Toy Story 3

[cinemabon]

Toy Story 3 (2010) – directed by Lee Unkrich


When we leave our home, our things, our world behind and go away to attend college, we transition from dependent children into adults. We put away the things that attach us to that world we once knew. Our parents enter our bedroom and usually throw out everything in the room or sell it. Hence the accusatory phrase, “My mother threw out my [valuable] comic books!” Mothers have a penchant for cleaning and organizing. This is the premise of the third “Toy Story 3” installment directed by Lee Unkrich (director of Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo). Andy is grown and headed to college. The toys know and fear they will be stored in the attic or worse, discarded.

The storyline follows other Toy Story scripts in that the toys come to life when adults or children cannot see them and act on impulses they feel. In this case, the toys are familiar to us: Woody (Tom Hanks) is the practical lawman with a sense of fairness, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) is the hero and a bit stuffy, Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) cracks oneliners, Rex (Wallace Shawn) is the timid T-Rex, Hamm (John Ratzenberger) is also full of jokes, and more recently added Jessie (Joan Cusack) the female opposite of Woody. The reoccurring group present in all three films (except Jessie) have been lost, stolen, and run around the town only to end back up in the safety of Andy’s bedroom. This time however, they face extinction. The mother accidentally takes the toys to a day care and the film changes to a darker side (similar to what happened in the first film with the demented neighbor). Determined to stay one of Andy’s toys, Woody sets out on his own. However, when he discovers the fate of the other toys from the original group, he sets out to rescue them. The film has wonderful twists and turns along with some very funny moments as filmmakers put the characters through their paces.

The most poignant moment in the film comes when Andy realizes he cannot keep the toys forever and makes a bold decision. That moment and others comes not so much as a surprise to us, but more as relief. For we cannot cling to our past, as beings we can only grow if we constantly embrace our future and change. That is why our species evolved and continues its forward progress. Few movies simply express this sentiment in such a beautiful and straightforward way as “Toy Story 3.” I attended the showing with a packed house just a few minutes ago. We saw the 3-D version with the “dark sunglasses” which worked well. I did not notice any overt attempts by filmmakers to throw things at the screen. However, the short before the movie called “Day and Night” was expressly made for 3-D and showed off the contrast between three dimensional scenes and two-dimensional scenes purposely laid over the top of each other in an extremely clever way that smacks of Oscar all over it. What did I find wrong with “Toy Story 3”? Absolutely nothing. Probably one of the best movies, if not the best film I’ve seen this year because simply put, it expresses what we feel about the toys we cling to as children and why some of us prize them into adulthood, and finally because they also connect us to that wonderful world of imagination that is full of love, forgiveness, and friendship. “Toy Story 3” is not so much a goodbye to our beloved characters we’ve grown so accustomed to but an embrace of all that is beautiful about being a child.

[Chris Knipp]

We saw the 3-D version with the “dark sunglasses” which worked well. I did not notice any overt attempts by filmmakers to throw things at the screen.

Didn't you mean you didn't see any overt attempts of the filmmakers to throw things at us -- from the screen? That is what primitive 3-D did (to good effect, I might add; I have yet to see its other advantages). I hope this can be watched in non-3-D, because I'm not comfortable with 3-D and I know this is an important film even though I don't like animations, I don't like the look of Pixar films, and I did not like UP, which everybody raves about. I did like THE INCREDIBLES, I kind of liked RATATOUILLE, and I loved WALL*E, or at least the first half. WALL*E shows the Pixar Studio (which is just a few miles from where I live) not only have skills but imagination and heart. WALL*E was in my annual Best List. UP wasn't though.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for the post bon. The summer season has been a near-disaster for Hollywood, so far, but here comes Pixar to save Hollywood and to save us. I have not felt a need to watch any of the "commercial" movies that have come out in past months. Finally, here comes a movie that serves as a proper respite to the wonderful, old Japanese movies that preoccupy me now (along with the Cup, go USA!!!).

