TOY STORY 3

Written by Michael Arndt

Directed by Lee Unkrich

Voices by Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty and Michael Keaton

Hamm: C’mon, let’s go see how much we’re going for on EBay. 

There comes a point in every boy’s life when he has to grow up.  Ok, fine.  There are many points in a boy’s life when he must do this but going off to college is certainly an undeniable turning point.  You leave behind your family, your friends and the only home you know, including a chunk of everything you own.  For young Andy, a boy we first met when he was just eight years old, leaving for college means putting away all the toys that brought him so many hours of enjoyment back in his day.  And so he throws Buzz, Rex, Slink and the rest of them in a bag destined for the attic.  Some have said that after sitting in their own attic, the people at Pixar should have left their very first success, TOY STORY, exactly where they left it eleven years ago.  Fortunately for all of us though, the people at Pixar will never fully grow up.  The toys are out of the attic and they’re better than ever!

Letting go, dealing with new realities, distancing yourself so as to avoid ever getting hurt – these are just a few of the touching themes that are subtly told in TOY STORY 3.  The Academy Award winning writer of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, Michael Arndt, follows up his first success with what could very likely net him another trophy.  Arndt understands that adventure can be subjective – that what might seem small and unimportant to some is the biggest challenge others will ever face.  He also understands that adventure is made perilous when those involved have much to lose.  For our favourite toys, the loss is particularly significant – they are about to lose their reason for being.  Being relegated to the attic means that these toys will no longer be played with, that they will no longer be able to bring joy to their favourite guy, Andy.  So as Andy lets go of them, they must learn to let go of him as well.

Toys passing the time in the attic might not make for a very exciting film though.  (Mind you, if anyone could make it exciting, it would be these guys.)  Instead, the toys find themselves donated to a nursery school.  Well, most of them anyway; our man Woody (Tom Hanks) was selected to go off to college with Andy but, as luck would have it, Woody seems to have found himself lost and on the loose once again.  While Woody tries to make his way home alone, his pals are stuck in nursery hell, where kids play with you for hours, sure, but they also have no regard for these toys because they just aren’t their own.  First time full-fledged Pixar director, Lee Unkrich (Unkrich previously co-directed FINDING NEMO, MONSTERS INC., and the second TOY STORY film), ties these two storylines together seamlessly and charges the entire picture with an intensity that never lets up and culminates in a climax so dire that it catches the viewer off guard and triggers an emotional response that cannot be contained.  Just ask the guy sitting next to me.

TOY STORY 3 is triumphant!  It carries the depth and hilarity that one has come to expect from Pixar and then carries it even further still.  Even though I say it again and again when I review their films, they are constantly outdoing themselves.  Here, they’ve achieved the extremely rare feat of making threequel a decade after the last installment that actually surpasses both films that came before it.  Even though they’re playing with toys, their maturity continues to expand and their visual mastery continues to break their own barriers.  Their films work because they have soul.  The spirit of TOY STORY lives in that special bond between a boy and his toys.  Back when life was simple, they were all we needed and, according to Pixar, we were all they needed too.  And by taking these toys out of the attic and doing right by them one more time, Pixar incites that rare and wonderful feeling of nostalgic warmth that one gets all over their body when find themselves unexpectedly playing again with their favourite toys.

Black Sheep Previews: TOY STORY 3

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Pixar's TOY STORY 3 last night.  I laughed and cried and was thoroughly impressed.  It's not that I wasn't expecting to be wowed by the Pixar people but they've got to slip up at some point and a not so necessary sequel so many years after the last installment seemed like a good a place as any to start.  Haters be damned though because TOY STORY 3 is another family classic that is sure to be loved by adults and children alike.

