A Toybox of Memories

Toy Story 3

**** out of ****

Directed by: Lee Unkrich

Featuring the voice talents of: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger, Jodi Benson, Wallace Shawn and Michael Keaton

Running time: 103 minutes

I may have spent more time as a young boy watching Toy Story than I did playing with my own toys. I wanted to be Andy, riding a constant surge of raucous fun with his playthings. As a young boy, I sympathized with him. But times have changed.

In Toy Story 3, I feel for the toys – trying to cling on to the last shreds of joy they feel with their beloved owner. They want to be more than just playthings but his companions, his protectors. They yearn to be there for him anytime, any day.

We’ve had a friend in Pixar ever since the first Toy Story film was released in 1995. But in the last 15 years, Pixar's core young audience have grown, and alas, Andy has grown up too. In the third (and final) installment, he’s headed for college.

Toy Story 3 is an exceptional sequel that works on two levels: first, as an exuberant rollercoaster of sparkling visuals, exhilarating set pieces and pure manic fun (a top notch kid’s flick), and second, as an emotionally grueling throat-grabber: a dark, intelligent, moving meditation about growing up and moving on (what most top notch adult flicks try to be).

The film opens with the same set-up that submerged us into Andy’s room in the first Toy Story, albeit with a few new characters and nearly 15 years of advancement in digital technology.

The whole gang is there, divided in this scene into heroes and villains. The good guys are Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), Bullseye and that tyrannosaurus Rex (Wallace Shawn). The bad guys are the Potato Heads (Don Rickles as the Mr., Estelle Harris as the Mrs.), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark, taking the duties from the late Jim Varney) and those squeaky alien toys.

It’s a cops vs. robbers setup in an old-time Wild West locale, with some new adjustments, such as spaceships, giant metal bridges that explode a la David Lean, and (gulp) nuclear weapons.

But, just when we’re consumed in this tidal wave of digital spectacle (compared to the charming splash that opened Toy Story), we’re pulled back into Andy’s room. The whole dandy action sequence we’ve just witnessed is all in the young boy’s imagination as he plays with his toys.

Didn’t we use to magnify all of our pastimes as if they were projected onto a 100-foot screen? Don’t kids have that boundless creativity and sense of adventure that make anything possible?

In an instant, we’re five years old again, creating elaborate universes alongside these small figments of plastic and polyester. The opening could not have been more perfect.

The Randy Newman favourite, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” cues up. But as the lyrics reach the refrain “And as the years go by, our friendship will never die,” the music halts and the crooning echoes as the screen turns to black. Silence follows.

In a mere five minutes, Toy Story 3 makes us feel like a kid again and then make us long for that childhood. That lyric used to be delightful. Now it feels false. Cue the next nostalgic 98 minutes.

Much like Pixar’s previous film, Up, Toy Story 3 deals with the sorrow one feels when aging. The citizens living in Andy’s toybox are desperate to be played with again. But after Andy refers to Woody and Co. as “junk,” many of them lose faith in ever being a plaything again. They just can’t take this kind of rejection!

The toys eventually sneak into a box bound for Sunnyside Daycare, a retirement home of sorts for toys who have outgrown their owners and can now be playthings for sets of adolescents day after day.

Sunnyside is governed by a plush, pink teddy bear named Lotso (Ned Beatty), and its well-groomed tour guide, a Ken doll (Michael Keaton, we’ve missed you). But even though the toys get their wish to stay at Sunnyside, Woody abandons the team to be with Andy at college.

But things go awry for the rest of Andy’s toys. They are not played with by the young children; rather, they are defaced, whacked around and injured by the hyperactive nursery kids. Worse, the toys soon realize the irony in the daycare’s name, as the facility is – and you’re reading this correctly – run like a Nazi concentration camp.

I need to express how dizzyingly dark Toy Story 3 is: it is the coldest, most morose and most sinister film in the Pixar pantheon. The toy dictators at Sunnyside are heartless and frightening. A prolonged sequence in a trash incinerator at the film’s end is also unnervingly intense, to the point where you accept that these toys may not make it past the scene’s end.