I just watched Bruce Springsteen amazing concert film London Calling. One other movie I can recommend to everyone is CYRUS, with Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly. I am sure Chris will be reviewing it soon. I am not a fan of the writer/directors, the Duplass brothers, so I wasn't expecting much. I was very pleasantly surprised by this film, the kind that makes you care about the characters and leaves you with the feeling you really got to know them a bit. Probaby not as good as TOY STORY 3 though, which I get to watch this week. Can't wait!

[Chris Knipp]

CYRUS not here in the Bay Area yet but I'll keep your recommendation in mind. Can I guess you have a weakness for Marisa Tomei? I will see TOY STORY 3 when time allows, did not mean to imply I won't. It's something I "have to know about" whether I like it or not, but judging from its ratings both critical and commercial, I may like it. Though I officially don't like animations, I also did cover the San Francisco Animation Festival last year.

Other good current movie news: the return in some functioning form of New Yorker Films after being shuttered one year upon Dan Talbot's retirement.

The best new film I have seen lately is definitely I AM LOVE (Io sono l'amore, Luca Guadagnino), with Tilda Swinton, acting in Italian. Limited release coming, lots of festival exposure. I hope somebody will take a look at my review -- or any of the others. Also watch for (higher critical rating) WINTER'S BONE.

[cinemabon]

I read your review, Chris and "I love you" sounds intriguing. Tilda Swinton of course won the Best Supporting nod for her work in "Michael Clayton" (2007) the so called business curse (winners careers tend to die off after they win). I hope both of you, whom I admire greatly, enjoy this latest Pixar release. While the formula for sequels is usually mundane, the twist on this film is both adult and child-like in its universal appeal. In other words, Chris, keep an open mind. Have a great summer guys... sweltering in NC... bon.

[Chris Knipp]

Correction: I AM LOVE not I LOVE YOU. It's a silly title either way but a good film.

TOY STORY 3 was fascinating, most of the way through; overly sentimental, but quite successfully so: the passing-on-of-the-toys jerked my tears. But I think this movie is merely competent, not great. Competence may look awfully good at this dumb season though and I'm guessing some grownups may already be sold on the franchise from the Nineties when the first two happened. I did not see them, but that may make me like a kid, who may not have seen the earlier ones? I don't think you have to, though it may theoretically enrich the experience of course to have seen the characters and heard the same voices before.

[Chris Knipp]

Lee Unkrich: Toy Story 3 (2010)


BUZZ LIGHTYEAR AND WOODY: NOTE THE BLURRED CAR --PRETTY COOL

Review by Chris Knipp

Hogging the stage in a dry season

Toy Story 3 is the shot-in-the-arm big success of the lackluster Hollywood box office summer of 2010. The Pixar team is an impressive combination of computerized animation and storytelling talents. The Toy Story franchise is one that makes the most of the limitations of the format, which, however tweaked with computers and CGI, still makes "living" things look like objects, generally shiny and pristine ones. Despite new tricks such as a swoosh effect like a camera panning swiftly and blurry backgrounds, surface details like bruises and dirt tend to look added-on. So, logically, the main characters in the film are a child's collection of favorite plastic playthings; a Ken and a Barbie doll, a Slinky toy dog, a talking cowboy and cowgirl, a mechanical spaceman, he and she potato figures with pop-on facial features. If the comic is in Bergson's definition "the mechanical encrusted on the living," Toy Story isn't the first animated film to present the living encrusted on the mechanical.

Last year my favorite animated feature was not the overpraised and sentimental Up (another Pixar cash cow) but Wes Anderson's stop-motion film from a Raold Dahl book, Fabulous Mr. Fox. Still more stimulating to the imagination, really, were the experimental short films from Annency shown at the 2009 SFFS Animated Film Festival. A feature in the festival along with Mr. Fox was the Belgians Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar's Town Called Panic (Panique au village), a lower-budget stop-motion animation. They didn't have the likes of George Clooney and Meryl Streep to do the voices. Panic actually uses mock-ups of simple little stand-up toys -- Coyboy, Indian, Horse, etc. It's totally wacko. It also evokes the feel of inanimate objects coming to life better than Pixar's infinitely more fluent creations, which are based on real toys but, being computer animations, can do anything, make any moves the Pixar people want, and hence quickly make you forget that they're based on inanimate objects. A Town Called Panic is boldly artificial and crude. The story is twisty and hard to follow, seemingly improvised like a surrealist "exquisite corpse" drawing, with one part folded over so the artists don't see what they're connecting to.

