Toy Story 3

Lee Unkrich, 2010 (9.0*)Another winner in the ongoing series, this one's about when the kid, Andy, is finally old enough to go off to college, and what happens to the childhood collection of stuff in the room that is now being passed on to a younger sibling. We've all been through this at some point, losing countless millions in old baseball cards and Beatles memorabilia tossed out by moms (these two from personal experience!)

Along with all the other belongings are the child's favorite toys - in this case, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), the dinosaur, Hamm the pig (John Ratzenburger), Jessie the cowgirl (Joan Cusack), the potato heads, and all the other toys from the first two films. The mom is pressuring all the kids to come up with toys to throw out, toys for the attic, and toys to be donated to a day care center. Of course, Andy's (John Morris) toys get mixed up with trash, and then end up at the daycare center, with hilarious results.

They've kept the story energized with some funny twists. My favorite is that Buzz Lightyear has a Spanish mode and when he is accidentally switched to Spanish we read his dialogue in subtitles, and he flits around like a flamenco dancer, so along with language his personality changes to a Spanish one.

This is another tear-jerking, crowd pleaser from Pixar, but it maintains the level of the first two, and forms a perfect complement for the trilogy. Winner of 19 awards so far, out of 41 nominations, and up for five upcoming Oscars® including best picture. #29 on the IMDB top 250.

Our review of the original Toy Story, from 1993, and it's sequel

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Wall-E

Andrew Stanton, 2008 (10*)
This terrific science fiction comedy is Pixar's best so far. It's rare that an animated film combines both a great story with terrific and imaginative artwork. You would think that after the Toy Story films, Cars, and Monsters Inc that the creativity there would slow down, but Wall-E tops them all. It's basically about a garbage compacting mobile robot living on an unpopulated earth. However, drones are being sent to try to find a return of life on earth, and naturally Wall-E comes into contact with life again (or there'd be no story), as we now know it, and with hilarious results. This film has a lot humor, as well as a lot of heart, making us all somehow care for what happens to a mechanical garbage man! Another rarity: a children's film that adults should enjoy just as much. Winner of over 35 awards already this year, for some odd reason it's not nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and will have to settle for Animated Feature as a consolation prize.

Link to Wall-E's awards page at IMDB: Wall-E Awards

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Cars

Dir: John Lassiter, 2006 (8.5*)

I loved this Pixar animated movie, from the same crew as Toy Story. The plot involves a young Nascar racer (the cars are characters), voiced by Owen Wilson, who gets dropped out of his trailer on the way to the next race, somewhere in the American southwest, and is basically lost along Route 66, in small town that somehow survived the freeway being built. He becomes trapped in the town, with some wonderful characters: Paul Newman as an old pickup truck who’s really a former Nascar champ, Bonnie Hunt as his lady friend, and a host of others (Cheech Marin, John Ratzenburger, Katherine Helmond, Larry the Cable Guy, George Carlin, Richard Petty) who have various businesses around a town that no longer has any tourists. Randy Newman wrote a beautiful song called "My Town", an Oscar nominee sung by James Taylor, about living in a small town like that time and freeways (and therefore people) have sadly grown beyond and passed by. Great script for me since I’ve been all the way across Route 66 twice, and crossed on the freeway (I-40) once, so the nostalgia of this story really hit home for me. For that reason, it's probably going to mean more to adults than kids, who won’t understand the references to America’s greatest highway. Look for the closing credits and all the towns the producers thanked, it reads like the songs "Route 66" and Little Feat’s "Willin" put together: Tucumcari, Tehatchopee, Winslow, Wynona, Gallup…

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Toy Story

John Lassiter, 1995 (8.5*)
Terrific animation from Pixar, their first full-length movie done with computer animation. In this story, the toys of a boy named Andy come alive with the arrival of a new one, Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut voiced by comedian Tim Allen, while the "leader of the gang" of old toys, a cowboy named Woody, voiced by Tom Hanks, is not only jealous but confused. Buzz and his miraculous 'high tech' stuff, like a laser beam, threaten Woody's status as smartest toy, and thus the natural leader.

This is a wonderfully human story with terrific visuals and an enjoyable plot for all ages. When you suspend your belief and buy into the fantasy, the toys become human and elicit our feelings as if they were real. The sequel, Toy Story 2, is almost as good, and deals with the poignancy of discarding old toys that were once best friends..

Winner of 19 awards and 33 nominations, ranked #147 on the IMDB 250

Update: here is our review of 2010's Toy Story 3, a very worthy sequel and perhaps best of the trilogy, nominated for five Oscars®

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Finding Nemo

Dir: Andrew Stanton, 2003 (9.8*)
One of the best animated childrens films, all the qualities of classic Disney. Thoroughly enjoyable story with funny dialogue, made funnier by the casting of Albert Brooks and Evelyn Degeneres. The story concerns dad fish Broooks looking for son fish Nemo who gets swept up in a tropical fish collectors net, and ends up in a dental office aquarium! Creepy stuff… but not as creepy as Chicken Run. Along the way he runs into Degeneres, and various sea creatures, including some lovable sea turtles. This is a must see, best five all-time for animation. The others: Snow White, Fantasia, Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story. (I also like The Incredibles, Cars, Hoppity Goes to Town, Curse of the Were-Rabbit) Well, Wallace and Gromit's Amazing Adventures are the best, but all short films - still, four Oscars in all!

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