Pixar ups the ante with these chilling scenarios, but they’ve even outdone themselves (imagine that) with the whiz-bang inventiveness of the film’s second half, which consists of an elaborate escape planned by Woody to bust the toys out of Sunnyside. Mixed in with a dash of humour (el Buzz Lightyear), this frantic sequence is absolute fun.

The middle hour of Toy Story 3 packs itself with so many subtle jokes, colourful characters, amusing subplots and swerving tone shifts, it’s a stitch away from overdoing it. What makes it all work is the way director Lee Unkrich and screenwriter Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) understand that this story is worthless without these beloved toys.

We have such investment in the characters as they wallow in the dreary thoughts of losing their owner and as their lives are held in treacherous peril. We’re so caught up with their plight, it becomes quite difficult to think of the characters as any form of merchandise.

Think we feel these characters’ pain when they are being tortured by a room of pre-schoolers? Think again. We feel for their pain by imagining what it will be like if they cannot reconnect with the owner who has abandoned them.

As riveting the action, as shocking the horror and as sharp the comedy is throughout the film, it is a mere warmup for the emotional pungency of the last 10 minutes. If those 3D glasses are good for anything in this movie, it’s for hiding tears (although the extra dimension adds little, visually).

In several years, those who grew up watching the Toy Story series will revisit Andy’s toybox with their own children. The three films – which comprise a cinematic trilogy as good as there has ever been – are kind of like toys themselves: they should be dusted off every few years so we can revisit the moments we remember so vividly from our younger days.

Toy Story 3 is a film that reminds us of the times that have gone by while delivering us an experience we will not soon forget. To reference a line you’ll undoubtedly remember from the first film, Toy Story 3 doesn’t just fly. It falls (to its conclusion) in style.

Overkill is Underrated

The A-Team

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Jessica Biel

Running time: 117 minutes

At one point during the big screen adaptation of The A-Team, one character remarks that “Overkill is underrated.”

If you agree with that statement, you’ll be very pleased with the film, which packs in as many cheesy one-liners and relentlessly explosive action sequences that 117 minutes can offer.

It’s not high art, by any means. Nevertheless, it keeps itself reasonably grounded amidst all the mayhem due to the four central performances.

In the big screen update, the elite combat unit known as the A-Team still consists of cigar-munching strategy-man Hannibal (Liam Neeson), the slick, handsome Face (Bradley Cooper), the manic and insane (yet insanely funny) Murdock (District 9’s Sharlto Copley) and the hard-edged B.A. Baracus (newcomer Quinton Jackson).

But to keep up with modern times, they are stationed in Iraq.

The team receives word from CIA operative Lynch (Patrick Wilson) that insurgents have stolen valuable plates from the US treasury, which they are using to make counterfeit American currency. The crew sneak away in the night to retrieve the stolen goods, out of sight from the strict investigative captain, Sosa (Jessica Biel), who’s on their case.

But upon return to the base camp, the container with the money explodes. Since they disobeyed Sosa's orders, the team members are sent away to serve their prison sentences.

Of course, Hannibal has a plan to break them out – I’d say how but don’t want to spoil the silliness. Rejoining forces, the team is pumped up to retain the plates and seek revenge on those who put them away, clearing their names in the process.

Holding the bits of lunacy together is a great ensemble cast, which is the main reason to see The A-Team.

Neeson balances recklessness with a noble sincerity as Hannibal, and carries the film when the action dies down. As the cartoonishly romantic Face, Cooper has charisma to burn. As the cartoonishly offbeat Murdock, Copley brings a good barrage of laughs.

While mixed martial-arts star Jackson isn’t a full-fledged actor yet, he has an excellent screen presence and does well with the material. (Then again, nobody praised Mr. T for the depth of his performance, either.)

The film keeps the familiar catchphrases passed down from last generation’s TV show, but each member of the unit gets his own personality, style and formal introduction. They aren’t overly sophisticated, but what the characters do have they utilize well.

