HE’s Moises Chiullan caught the same Austin showing of Up (i.e., about two weeks ago) that Harry Knowles posted a review off, and he’s not aware of any embargo so here we go.

“To say that Russell is eager to please would be a massive understatement,” Chiullan writes. “He wants Carl to like him and approve of him so much it hurts. He’s an overeating, junk food-inhaling kid due to things he has trouble coping with that are made clear as the film progresses. He’s not overweight and inactive due to outright laziness and disinterest in being healthy.

“Russell is a modern kid brought up to learn plenty about the world outside having never really been allowed to explore anything. Without giving anything away, his arc as a character has a lot to do with how he wants to be more than what he’s been. ‘It’s okay to be overweight’ is not the thrust of that arc.”

The 2009 Cannes Film Festival screening schedule went up online yesterday. Since I’m only staying for nine days (Tuesday, 5.12 to Thursday, 5.21), I have to figure something out about two films showing on Friday, 5.22 — Gaspar Noe‘s Into The Void and Terry Gilliam‘s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. I’ll basically need to hunt these down at “market” screenings, which sometimes happen prior to press and public showings. Honestly? I’ll survive if I miss the Gilliam.

Yesterday evening I attended a meet-and-greet at HBO headquarters for Burma VJ, a doc by Danish director Anders Ostergaard. A portrait of bravery and spirit in the face of repression, it portrays the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” in Burma/Myanmar through smuggled footage taken by Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), the independent journalist group.

At yesterday evening’s HBO party for Burma VJ, three Burmese Monks who led ’07’s Saffron Revolution (l. to r.) — Venerable U Agga Nyana, Venerable U Pyinar Zawta, and Venerable U Gawsita.

Burma VJ director Anders Ostergaard.

Oscilloscope Laboratories is theatrically releasing the much-praised, award-wnning doc throughout the summer (including a 5.20 booking at Manhattan’s Film Forum and a 5.27 one at L.A.’s Sunset 5). HBO will begin airing it in early 2010, presumably in concert with some Best Feature Doc Oscar momentum.

I spoke with Ostergaard as well as David Fenkle, partner and co-founder of Oscilloscope Pictures, but my recordings of both conversations are muddy sounding due to party noise, especially the one with Ostergaard. But you can make some of it out.

Fenkle’s view, boiled down, is that Burma VJ, which yesterday won the Golden Gate Award for best investigative documentary at the San Francisco Film Festival, has an excellent shot at being remembered come Oscar time given (a) the quality and (b) the incredible personal bravery that went into shooting and smuggling out the footage.

Burma/Myanmar has been ruled with an iron hand by a military junta (a.k.a., the State Peace and Development Council) since 1988. The Burmese dictators are world-famous for their brutality.

The 2007 Burmese anti-government protests (a.k.a., the Saffron Revolution) began on 8.15.07. They happened due to “the unannounced decision of the ruling junta to remove fuel subsidies which caused the price of diesel and petrol to suddenly rise as much as 66%, and the price of compressed natural gas for buses to increase fivefold in less than a week,” according to a Wikipedia account.

This Regan MacNeil Exorcist figure looks like a class job — correct colors and fabrics, realistic bedpost wrappings — and costs a mere $36 and change plus shipping. But where would you put something like this? On your fireplace mantle? On your dresser in your bedroom? Inside a specially constructed glass case in your den? Imagine looking at this thing every day for the rest of your life.

Time‘s Richard Corliss has declared that Pixar/Disney’s Up “will, like last year’s WALL*E, prove to be one of the most satisfying movie experiences of its year. The story of a septuagenarian grouch who uses his cane, hearing aid and dentures to thwart all evildoers; a buddy movie whose pals are separated by 70 years; a love story that transcends the grave — has there been a movie like this in the history of feature animation?

“Extending the patented Pixar mix of humor and heart, this is the studio’s most deeply emotional and affecting work, sending the audience on a journey in two new directions — penetratingly inward and exaltedly up.”

I spoke yesterday with a Los Angeles friend who saw a flat version of Up a day or two ago (as opposed to the 3D version that will show in Cannes and in select venues once it opens on 5.29) and he was very thumbs-up also.

Pixar and Up co-directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson to Worldwide Audiences: This is Russell, the lead adolescent in our film and our idea of a cute kid. And let’s not have any jabs about his weight — it’s who the kid is inside that counts. Corpulence doesn’t matter. Besides, obesity is normal among American kids these days so why not reflect that?

Disney/Pixar’s Up will open on 5.29.

Russell, you can assume, eats loads of fast food, sits around a lot and, barring a major attitude change, will eventually grow into an full-sized Jabba who will face myriad health problems and a diminished life expectancy. And that’s fine. Because the size of your body isn’t as important as the size of your heart. And backing us up on this point are thousands of internet chat-room types ready to rip into anyone who suggests that presenting obesity as a normal and accepted adolescent condition is some kind of cultural problem. It’s not! Embrace the balloon-ness!

“With J.J. Abrams‘ reboot of the Star Trek franchise about to hit theaters, critic and new L video essayist Matt Zoller Seitz muses on the appeal of Mr. Spock, the duality of man, all that stuff” — Preface to “Vulcan: The Soul of Spock” on L site, posted two days ago but unannounced by Seitz until this morning.

Sasha Grey‘s redefined coolness factor, nicely established by her appearance at Brandeis last week, just dropped about 15 points.

Like In Contention‘s Kris Tapley, I saw Angels and Demons last night also. But I’m not reviewing today because I thought there was some kind of embargo in place until next week…no? Tapley has written that he decided against reviewing because “the idea of tearing a film apart just doesn’t quite appeal to me, believe it or not.”

It’s cruel and heartless to publish high-quality telephoto-lens shots of over-40 actors and actresses in bathing suits on the beach. The attitude behind it is pure Day of the Locust. You’re on a beach in Maui and notice a woman of 42 or so in a bikini who’s had a couple of kids, and it’s nothing. But put a photo of same in the Daily Mail and it’s deliberate aggression on the part of the publishers and readership alike.

Arizona Star film critic and feature-writer Phil Villarreal has just been zotzed out of his movie job. He’s been informed that he’ll henceforth be on “general assignment on the Metro desk” and that they’re “not replacing the [film critic] position.”