Toy Story 3 is doggedly faithful to its theme, and it begins with a lot of talk as the toys natter on about what on earth they should do. Andy, the toy's owner, is now seventeen and is going off to college. It's time for him to put away childish things. He has a sentimental attachment to them. They evoke nostalgia for his childhood. You'd think he might have gotten over that, like, when he was about twelve, but the sentimentality of the film is undeniably valid: people do cling to or long for their youth. This is touchingly illustrated when, after many vicissitudes, Andy (spoiler alert!) turns over the little group of his favorite toy-personalities (they are, in effect, marketable characters, which you will find for sale, part of the franchise of the megabucks film) to a little girl who he has heard is "good with toys" (as if they were animal pets and not plastic). Before climbing into his VW bug and driving off to school, Andy pauses and takes the time to introduce the girl to his toys one by one, to make sure they'll have a good "home." It's a rather odd notion, but in his ability to play with the little girl, Andy seems somehow more gentle and more grownup than the usual college freshman; he's still in touch with his inner child in a way that may make him a good father. On the other hand when he is standing next to his mother earlier, due to Pixar's inability to "do" aging with subtlety, she looks more like his sister. Perhaps, like Lewis Carroll and other great writers of books for super-intelligent children, the Pixar people are essentially adults whose love of childhood verges on the perverse.

Toy Story 3 has moments of considerable ingenuity (not only technical ones), which are deceptive because it is fundamentally simple. It may seem like a thought-provoking meditation on themes of growth, abandonment, and loss; somewhere inside the film there surely is the ghost of such a meditation screeching be let out. But while its overriding flaw -- as well, of course, as its most successful commercial hook -- is its sentimentality, it is primarily nothing more more than an action film about escape, with cruel oppressors posing as cuddly critters, and a small loyal band uncertain where to turn.

The now (more or less) grown up boy, Andy (John Morris), sentimentally chooses to take Woody (Tom Hanks), the cowboy doll and his apparent chief childhood toy "friend," along with him to college as a talisman, and would leave the rest in a bag to go in the attic; he does not want them thrown away or passed on to others. Like so many of us, he can neither keep his past in front of him nor wholly sever his ties with it. By accident the toys get rerouted to the Sunshine daycare center. They are greeted by the jovial Lotso (Ned Beatty), a worse-for-wear teddy bear that turns out to rule the center's toys like the head of a penitentiary. (Beaty just appeared in the grisly thriller The Killer Inside Me.) Believing himself to have been rejected by his little girl owner (who in fact only lost, not abandoned, him), Lotso takes out his bitterness on the world. In all this, and a moment when the little band of brothers is threatened with near-infernal annihilation, Toy Story 3, though ostensibly made for the very young, moves into areas that are perhaps not so child-friendly.

Woody is a brave and upright leader who sets out to save the other toys. It's appropriate that this toy is voiced by Tom Hanks, an actor associated with simplistic American heroes like those of Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump. Woody seems to do more than his fair share of dithering, but he is always doing the right thing in his own eyes, and, in the end, despite terrible missteps, he proves devious or intrepid at just the right moments.

There is not as much complexity to Toy Story 3's action as to its implications. Like most animations from their beginnings, it's a lot of chasing around and being smashed up. (That the worst smashing is done by very small children, and Lotso's most evil enforcer is a large Baby doll, are creepy notes.) It's a stretch, but a necessary one for a franchise, to string this out to 103 minutes. Typically, it has gotten pushed more each time: number 1 was 80 minutes, number 2 a little over 90, now this.

A sly irony is that the toys only move around and talk to each other when alone, and quickly snap back to "pretending" to be inanimate whenever people are around. Another child's toys are impressed by the skill of Andy's at "playing dead" and, in a witty touch, asks, "are you classically trained?" Some running time is added with a flashback to the sad story of Lotso and a funny interlude when Ken (whose potential gay overtones are not touched) gives a fashion show to Barbie (whom he's just met), doing campy disco turns from a wardrobe of hundreds of outfits. Someone trashes Ken by yelling, "He's not a toy, he's an accessory!" Likewise the space man toy Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) adds amusing padding to the film when he's switched back to "demo" mode by Lotso's henchmen so he can be used as a prison guard; then, jolted, reveals a sexy Hispanic program, prancing and dancing and talking in deep-throated Spanish.