One of the new toys featured in the third installment is the furry, little guy in the poster above, Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear.  They call him "Lotso" in the movie and there is more to this cuddly creature than one would expect.  Meanwhile, unlike the other stars of TOY STORY 3, Lotso never existed in real life.  In other words, he is not a real toy.  Pixar decided to add a little backstory to this pivotal character though in order to give him a bit more credibility.  Below is an all-new commercial for Lotso that Pixar produced to make it look like it was made in the 80's.  It's an awful lot of trouble for a video that lasts 30 seconds and may not really be seen by most people but that's what I love about Pixar.  They'll do whatever it takes to make their magical worlds seem more real.

Check out Lotso's commercial and be sure to come back tomorrow for Black Sheep's review of TOY STORY 3.  Then see the movie.  Just see it.  Don't argue with me.  See it.

UP!

Written by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson
Directed by Pete Docter
Voices by Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer and Jordan Nagai


Charles Muntz: Adventure is out there!

On paper, Pixar’s tenth feature film, UP!, doesn’t make a lot of sense. A 78-year-old grump of a man named Mr. Frederickson (voiced by Ed Asner) fills thousands of balloons in the home he’s been living in his entire adult life and these balloons literally uproot his house from its foundation and carry it high into the sky. To complicate matters further, an over eager 8-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai) has stowed away under the porch. Together, they must navigate this unlikely flying machine to South America so that Mr. Frederickson can find adventure before it’s too late. It sounds like an uphill battle to me but this is why it makes such perfect sense for UP! to come along when it has. There could be no better way to commemorate this Pixar milestone than with a film that inherently requires an imagination as lofty as the boundless sky to get it off the ground.


UP! is consistently unexpected. It is uproarious one minute and then uplifting the next. Director, Pete Docter (MONSTERS INC), along with his co-director, Bob Peterson, and indie director, Tom McCarthy, put together an improbable scenario and gave a rock solid foundation to a story that barely spends any time on the ground. Not too dissimilar to McCarthy’s THE VISITOR, Mr. Frederickson comes from a different era. He met his wife Ellie when he was just a wee lad and they went on to spend their entire lives together, the up’s and down’s of which are strung together in a touching montage that shows sorrowful realities that are usually left out of animated films. With the love of his life now gone, Mr. Frederickson no longer understands the world around him. He merely sees how he has no place in it and suddenly feels as though it has all been wasted time.


As Mr. Frederickson and Russell coast alongside the clouds, so do we on this 3D adventure. It certainly cannot be called facile but UP! has a certain breeziness to it, as though Docter has been driving his own house in the sky for ages now. There are some minor moments of turbulence (one talking dog is fine – especially when it is as adorable as Doug, voiced by co-writer, Peterson – a large pack of talking dogs is a little too, well, Disney for my tastes) but you never lose faith in your captain. Docter is smart to infuse UP! with themes but even smarter to know never to allow these themes to upstage his characters and their journey. Mr. Frederickson is an uptight, old crank but he is also a sensitive and loving husband. Russell is a clueless little boy but he means well and has his own issues with an absent father. Authentic and unwavering, they cannot help but influence the other while their up and coming friendship inspires us.


With the bar raised so high by their past efforts, Pixar needed UP! to reach the sky to get over it this time. Its upbeat tone and upstanding quality allow it to glide right on over that bar and its unpredictable path make the experience adventuresome, exhilarating and unforgettable. It is everything you would expect to feel if you suddenly found yourself in a flying house, which is to say nothing at all and everything all at once. After conquering both the vast ocean and the infinite space in outer space, Pixar can now proudly say that they rule the sky as well.

Black Sheep Gets Caught UP!

Hello down there! I'm running a little behind this week on my expected Fall Movie Preview so rather than abandon you altogether, I thought I would share some very fresh pics from Pixar's next feature, UP! Details are sparse right now but I do know that Pixar's 10th feature tells the story of one Carl Frederickson, a gentleman in his seventies who travels around the world in his floating house to fight the bad guys with his boy scout type sidekick, Russell, before sitting down to dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon. In theory, it sounds ludicrous but most Pixar projects do before you see them. Carl is voiced by Ed Asner. Newcomer, Jordan Nagai will voice Russell. The picture was written by Bob Peterson (FINDING NEMO) and directed by Pete Docter (MONSTERS INC). It will be released on May 29, 2009.

