bob the moo One can be misled when one reads a lot of glowing reviews for a short film and in this case it is best not to raise your expectations too high based on the very good reviews on this site. For sure this is a nice short film with heart and imagination, but it is not the opening 10 minutes of Up nor anything like it. On one hand we have a coming of age story and on the other we have a rather imaginative story set in space. This mix is an odd one and it doesn't totally work as either if I am honest – although it does do well enough as both to a certain extent.The situation is a bit too obvious in how it spells how the "different paths" the boy can take and how he could also take his own – it was obvious to the point of detracting a little bit from the content, because I felt it was not as clever as it could have been. The moon based stuff is quite charming though and I liked it as an idea, although again the link to the coming-of-age aspect was a bit too spelt out, almost as if the film doubted my ability to get it and thus overcompensated for my stupidity with heavy visual indicators.It still looks very nice though and has a warm charm to it; shame it wasn't a little bit more subtle with it though.

Robert Reynolds A short done by the Pixar studio, this is a very visually beautiful film, which is par for the course with Pixar. It's somewhat different for Pixar in that it doesn't go right for the funny bone. It's charming, sweet and sentimental in nature. At roughly six minutes, it develops a rather fascinating idea with visual brush-strokes (so to speak). Any discussion of depth must necessarily divulge something about the film, so there are mild spoilers below: Three generations set out in a boat-grandfather, father and young boy. At moonrise, the viewer finds out why they're out in the middle of the water. As the film develops, it becomes a sort of coming of age fable, with the young boy showing more common sense than either of his elders.This opened before the film Brave and is also on the DVD release of Brave. A good case can be made that it's more successful than Brave, at least in terms of storytelling, though both films are quite good in and of themselves. La Luna is well worth watching and is recommended.

Neil Welch La Luna is the CGI short which accompanies Pixar's Brave. As always, there is a thematic link with the main picture: in this case it is to do with coming of age and bridging the generation gap.Papa and Nonno take Bambino out in the boat at night for the first time to help them carry out their work (he is given his first work hat). I will say no more about what that work is: that would spoil a number of surprises.The dialogue is cod-Italian, and the music is gorgeous. This charming, gently humorous little film is stunningly beautiful, and has a couple of quiet "Wow!" moments in it. I loved it.

Cory M Huff Preceding Brave is the Academy Award nominated short film, La Luna. What we have here is a silent film that tells the tale of the lessons a son learns from their father, and vice versa. This is nicely juxtaposed next to Brave, which is about the lessons mothers and daughters teach each other. La Luna is a gorgeous and moving little film that manages to tell a better story in a few minutes (with no dialogue) than most of its two-hour long counterparts. To go into too much detail would really ruin the fun of discovering just why this boy is at sea with his father and grandfather. Just know that the few minutes this short film lasts are very moving and are something to behold.Follow me on Twitter @Mrhuffsmyfather for all my movie reviews!