Space . . .

With the landing of the final space shuttle flight this week at Cape Canaveral, Florida, about all I could think of was this:

(Yeah, the music doesn’t track with the film as it does in the real thing. The real thing is here, I’m just not able to embed it.)

If I could go back in time, I might very well pick the mid-1960s. Not necessarily for the race riots, the inequality, the Vietnam War, or any of the other terrible things going on. But for the optimism that still remained in a lot of people when it came to that thing called “human progress.” We have gobs of it now, but it is lost in the noise. And perhaps I would find that same phenomenon back then; perhaps I’m better off looking through the noise of now to find the optimism that still remains here and now.

But at least back then, we had movies like this to help us, once in a while, find that optimism. This goes back to what I wrote earlier this week on the hooptedoodle of the “Pink Elephants” segment from “Dumbo.” They just don’t do things like this any more. I can’t think of any modern film that would allow for a sequence like Kubrick’s “Blue Danube” sequence from “2001.” Five and a half minutes with no dialogue, just some models, a little special effect, and some really crusty old music. But put together in a way that helped the optimism ooze out. That feeling that if we could get the rest of our crap pulled together – you know, the racism, the wars, et cetera – and put our money and time and effort and thought into something like this, we just might enjoy a more peaceful and productive future. A future that involved travel in outer space becoming commonplace.

As it is, we’re down to this.

Jeffrey Kluger writes this for Time:

If the shuttles were business class and the old Apollos were coach, the Soyuz is a little like hiding in the wheel well for a coast-to-coast flight, even if it's a wheel well with an impeccable safety record — at least recently. . .

With the Soyuz, things are a little sportier. After the spacecraft decouples from the ISS, the commander fires the reentry engines and then jettisons the docking module that's attached to one end of the crew compartment and the engine module that's connected to the other. The little pod that remains plunges into the atmosphere, encountering the first air resistance at about 400,000 ft. — or 75 mi. It falls at a brisk 492 mph until its small drogue parachutes pop out at about the cruising altitude of an airliner. The main parachute is deployed shortly after that, and at just 3 ft. above the surface, three small engines fire to brake the landing slightly. That landing, incidentally, is a thumpdown on the ground, not a splashdown in the ocean. And did we mention that through most of the reentry the spacecraft is spinning in order to maintain stability?

I’m never going to travel in space. Only this way.

Go See Up

It is a risky thing to make five of the major characters in your movie old. Carl Frederickson is old. His house is older. His hero, Charles Muntz, is older than Carl, maybe younger than the house. Muntz' blimp is an anachronism flying straight out of a 1930s newsreel. And Elie Frederickson is so old, she's dead.

No matter. With this cast of characters, Pixar Animation Studios shows off its maturity and, again, scores a big hit that out-Disneys Walt Disney. I have to say that if Disney's films as represented by the dreck we saw advertised before "Up" unspooled are going in that vein, then Pixar is the one spot in the studio where Walt's spirit resides.

Pixar, obviously, possesses strength in computer animation. But its greatest strength still lies in its storytelling. With the wordless fifteen-minute exposition we get to Carl and Elie's life together, I cried. With Carl's introduction to Russell, the overager Wilderness Explorer bent on earning his Assisting the Elderly badge, we get a concise introduction to Carl's character as an irascible, lonely man, and Russell's endearing, clueless innocense.

And with Carl's house, festooned with balloons or threatened by modern development, we get a visceral connection to the past and a reminder that, after all, it's life that's worth living and that the things we possess are "just a house."

I have to count the house and blimp as characters, because they represent the object that drives both of these explorers. Muntz, driven by past humiliation, clings to the past in the hopes of rehabilitating his reputation, and he needs the blimp to do it. Carl, driven by grief, clings to the past in the hopes of fulfilling and promise, and he needs his house to do it. I won't reveal more because I'd rather not ruin your experience with spoilers. Just go see this film.

For casting, Pixar again excels. Christopher Plummer is perfect as the aged, creepy Muntz, and Ed Asner, who still has that Lou Grant bark and bulldog jowl, is perfect for Carl Frederickson.

For music, again Pixar relies on Michael Giacchino, who adds the emotional and dramatic spice to this film. The soulful piano piece that plays throughout the exposition is evocative of a life well-lived, topped by regret over dreams unfulfilled.

And for effects -- I've heard some grumble that Pixar didn't do anything "new" in the film, as they did in past films -- notably with Sully's fur in "Monsters Inc." Wrong. Watch the clouds. Watch them closely. They part, they reflect, they absorb, they cling, they menace, they embrace, they're fluffy, white and enchanting, they're black and menacing. Don't tell me Pixar didn't try anything new.