Here is a first look at some of the character photos from the film, revealed at this year's Comic-Con convention in San Diego.







Source: The Pixar Blog

RATATOUILLE

Written and Directed by Brad Bird


Gusteau: If you focus on what you’ve left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead.

Rats are a hard sell. They’re filthy little rodents with fierce, ugly teeth that scurry across your feet when you aren’t expecting anything, dragging their long, scaly tails behind them and sending those they cross into squeals of fear. Rats in a kitchen comedy are arguably an impossible sell. If you don’t like rats to begin with, you certainly don’t want them anywhere near your food. Yet here we are smack in the middle of the premise for the near infallible Pixar’s latest summer crowd pleaser, RATATOUILLE. Separated from his rat colony, Remy (voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt), finds himself accidentally putting his culinary talents to good use in what was once one of Paris’ most prestigious kitchens, earning him rave reviews. Of course a rat can’t take credit for fine food preparation so he forms an unlikely friendship with a gangly, awkward fellow by the name of Linguini (Lou Romano), who serves as his front. Together they bring new life to an aging restaurant and inspire each other to be better than they believe themselves to be. The folks at Pixar might have been sniffing too many expensive cheeses when they concocted this mousecapade but they may also be the only people out there who could have pulled it off. Only, under the writing and direction of Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES), they didn’t just pull it off; RATATOUILLE is a masterwork in the field of animated filmmaking, deliciously reaching heights that no rat has ever reached before.


Remy is no ordinary rat. He has a gift, a gift that is being squandered at home. He understands the complicated calibration of cooking. He knows the spice for every occasion yet his overbearing father (Brian Dennehy) uses his heightened senses as a tool to sniff out rat poison amongst the garbage. Like so many of us born into situations that do not lead instantly to fame and fortune, Remy is destined for greatness but has yet to be discovered. Not only does he need to win over the hearts and stomachs of notoriously finicky food critics (like the one voiced so delectably by Peter O’Toole) but he must also win over the potentially lost appetites of modest movie goers who may not want rats with the their popcorn. Bird’s animators studied the bahavior of rats extensively and felt it would be best to have the rats walk about like humans, on two feet, in an effort to appear more likeable. Bird refused. He wanted the rats to act like rats. He wanted their ideals to win us over. When trapped in a jar early on in the film, it is Remy’s charm that gets him set free. There is an earnestness, a yearning, a hope seen deep in his pleading eyes that reminds us just how often we find ourselves trapped in jars by people bent on keeping us down. Besides, aren’t we all just rats in the race?


Like Remy, Bird and his Pixar cohorts know to add a sprinkling of depth to their dishes and that presentation is key. RATATOUILLE raises the Pixar standard of beauty to new levels while seasoning the whole with hints of meaning that are only completely realized once they hit your palette. Pixar’s Paris is a foggy riverside with scattered street lamps at one moment and a string of window lights and fountains the next. While it is romantically distracting, it is nowhere near as chaotic as the view from two inches above the floor. Rats scamper and the camera follows as Remy swerves in and out of kitchen crevasses and sewers (always sure to wash his hands before touching the food). The fluidity of the movement through such luscious colour is hypnotic and magical, simply what one would expect from the city of love. Somewhere tucked away in this city is a tiny one-bedroom apartment the size of a storage space known as not much but still home to Linguini. The friendship formed between the man and his rat is unlikely, yes, but it anchors the film with its humbling mutual appreciation. They learn to rely on each other without forgetting how to contribute the most vital parts of themselves. Theirs is a friendship so powerful and so respectful that it changes the minds and hearts of the naysayers who play witness to it, including those sitting comfortably in front of the screen.


