Future Classic: Toy Story 3 - 2010

In 1995, Toy Story came out and frankly, I thought I was too old to like it. I did anyway because it did what all Pixar films do and that is strike at a truth that we all know to be true. In this particular case, that when we were little we totally thought our toys were alive and did stuff when we left the room. Toy Story 2 was actually an incredible sequel especially for an animated film because we all know those usually turn out to be a bunch of crap. (Shrek 4, anyone?) Toy Story 3 was the first movie of 2010 that I knew I HAD to see.

Story. We find the toys languishing as Andy is nearly grown up and hasn't played with them in years. Andy is going to college and the toys are struggling with what this means for them. They decide to try life at Sunnyside Day Care, against Woody's wishes as he feel ardently that they are Andy's toys and should go wherever Andy wants them to. Here is a clip from some of their tour:



I have to say that the whole Barbie/ken storyline is one of the greatest parts of the film and maybe the most obvious/clever thing ever. Woody decides to go back to Andy and gets sidetracked when he's picked up by a little girl named Bonnie. Life at Sunnyside is not what it's cracked up to be.



I called this when Lotso Huggin' Bear came onscreen. I turned to my brother and said, "This whole thing is going to turn out like Cool Hand Luke." I give you night in the box.



That was Cool Hand Luke obviously and not Toy Story 3, but this is what YouTube makes available to me. I do promise someone does spend a night in the box. Woody gets to know Bonnie and her toys, where we discover all dinosaur toys are tech savvy and Woody gets to experience what it's like to be played with again, which breathes love in him and puts a crack in his stoicism about being Andy's toy. Also, Timothy Dalton gives probably the best performance of his career as a Shakespeare-inclined porcupine toy. Inspired. Yeah, I'm still bitter about his two Bond movies.



Woody makes his way back to Sunnyside where the toys have gone all Lord of the Flies and Buzz has been reset to think yeah, he's a spaceman. The toys try to fix him.



Anyway, the toys have to escape. They make their way home in ways that I don't want to ruin and nearly gave me a heart attack. But they get home, resigned to their fates. Woody overhears Andy and his mom talking. Andy's mom is upset and Andy reassures her that she'll always be with him, even when they're not together. Woody realizes that Andy no longer needs him, that's he is already a part of him that he will carry for the rest of their life and Woody is finally able to let go. We see him scribble something on the box the toys are in and then he joins them.

The note leads Andy to Bonnie's house, where he gives Bonnie the toys. As he does so, he describes each one of them and in doing so, we realize that he is describing parts of himself. No more so is this evident that when he is surprised to discover Woody at the bottom of the box and for a second, we see just a kid who doesn't want to give up his favorite toy. But he does and he and Bonnie play with the toys before he drives off to college.

We see some of the toys' life with Bonnie and get to see the toys at Sunnyside. And finally I stop crying along with everyone else in the theater.

The reason that this movie hits you so hard is that it draws on the nostalgia of childhood, places you don't usually delve into so when you do it's powerful. I would say that most movies depend on flash and new technology and while Toy Story 3 has those it doesn't RELY on them other than to technically get the story across. I was at the Austin Film Festival this past year and one of the decided highlights of the festival was a panel with the screenwriter of this film, Michael Arndt, who also wrote Little Miss Sunshine. He spoke about something which I never heard discussed in film school, which is the philosophical stakes of a story, that in order for your story to succeed it has to be about something other than a flashy, glittering surface. For instance, in this movie it's about what is the role of a toy? Is Lotso right or is Woody? Or does Woody have it wrong?

Anyway, of course we know this movie does not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning Best Picture, but it was still one of my favorites of the year. I still marvel at the emotional effect that it has on people. I know people are starting to sneer at Pixar but that's only because everything they do is so good and when you're good, you're a target. This is the rare case when the last part of a series has left me satisfied, content to leave it where it is, to never want to go back. Hear me, Pixar? Don't revisit this! You'll kill it! Shrek 4, anyone?

Best Picture Nominee 2010: Black Swan

Black Swan. What can I say about Black Swan?

Well, let me start with this: I work a really odd shift that usually runs from early morning to early afternoon, leaving my afternoon open to go to the movies since the rest of the world is still at work. Usually, I find myself in a theater full of old people with a smattering of college students, then I imagine that someday when I am old I will have every afternoon to go to the movies without the inconvenience of going to work before. I went to see The King's Speech twice and both times, I found a theater full of old people and college aged girls who I assume were there for Colin Firth. When I went to see Black Swan on a decidedly deserted afternoon at Santikos Palladium, I was in the theater with one old couple, one middle-aged couple and three women who did not stop talking or picking up THE DAMN PHONE!!! Bitches, you paid the money, you climbed all the way to the top row so you could walk in front of me every ten minutes in the almost empty theater and you're talking. Not even about the movie that much! What I was trying to say before I got sidetracked there was that it's not exactly commercial fare. I'm not saying that because of the weird semi-Lesbian thing or even Darren Aronofsky's somewhat gratuitous fixation on Natalie Portman's crotch. It is because it's actually weird. And not in a bad way.



Natalie Portman plays Nina, a ballerina obsessed with perfection. She seems to be living out her mother's failed ambitions as a ballerina and everything about her says that she's a child still. The auteur master of the ballet company, Thomas, played by Vincent Cassel is putting on a new Swan Lake and is looking for a Swan Queen. Her main competition is a new dancer to the company, Lily, played by Mila Kunis. Lily is everything Nina isn't, confident in the role of the Black Swan, which Nina struggles with. In order to be the Swan Queen, she has to let go of her need to feel perfect. We follow Nina as she finds the way to transform into the Black Swan.

Okay, I won't spoil this one. I will say that Aronofsky's direction is pretty damn near perfect. What struck me first was the camera work, the way it's so dizzying and you feel everything Nina feels. Natalie Portman gives a brilliant performance, the anxiety and desperation that Nina feels is so taut. Cassel is great, the role of somewhat womanizing ballet company master could easily come off as piggish, but he avoids it. We don't hate him so much that we don't recognize everything he's saying about Nina is correct. Barbara Hershey as Nina's mom is great, making the audience guess if she's good or bad. Mila Kunis has her first grown up role and it makes me want to forgive her for being on Family Guy.

What really impresses me is the way that we get sucked into the ballet world. A lot of films made by lesser filmmakers would have bored us with ballet details and boring exposition. Black Swan avoids this and even when ballet stuff gets put in there it doesn't feel contrived and we don't feel as if the story has stopped. What I couldn't believe was happening was in several scenes was that when Portman dances and is inadequate and I could tell she was unlike so many velvet curtain dramas where the audience has to be told, due no doubt to Aronofsky's direction and the actors' performances. I would link a clip to demonstrate this, but somebody at YouTube decided to disable embedding, so just head over there and search for Black Swan clip. This is definitely a trip inside Nina's head, replete with spectacular visual effects to complement rather than detract from the performances. We get to know Nina so well that by the time the film reaches its conclusion, it's foregone.

Best Picture? I don't know. I still kind of think The King's Speech has it. It is excellent, but it's like the 1998 Oscar race where Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan, the choice is between totally different animals. One being a swan. I still have to see the other nominees, but Natalie Portman gives such an intense performance, I don't know how it could be topped. Any opinions out there on that?