We are invested in their alpha-male types from the moment they appear on screen, which is boosted throughout by an excellent team chemistry.

Unfortunately, the other characters don't fare as well. Biel is quite useless as the DCIS captain and love-interest for Face. The A-Team also features one of the least menacing villains in recent cinematic memory.

On the brighter side, director Carnahan, whose last cinematic entry was the equally explosive ADD-actioner Smokin’ Aces, lets a lot fly – tanks included – in the highly-caffeinated action sequences. His thirst for high-octane thrills would make Carnahan an appropriate 5th member for the team.

His volatile method of filming, which includes camera shaking and extreme angles, helps capture the kinetic ridiculousness of what’s occurring on screen. Thankfully, it doesn’t make the sequences (which were likely written and story-boarded without the inclusion of gravity) hard to follow.

These accelerated bits of chaos keep our mouths full of popcorn, and are quite coherent due to some capable hands in the editing room.

Those who dismiss The A-Team as cinematic junk food are missing the point. It is junk food, knows it’s junk food, and knows the people who want to see it expect to stuff their faces full with sugar. And with a cast so good and such a shrill sense of goofy fun, there’s nothing wrong with that.

A Very Quirky Engagement

Micmacs

*** out of ****

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Starring: Dany Boon, Andre Dussollier, Nicolas Marie, Dominique Pinon and Julie Ferrier

Running time: 104 minutes

Ever since his one-two punch of Amelie and A Very Long Engagement enraptured critics and audiences (of the art-house kind), French auteur Jean-Pierre Jeunet took a small absence from the big screen. Judging by his latest project, Micmacs, it wouldn’t be unlikely if he had run away with the circus.

That’s because his latest satire, one which targets weapons manufacturing, is less a coherent film than one dazzling set-piece of shenanigans after another.

It tells the story of Bazil (French comedian Dany Boon), a video store owner whose cross with a store-side shooting leaves a bullet submerged halfway through his head, and has made him go a little haywire.

Out of work and with nowhere to go after leaving the hospital (the surgeons decide not to tamper with the metal fragments close to his brain), he is introduced to a band of misfits that are just as nuts as he is.

Among them is a human calculator, a toy-maker, a human cannonball, and an African whose vocabulary is limited to catchphrases and sayings you'd find in fortune cookies. Oh, and of course, a contortionist with a heart of gold.

Together, Bazil and his compadres set out to turn two rival munitions makers (Andre Dussollier and Nicolas Marie) against each other: one who produced the bullet lodged inside Bazil’s head, and one that is responsible for the land mine that offed his father and left him an orphan.

Paying homage to the silent-era zaniness of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin fare, Micmacs is light on its feet and agile in its comedic timing. If comedies were measured in smiles per minute, rather than laughs, this would be the funniest film of the year.

Raphael Beau’s score is whimsical and charming, and the cutting keeps the loopy missions coherent and sly jokes astutely timed and hard-to-miss.

The remarkably intricate design from Jeunet’s go-to decorator Aline Bonetto is also top-notch. The grandest set is the troupe’s junk-strapped home base, an overstuffed collection of mechanics and assortments not unlike what you’d expect to find in a shop from Diagon Alley (yes, that was a Harry Potter reference).

The dazzling set of cons assembled by Bazil and his crew are easily the highlights of the film. They range from espionage to explosions, and these nimble, multifaceted executions are a joy to behold. We love it when their plans come together.

Thankfully, the film is not all pyrotechnics and Rube Goldberg contraptions. Jeunet remembers to paint some of the misfits as people with purpose and a loyal camaraderie to each other.

Julie Ferrier’s contortionist bends to the demands of the others and Bazil, with whom she kindles a romance with, but is unhappy to be looked at as merely an object to assist his vengeful mission.

But other characters pile on the quirks without revealing any backstory to explain their craziness. Furthermore, many of them lack qualities that we could relate with.

Their over-embellished quirks are cute and amusing at first, but after a while, many of these cuckoos start to grate on our nerves. They feel more like pawns to assist the protagonist than living, breathing creations.