“Anyone can cook.” These are the words of Chef Gousteau, Remy’s inspiration and hero, that run throughout RATATOUILLE. Cooking can be interpreted as anything and therefore anyone can do anything they want. Just look at Remy, a rat with an impossible dream that comes true despite every odd and thanks to hard work (and a dash of fate). Better yet, just look at Pixar. By not simply following the recipe but rather using inspired, unusual ingredients, they have managed to make a mesmerizing masterpiece that is astonishing, endearing and about a rat.

CARS

Written and Directed by
John Lasseter and Joe Ranft

The crowd is uproarious. The stadium is practically shaking. Two checkered flags are waved and they’re off … to a sad and unfortunately slow start. I say “unfortunate” because I am speaking of Pixar Animation Studio’s seventh feature, CARS, and the Pixar name usually ensures sophistication, wit and insight in addition to awe-inspiring, revolutionary animation. Further to that, it usually means a darn good time but CARS drags its wheels, leading me to think Pixar might be due for a good tune-up. The problem is not with the quality of the animation, which bursts out straight away in the opening sequence. We are introduced to Lightning McQueen (voiced by the ever laid back, Owen Wilson), a spunky red sports car with a lot of scattered energy to burn and not enough experience or patience to see things through to the finish. He cruises past the rest of his competitors as he races for the Piston Cup, the highest achievement in race-car driving. The arena lights blare down on to the track and into our eyes as the cheers from the stands erupt to deafening new heights. Everything is as it should be but for one jarring detail. The patrons that fill the stands are other cars. Yes, people go to watch other people race against each other but this is a world inhabited by nothing but cars. It’s like “Planet of the Cars” and directors John Lasseter and the late Joe Ranft do very little to ground this reality. And yes, it’s an animated film but I couldn’t get past wondering how the cars managed to build the stadium and all the roads leading up to in the first place.

While on his way to another race in another town, Lightning gets lost and ends up arrested, or in this case impounded, in a middle-of-nowhere town after accidentally tearing up their road. He is sentenced to repairing the road before he can leave. Here he meets an expectedly colourful group of cars that run through a gamut of stereotypes, from the hippie minibus to the military standard hard-ass to the pimp-my-ride 59 Chevy. I have never seen the folks at Pixar deliver such one-dimensional three-dimensional characters. There is no good reason that these cars would inhabit the same town and so why would we even be there? The only resident that seems like he belongs there is a tow-truck by the name of Mater (as in to-mater). Voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, Mater is the dimwitted naïf who unknowingly bestows wisdom upon others. He is hilarious without realizing and is the most believable element of this film.


The clichés don’t stop at the characters either. The moral foundation of CARS focuses on being in too much of a hurry to get nowhere in particular. Upon being forced to slow down, Lightning learns that there is more to life than winning races and scoring cool sponsorships. When you aren’t speeding down the highway, you can see the cars around you and maybe even become their friend or fall in love. Lightning brings some much needed life to this dreary waste of a town and the inhabitants show him a thing or two about loyalty and the simpler pleasures that come from standing still. A good chunk of this lesson comes from Lightning’s love interest, Sally (a coy Bonnie Hunt), a car who studied law and climbed the corporate ladder before she realized she had no idea who she was. Ordinarily, I would find these themes engaging but cars are built for speed, not for taking the time to smell the motor oil.

The beauty of a Pixar film is best exhibited in their 1998 offering, A BUG’S LIFE. The ants and circus bugs that make up the majority of the characters have personality that more than makes up for the lack of time to develop them all. More importantly, the bug world is believable because it co-exists with a human world, bringing light to a universe that we ignorant humans don’t even know is right beneath our feet. Even the entirely unreal monsters of MONSTERS INC have doorways that lead to an earthly plain. CARS had an inherently huge obstacle to get past from the start line but instead of pushing harder, Lasseter and Ranft left CARS on cruise control. The result is more a casual Sunday drive then a high speed race – enjoyable and pleasant but lacking purpose and drive.