All this adds layers, but doesn't change the movie's basically simple trajectory. People who herald Toy Story 3 as a masterpiece are desperate in the middle of a dead Hollywood season. It is nothing more than merely competent, and I'd rather watch real actors on screen or, if forced, stop-motion, which has richer ironies and distracts less with its technical pretensions. I think Walt Disney had the right idea with Fantasia, an omnibus of seven separate movements or stories, each with a completely different mood set by a strong piece of music. Fantasia is two hours long and still delights, but it's a dubious pursuit to stretch out an animated film that tells only one story to an hour and a half. There comes a point midway through Toy Story 3 when you realize it's done what it's got to do, and, like every franchise, it's turned into a player greedy for attention who has used up his time but refuses to leave the stage.

[cinemabon]

I thought your conclusions rather harsh in your last paragraph, Chris. Although you've a right to compare Toy Story 3 to other modern fair, the idea it somehow is comparable to "Fantasia" is preposterous. First of all, "Fantasia" is a class unto itself. Disney envisioned a program of animation meant to run with a live orchestra and wanted it performed as such at the Hollywood Bowl. Instead, he created and produced the film through his own distribution company and not through RKO Studios which handled all of his distribution to that date. The idea that music tells a story and put some ideas on how to do that through inspiration was a stroke of genius for its time and even the remake a decade ago when nephew Roy duplicated the effort with the Chicago Symphony and James Levine.

As to Toy Story 3, I thought the film started to loose its luster when the toys escaped the day care and headed back to Andy's house. However, when they ended up in the dumpster and then, through a series of accidents, headed for the incinerator, the scene where they reached out for one another's hand moved everyone in the house (except you, as you failed to mention it). Instead, you gave away the ending (slightly callous?), although you did preface your remarks with the all inclusive phrase, "spoiler alert." I'm certain everyone paid attention to that.

I found Toy Story 3 touched on so many things on so many different levels that I consider that effort grand, both in sentimentality and in life's lessons in which we, the audience, need to be repeatedly reminded (such as Pixar's effort a few years ago "Wall-e" which reminded us to keep up our environmental efforts to clean up our world). The Pixar team has consistently produced one gem after another. While the term masterpiece is yet to be defined past this viewing, I did find this film stands out among a very lackluster year. Being as such does not detract from the competition, only heightens it.

[Chris Knipp]

If it's "harsh" to compare TOY STORY 3 with FANTASIA that's because FANTASIA is a really fine film, as well as an independently produced one and not a factory product. I referred to FANTASIA to show how a feature animation in unrelated segments works better because stretching one story out into a feature-length animation can seem pushed, as it does here. I gave some examples of stuff used to stretch out what is really a very limited story.

I don't buy into the widespread notion that Pixar "has consistently produced one gem after another" -- in other words that they can do no wrong. My esteemed neighbors in Emeryville sometimes turn out less-than-brilliant efforts and TOY STORY 3 is an example.

I was being kind in not referring to the tear-jerker hand-holding on the way to the incinerator, a crude Perils of Pauline teaser and an example of the kind of sentimentality that too often (but fortunately not always) prevails in Pixar films. Why should such a moment redeem a plot that "has started to lose its luster"? I do not buy the idea that sentimentality + technology = art.

My saying "spoiler alert" was a joke. Andy's solving the problem of how to dispose nicely of his toys by giving them to a suitable child is no surprise to anybody; and an opportunity for more weepy-ness. Yes, TOY STORY 3 is certainly "grand" in "sentimentality." You got that right. But its sentimentality is far from being its strong point.

I'm less sure about the "life lessons." Growing up -- but not abandoning the fresh outlook of one's youth -- is a perfectly worthwhile theme, but illustrating it by a college freshman who has trouble giving up toys designed for six- or eight-year-olds creates a metaphor that's more creepy, or at best irrelevant, than edifying. Yes, TOY STORY 3 strives to touch on "many things on so many different levels." The "effort" is "grand," but the success, not so "grand."