One’s adoration of Micmacs may depend on how much quirk your system can swallow in one sitting. Yet it’s a welcome relief in a summer of big, bodacious blockbusters to spend time with a wacky bunch of inspired characters, under the helm of a director with no shortage of ideas. It’s not the delicious charmer that Amelie was, but it’s a nifty treat nevertheless.

Art For Our Sake

Exit Through the Gift Shop

**** out of ****

Directed by: Banksy

Starring: Banksy, Thierry Guetta, Shepard Fairey and Rhys Ifans

Running time: 87 minutes

It was pop artist Andy Warhol who prophesied that, “In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes.”

And it is Bansky, a notorious guerilla art phantom that - like Warhol before him - forays into film to deliver a fascinating look into the psyche of celebrity and the underground world of street art.

His debut, Exit Through the Gift Shop, may be a thought-provoking, howlingly funny and thrillingly original documentary. It also may not be a non-fiction feature at all.

Since it debuted at Sundance, critics and audiences have questioned if the events in Gift Shop have any validity, and if sections are purposefully fake to coincide with the challenging questions Banksy – a modern art auteur if there ever was one – throws at us.

(I will refrain from delving too far into the details surrounding the claims that the film is contrived and manipulative – there’s no point in spoiling the pleasures for you folks.)

Gift Shop is a film about a documentarian, and one that's hard to forget: an unabashed French shop keeper named Thierry Guetta. He bumbles his English like Inspector Clouseau and a decade must have passed since his barber trimmed his sideburns.

Guetta discovers that his cousin is a rising street artist in Los Angeles. Street art is a term given to artworks that are placed in public spaces, and range from traditional graffiti to stencil art to wheatpasting.

His cousin specializes in pasting mosaic tiles of characters based on those from the video game Space Invaders, and the young artist begins to dub himself as “Invader.”

Captivated by his cousin’s entrance into an exciting new genre of modern art, Guetta begins to follow Invader around and record the genesis of his guerilla-art career during late-night missions across Los Angeles. The results of these adventures fill box after box of tape, and it’s not long until Guetta should just have his camcorder surgically attached to his hand.

The danger of recording this movement excites Guetta, and the eager videographer decides to expand his focus. Like a paparazzo, albeit an incredibly loyal one, Guetta begins filming other successful street artists, such as Shepard Fairey (notable for his ubiquitous “Hope” poster for the Obama campaign).

With his camera being the sole eye capturing the spray, Guetta tasks himself to create a documentary about the evolution of street art – as a result, much of Gift Shop is dimly lit and handheld.

Of course, this journey requires him to enter the upper echelon of the underground art world to find the reclusive success, known simply as Banksy.

While Banksy’s face appears in the shadows throughout the film's duration, and his voice is distinctly altered to keep his identity a mystery, other street-art figures, whose pieces are illegal and unsanctioned, brave the camera and show their faces. It is liberating to see these young creators bare their identities and show off their works, many of which are sublime.

Graffiti may be considered reprehensible, and much of what is sprayed onto alley walls have similar attributes to that of a toilet bowl. But there is a breathtaking amount of pleasure in watching subversive underground artists craft these bold, bizarre and sacred works, and set them up before unsuspecting pedestrians. Through Guetta’s camera, this world blossoms to life.

But Exit Through the Gift Shop is not merely an effort to broadcast the triumphs of a brazen art movement – it doesn’t try to paint these artists as heroes with spray cans.

Instead, Banksy’s film targets the phonies and the posers who withhold any artistic integrity. They are the people who decide to go the way of the film’s title, capitalizing on art by crafting works as a method for commerce rather than for expression.

We live in an age where the value of making concrete art has fallen by the wayside in a race for hype, fame and cash. Advertisements come from digitally altered images and their creators still win awards. People can become celebrities by uploading their videos onto YouTube or entering televised competitions, and are soon clearing their mantle for Grammys galore. What qualifies as true art anymore?

So, what happens when Guetta decides to ditch the camera and become his own street-art persona? The results may surprise you.

