Pixar’s tenth film decimated its opening weekend box office at $68.2 Million, placing a gap of $43 million between it and the second-ranking box office hit. While box office numbers may be skewed by the regular admission for the standard show and the anti-single-mom-with-low-paying-job-recessionista price (I paid $11 for an adult ticket at a fair-to-do Regal Cinemas) for the 3-D show, three weeks later–after school let the kids out–Pixar’s Up is still mezmerizing adults and children alike. Pixar’s animations have been long-deserving of their four Academy Awards for Best Animated Featured Film of the Year and its countless other awards and nominations.This year, Pixar delivers yet another masterpiece.

Like all of its preceding nine movies, Pixar animates for an audience of children, but eclipses real-life adult issues (crises is the more appropriate word) behind silly juvenile humor and imaginative and unforgettable adventure. Up is the story of Carl Fredricksen, who has a lifelong, deep-seated dream of following the footsteps of his childhood idol–a dream he shared sentimentally as a child with a girl who turns out to be his wife. In the story, Fredricksen is a seventy-eight years old recreational balloon salesman who has been weathered and bittered by the vicissitudes of life. Crude and boisterous, yet a loving husband with a sense of house and home and a taste for adventure, many adults can relate to his story. The house that he and his wife built has now become the only property left standing in the way of wealthy business owners wishing to commercialize the district. Stricken by a stream of tragic and unlawful events, Fredricksen is forced out of his home and into the Shady Oaks retirement home. He soon finds an alternate route where he can embark on his lifelong adventure while saving his house–he inflates thousands of balloons and flies the house and himself right out of the situation!

In mid-flight he discovers that a young Wilderness Explorer (think Pixar boyscout), seeking desperately to fulfill the duties of his “Assisting the Duty” patch had–as a last resort–hidden under Fredricksen’s porch when the house took off. Forced to keep Russell along for the ride, Fredericksen feels obligated to babysit the curious kid. Together the two weather turbulent conditions and land just shy of Mr and Mrs. Fredricksen’s goal–Paradise Falls in Venezuela, South America (think The Lost World). On the opposite side of the desired tepui, the two are forced to walk across the land while carrying the house like an enormous “parade balloon.”

Along the way, they stumble upon a myriad of companions and adversaries. A giant Fosh-like bird (you know you’re a geek when you think every bird is from the Fosh species) with an affinity for boy scout chocolate befriends Russell, who affectionately names the bird Kevin. This prized animal is the most sought after creature in the lands of Paradise Falls after its first discovery landed a famed explorer a fraudulent reputation. Dug is an affectionate sheepdog and is one of the many dogs in the movie outfitted with a translator that allows him to communicate in English with humans. These dogs belong to the above explorer and the Fredricksens’ childhood hero, Charles Muntz. Muntz is modern day celebrity reminiscent of Charles Lindberg (his blimp is named “Spirit of Adventure”) with the ingenuity and–consequently–the poison of Howard Hughes. He and his dogs are searching for the species of bird that Kevin is in hopes to pull a “Matt Lauer can suck it” for Muntz’s reputation.

The story itself is sentimental and heartwarming, touching on “controversial” issues–topics that are hard to digest for society as a whole, yet families have to deal with everyday–like infertility, struggling with sick family members, divorced families, and absentee parents. Each of the characters in this movie seek some type of redemption–be it righting a reputation in the eyes of the public or fulfilling goals that have been postponed. The movie also illustrates a not-so-foreign-but-ever-so-feigned concept in today’s society–real, long-lasting and stable love and a strongly rooted sense of obligation to family. The dialogue also makes reference to many beloved classic movies (“This is my little friend, say ‘hello’ to it”) and there is even an epic fight scene between Muntz and Fredricksen that rivals the Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker confrontation (Did anybody else see the Star Wars like fight-scene and the reference in the ending credits or is that just my sense of selectivity?) The movie is light, yet full of laughter, excitement, adventure, humor, and all-around fun.

I have to admit, this flick is a tearjerker. Really, that’s an understatement. It pulls at those heartstrings so much that it’ll find the core of you that houses estrogen (no matter how great or small) and pumps it out of you like teenagers at a keg part. I haven’t cried such a strange mixture of happiness, lament, victory and achievement, and exhilaration since that last rush of neo-natal hormones.

See it in theaters (feel free to take the kids with you) and if you can afford it, go to the 3-D show. Afterward, make it a point to give your kids enough hugs in their adolescence.