[cinemabon]

I don't mean to beleaguer the point, but in this instance, you're wrong, Chris... and you're so far off the mark, it isn't funny. I've never seen so many disparate critics line up behind this film and use far fewer euphemisms in their rhetoric when they pick apart the movie's plot.

I don't regard giving away the emotional impact of the film as a joke. So I will disregard that comment as a throw away. I sense hostility on your part against this film and I'm not certain why. Did your mother take away toys from you as a child? The appeal here is so universal that everyone seems to be feeling it except you. I won't go on to dispute every point. I will let the entire realm of critics do that for me.

I'm sorry you don't like the film... but unless you start to quote some homespun critic in some far off review, you won't find anyone to back your argument.

While everyone is entitled to an opinion, and in every other case, I have consistantly respected yours. This is one case where we differ.

Metascore 91 - the highest of the year: http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/toystory3

Cream of the crop score 100% - highest of the year: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/toy_...itic=creamcrop

[Chris Knipp]

I don't feel I've erred here. Sometimes everybody is wrong. It's very well done. I have not trashed it. But you should never think that you will agree with me just because you read and appreciate my reviews. I would lose my credibility if I just agreed with the Metacritic majority. I also found AVATAR very overrated. I sometimes like a movie mainstream critics trash, or dislike one they adore. This is why I like to consult people like Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central and Armond Whitle of The New York Press, both maverick critics. They are often way off the charts. They know much more than I do about film, they are both very smart. They may be too angry. Sometimes they ramble or go off topic. White's writing can be ungraceful or even ungrammatical. But they think independently. They inspire me because I aspire to that, while in general I am far nicer than either of them. I am not so angry as they are.

Apropos of which, I do not feel hostility toward TOY STORY 3 as you surmise. I am simply annoyed when something that's only average good comes in for Universal Acclaim. I rely on Metacritic too but it's not scientific. Sometimes the gnomes behind the site ove-r or understate the critical consensus. But apart from that, the critics sometimes get on a bandwagon they should not have joined. You can find them echoing each other even.

If I loved animations above all other forms of cinema I might rate this film higher. But as a corrective to the excessive raves, I give it a 7/10. If I really hated it as you suppose, I'd obviously give it a 3/10 or a 5/10, not a gentleman's C. Heck,I'd even bend over and give it a 7.5. I don't like animated films much; this should be clear by now but I don't harp on it; I try to be fair.

And I can have fun with animations. I was fascinated by the darker sort of Japan anime at one point, and then got tired of it. I'll never forget the dark, creepy, mind-bending 1989 stop-motion Japanese animation TETSUO, THE IRON MAN. I did enjoy the SFFS Animation Festival films last year, and its centerpiece especially, Wes Anderson's FABULOUS MR. FOX. But I do not like Pixar products particularly; I don't like the look of them. Everybody looks like a hard shiny plastic toy, even the supposed humans. Of course that is somewhat the way with animations. Hand-drawn ones avoid that, and so does stop-motion.

This said, I did find the first half of WALL*E poetic and beautiful (the last half less memorable and more tedious, though at least it has a point rather than just sentimentality). I could see the point of FINDING NEMO but that's a kid's story, isn't it? I'm not a child. I also liked THE INCREDIBLES. I thought that was fresh and intelligent. I could see the point of RATATOUILLE, which was a critical hit in France. I'd rather watch French people sitting around talking to each other than toys running around dodging trash compactors or malevolent teddy bears. I definitely did not like UP. Again, my animation feature of 2009 was MR FOX, which was sophisticated and beautiful and was not a factory product. Pixar is out to make money. Hence their alarcrity in cranking out sequels sooner or later of anything that does well. Their formulas work and they don't need my approval, nor should you.

[cinemabon]

"Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3)

Many years ago in film school, someone produced the print of a Russian feature called "The Snow Queen." It was in Russian with English subtitles and the animation was not Disney but darker. The above quote is taken from the last line of the Han Christian Andersen story. Unfortunately, someone took the film and changed it with a completely different soundtrack and added music by Frank Skinner. Down through the years, my tastes, just as anyone's tastes, have changed. I find the animation by Hayao Miyazaki far more satisfying than most American fair simply because of its complexity and appeal to adults in ways American films do not attempt.