Gift Shop is one of those rare occasions where I can describe a film as “brilliant.” It brims with zest and humour and intrigue. It's an exciting look into a mysterious genre of art for the first hour, and then stops on the fly to turn into a potent analysis of the meaning of “art” in today’s society and what the term now connotes.

But whether or not Exit Through the Gift Shop is a “prankumentary,” as one critic has coined, there’s no denying it’s a one-of-a-kind treat: a movie that celebrates art that’s also a work of art worth celebrating. And that’s no joke.

He's Out of Their League

The Trotsky

*** out of ****

Directed by: Jacob Tierney

Starring: Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, Colm Feore, Saul Rubinek and Anne-Marie Cadeiux

Running time: 114 minutes

All high school comedies may be created equal, but The Trotsky is one that comes more equal than the others.

Headlined by a triumphant performance from rising Canadian actor Jay Baruchel and boasting with refreshing intelligence, The Trotsky is a delightful twist on a typically lowbrow genre.

Most films set at high schools stick to the modern day slang, fashion and hot-button teenage issues. The Trotsky, on the other hand, keeps its spirit rooted in Russian history (although the jokes about Stalin and Ayn Rand will resonate best if you weren't falling asleep in history class).

The comedy follows Leon Bronstein (Baruchel), a Montreal high-schooler who has convinced himself that he is the reincarnation of Bolshevik revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky.

An agenda in Leon’s room – a running joke throughout the film – outlines his industrious path, involving exile, marriage, assassination and meeting Vladimir Lenin (but not necessarily in that order).

His father (Saul Rubinek) believes that Leon is a head case – especially after he organizes a union among his dad's factory workers. Bewildered by his son’s irrefutable mindset, he drops Leon out of boarding school and enlists him in one of Montreal’s strictest private schools, headed by Lenin look-alike (for obvious reasons) Principal Berkhoff (Colm Feore).

With his skinny suits, Eraserhead hairdo and knack for making proclamatory speeches, Leon stands out among the rest of his senior class. With his school union (who merely stand there while he does the talking), Leon starts to implement some revolutionary ideas to liberate the apathetic high school masses.

He also falls for a hot-headed graduate student named Alexandra (Emily Hampshire), who Leon is keen to marry to keep with the thrust of his idol’s biography (Trotsky also married an older woman with that name).

Baruchel omits amazing range as our determined protagonist. Once resigned to wimpy supporting turns (Tropic Thunder, Knocked Up), the Montreal-born actor has matured into a credible leading man.

This is not a tiresome one-joke premise (and thank goodness it isn't). Baruchel's Leon Bronstein is an eccentric and noble teenager who speaks like a grown adult twice his age, but cannot mask a sincere teenage awkwardness underneath, especially in his sweet-natured coffee outings with Alexandra.

The mix of staunch integrity and romantic inexperience leads to a turn both dignified and charming. He may have visions of grandeur, but Leon’s still a teenager, ensuring that Baruchel’s performance resonates on more than just one stagnant emotional level.

Unfortunately, while Baruchel anchors the film, the rest of the characters are forced to be swept underneath his current. Writer/director Jacob Tierney forgot to give the other characters and story elements the time to breathe.

The most potent example of this is the Leon-Alexandra romance. In the first half, the comedy and conflict work: she is tired by his never-ending proposals of marriage, but the young Bolshevik-imitator is eager to offer his hand. But as his Russian revolution (of sorts) takes off, the love story is ignored, and therefore its resolution feels sudden and rushed.

Still, while nodding to Russian history, The Trotsky is proudly Canadian. From jokes about Ben Mulroney to the snazzy Montreal locales to a throbbing soundtrack with K’Naan and local Quebec rockers supplying the beats, there’s no denying where the film was set.

Having Canadian veterans Colm Feore as the dastardly principal and Genevieve Bujold as his rigid superintendent are inspired touches, indeed.

Some of the storylines may be left in exile, but Baruchel single-handedly leads The Trotsky to the heights of a minor classic, for both Canadian comedy and the high school genre. And I'm really curious to see how Leon ends up at university.