Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. She still dips her toes into academic waters by writing the occasional scholarly article about the place of motherhood in Western philosophy, but mostly now she changes diapers and wipes noses and indulges in long reflections on whether Yo Gabba Gabba is a harbinger of the decline of western civilization. Oh, and she blogs: in addition to Bad Mother blogging at BeliefNet, she is, among other things, the author of HerBadMother.com, Managing Editor of MamaPop, moderator of Her Bad Mother’s Basement, co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, Contributing Editor at BlogHer, and (deep breath) founder of and contributor to Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time… oh, wait. She doesn’t have spare time. But she’s okay with that.
We watched the movie Up the other night. Predictably, I cried. I knew that I would. I’d been told that I would. Even if you’re not a crier, I was told, you’ll cry at Up.
I’m a crier, so, yeah.
The thing of it was, though, that I didn’t cry in that tissue-clutching, nose-dripping, Terms Of Endearment, oh my god this is so SAD kind of way. I cried because it was beautiful. I cried because the depiction, early in the movie, of a lifelong happy marriage was so beautiful. I cried because such depictions of marriage are so rarely seen. I cried because the movie demonstrated how companionship – whether with lovers or friends or small children or dogs – is just so deeply enriching and rewarding and necessary. I cried because the movie demonstrated that family takes many different forms, all of them wonderful. I cried because it was about life and love and dreams. I cried because it because it made me laugh and made me remember that even when life makes you sad you can still laugh.
I cried because – and forgive me for how banal this sounds – I was down and it lifted me up and it made me feel like I, too, have balloons. In my husband, in my children, in my friends and peers, I have balloons.
Balloons are good.
(Up was released on BluRay and DVD last week. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should. And if you have seen it, you want to see it again. This is one for watching over and over and over again. And there’s simply nothing better to watch after Thanksgiving dinner. This movie is all about love and gratitude and family. And balloons.)
(Also, with the DVD, you get all the extra features, and trust me, on this one, you want to hear the backstory and learn more about the characters and see more of the artwork. This is awesome, heartwarming, makes-you-want-to-be-a-better-storyteller kind of stuff.)
(Did I like it? Um, yeah.)
posted November 20, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Wonderful movie, I wholeheartedly agree.
posted November 20, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Yes, but did you go out and purchase this or was it a Disney sponsored review? Honestly.
posted November 20, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Walt – there’s a vast space between buying a DVD and having a post that references a DVD be ‘sponsored’ (which implies payment.) I received an advance review copy of the movie, but I wasn’t paid by Disney-Pixar to write a review. Nor was I obligated to write a review. My remarks about Up here are no more sponsored than Roger Ebert’s over at the Chicago Sun-Times.
posted November 21, 2009 at 7:52 am
I cried. Oh My God I cried. For hours after the movie, for days, I cried. And my heart ached, like physically hurt. Unlike you I focused on the loss & lonliness.
Fabulous movie.