However, in the case of "Toy Story 3" I find elements not present in others of the series, and those elements are not so easily dismissed by the parts of the film you found contemptable. I also find your comment that surmises all the critics somehow rush to support one another feelings in some regard as strange. Tony Scott most certainly doesn't call Richard Corliss on the phone and say: "Hey! Did you like Toy Story 3? You did? Well, I'll write a good review, too!" Some how all of these people agree, and I would say the vast majority of those who have seen the film, that "Toy Story 3" has the right combination of elements to make the film-going-experience a joyful one with a great message to boot.

I would also recommend "How to Train your Dragon" from this year's list of animated films. If you did not at least shudder slightly at its surprise ending, then animation is not your bag... and perhaps you should review other venues for which you are most certainly qualified.

[Chris Knipp]

So are you saying I'll go to hell if I don't convert and love TOY STORY 3? Then hell it is, I fear. But we'll leave that for the powers above to decide. Down here on earth, you keep getting me wrong. I have not expressed contempt. I reserve contempt for films that are bad or despicable.

There are bandwagons. Phonecalls aren't necessary. But even if the universal acclaim is spontaneous the film is being ovrerpraised. That's not because it's without value.

Above I cited two maverick critics I admire, Walter Chaw and Armond White. Actually Chaw, who is contemptuous and angry about so many films, very much likes TOY STORY 3. He finds it less successful than #2 but is nonetheless extravagant in his praise (he admires the series very much): he calls the second part "flat out brilliant." This is not one of Chaw's rants; it's a serious and admiring assessment. This might be a good moment to sample Chaw's smart and original writing.

However the dependably contrarian Armond White has no use for TOY STORY 3 -- as last year with DISTRICT 9, whose universal praise I also resisted. A Wall Street Journal online blog discusses how this new dissent by White, again dependably, enrages "fanboys" (the blogger's word, not mine). The blogger concludes:

"It’s been a mostly crummy summer for movies, with only a couple notable releases and precious few worthwhile movies in the pipeline. Readers may not agree with White, but in general it’s good to have someone who breaks out of the mass culture groupthink."

The word is fare, not fair.

[Chris Knipp]

A Rotten Tomatoes piece cited by the WSJ blogger is worth reading for its comments about how participants in universal acclaim seem to feel insecure. The main thing is that White, and sometimes Chaw, stimulates thought by coming from a different place. Film criticism should be all about thinking independently. But it's not, because that's too hard for most of us, most of the time.

Chaw's and White's backgrounds and personal makeup allow them to stand out from the crowd--yet command respect; as the Rotten Tomatoes piece notes, White "obviously knows a lot about movies." Chaw tells in an interview how when he grew up he was one of three Asians in school in a little town in Colorado. Maybe the grew up as outsiders and learned to survive that way. Being an admired film critic (warmly invited to screenings, not threatened with being barred from them) means belonging to a clique, being an insider, and that carries the dangers of chumminess, cosy-ness, groupthink, in however sophisticated a form.

[cinemabon]

I'm not so sure about this clique thing. The girls over at Salon may tend to disagree. Also, the Village Voice often bucks the trend (both sets of critics hated "the blue people" of Avatar). The Bible quote is taken from the story, "The Snow Queen." It's the last line in the book/story.

And since when do you edit my work? Oh, I could point out a few mistakes, too... but I won't. Anyway, I"m glad you like the film (with reservations). Oscar is sitting on the sidelines. He must be writing a sequel to his last book. Have a great summer. Hey, speaking of editing, I have a saga to work on... currently, Book IX in edit. Slog, slog. My son is reading book III this week. He likes it, which is a lot to ask for a fifteen year old.

Hollywood is about to flood us with CGI eye poppers (Twilight, Air Bender, etc). Lots of fluff coming down the pipe this week. The gulf and theaters full of gunk. I ordered up seven French films in my Netflix queue because my son is taking French II this fall. I'll let you know how the French film festival goes. See you in the dark...