite a heart-moving story.

My favorite scenes in the movie, are the soaring house for one and the scene where after placing the house on Paradise falls mountain, Carl again flaps the pages of Ellie's adventure book. He stumbles on the many photos of theirs, capturing all their happy moments, each photo placed with care and thought :) These pages were meant to be filled once her dream of building the house on Paradise falls mountain got fulfilled. This very scene conveyed such a simple learning. We might not always get what we dream. The things/goals achieved in the process of achieving your dreams hold equal or maybe much more importance :) Wonderful, just a wonderful movie..

Personally I was glued to the movie every single moment while I was watching, was spellbound by it, so mesmerizing at times. An incredible movie, kids would love it, adults would enjoy it. UP is a must-watch, go watch it!!

Some extras:
See The director Pete Docter and the production designer Ricky Nierva discuss their work designing characters for the 3-D animated film “Up.” here
Quite interesting to see each character has been given such thought, some study has been done for each like for Dug, the talking dog

Watch the gallery of UP pics here

 

Indulge in Green Tea, Indulge in good health

Its high time we stopped consuming normal tea and coffee and switch to the very healthy green tea. So myriad are the benefits of green tea that one should start its consumption necessarily. Its a boon for people seeking weight loss especially.

The weight loss benefit is owing to the fact that Green Tea increases your metabolism rate by 4%. Ain't that great!!! Now after having read various sources, it has been said that consuming 3-5 cups of green tea per day can help you in reducing 70 calories a day. On other sites, they metioned drinking 5 cups a day such as here

Also green tea helps to increase the good cholestrol which is HDL and lowers the bad cholestrol LDL.Green tea has polyphenols which has anti-cancer properties, helps blood clotting and lowers cholestrol levels

It is very beneficial for people suffering from diabetes as atechins in green tea help to inhibit the movement of glucose into fat cells thus controlling obesity. Green tea may also act as a glucose regulator. It helps to slow the rise in blood sugar after a meal.I have read that it can even treat diabetes.

Green tea protects the destruction of brain cells thereby making the probability of contracting Parkinson’s to minimal levels within our body. Also it strengthens the immune system thereby protecting the body against various disorders

Green tea also helps in maintaining dental health. It aids in digestion and reduces bloating.

A very detailed article on green tea benefits can be read here

I myself have tried Twinings Green Tea and Mint, it has a particularly good aroma and is easy to drink. Pack of 10 tea bags costs 35 bucks. Yet to try Lipton green tea, cheaper at 18 bucks for a pack of 10 tea bags.Can be tried with a dash of fresh lemon juice and honey to add to the taste.

I am surely gonna drink my way to good health, so should you :)

Atonement..You can only imagine the truth

Atonement implies making amends for a wrong doing. Here the atonement is being made by Briony Tallis, a 13 year old precocious girl who lives with on her family estate with her mother and sister(Cecilia Tallis/Keira Knightley).She is shown to be an avid writer.

Robbie(James McAvoy) is the family's servants' son whose education at Cambridge was kindly paid by the Tallis family. In an encounter between Robbie and Cecilia near the fountain, both of them realise the attraction and heat they both feel for each other, but the same encounter witnessed by Briony from the window is mistaken by her. Also because Robbie is Briony's crush.

After the fountain incident, Briony reads a letter intended for Cecilia and concludes that Robbie is a sex maniac as the letter was quite sexually explicit.Robbie never meant to send that version of the letter but mistakenly does. Robbie arrives for dinner at their house. He and Cecilia discuss the letter and admit their love for one another. They make passionate love in the library but are discovered by Briony

When Briony' cousin Lola is raped, she tells the police that it was Robbie she saw committing the deed when in fact it was a visitor to the estate.

A Wounded and vexed Briony deliberately gives witness against Robbie without realising its repercussions. Robbie is taken as a war soldier, an option given to prisoners. Cecilia becomes a nurse warden, Robbie and Cecilia meet before Robbie goes on the duty of war, Cecilia wants him to come back.

The immense feeling of love that both feel for each other. The postcard that Cecilia give Robbie to remind him of her. Alas, Robbie dies on the last day of evacuation and Cecilia died a few months later when a German bomb burst a water main and flooded the subway tunnel in which she and other Londoners had taken refuge during the Blitz.

In the climax, Briony is shown in a TV interview in which she is talking about her 21st novel Atonement, which is also her last novel as she is dying. Atonement is an autobiographical novel in which she has tried to give the happiness to her sister Cecilia and Robbie which she so prevented them from having in real life. The scene when she goes to meet her sister to say how terribly sorry she was for having given the wrong evidence, the audience might think happened really. But here in the interview, its clarified that she never had the guts to do that.

She wanted to have a happy ending for both of them in her book to atone of her sins. The movie ends with a happy scene.Robbie and Cecilia walk down the beach on a bright, beautiful day. On the steps of the seaside cottage, they look at the beautiful white cliffs, then disappear inside.

What an extraordinary atonement..a heart wrenching story..

Revolutionary Road

Kate Winslet has played a remarkable role in this movie released in 2008.As April she is shown to manifest varied emotions, disappointing as an actress, trying hard as a housewife, still lost in life and trying to find a meaning in the hopelessness and emptiness. Trying to find a place of her own in the world.

Her husband Frank, having a typical office job is frustrated with the emptiness too. Then one day April recalls the fire that was in Frank whilst his youth. His talk of going to Paris and she puts forth a plan, where they should move to Paris. Why? So that he can really find the time to know what he really wants to do in his life, while she would be working in one of the government organisations and be the bread winner.Frank agrees to this irrational, impractical plan. Thereafter, they are shown to be in a state of such happiness, they proudly tell their friends that they are moving away for good, for discovering the real happiness, for witnessing the beauty of Paris.

In the meantime, Frank is getting offered a promotion to work with the chief executive on a new project: computers and hence is in a dilemma as to what to do. When April comes to know of this and also that shes pregnant, the whole plan goes to ashes.

April is shown so unhappy, this part that Kate Winslet has played so brilliantly. In her misery, she still puts up a smile in front of her husband before she gives herself an abortion. Her misery finally takes her life.

The perfect Wheeler couple story is shown to end in sheer tragedy

A melancholic movie with some great acting by Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, based on a novel by Richard Yates.