Walden has just about mastered the art of turning the very best in children’s literature into very fine family films. It doesn’t get any better than Beverly Cleary’s marvelous series of books about Ramona Quimby and her family, and here director Elizabeth Allen (who showed a gift for stories about young girls with “Aquamarine”) brings them to life in a way that both fans and those new to the characters will enjoy.
Joey King is just right as Ramona, age 9 years and 3 months, a girl with a big imagination and an even bigger heart, both of which get her into trouble when she tries to help out without thinking things through. As in the books, the Quimby family is instantly relatable and utterly irresistible, funny, touching, and completely endearing.
It helps to have first-class talent among the adult performers. John Corbett (“Sex and the City” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) and Bridget Moynahan capture the believably lived-in feeling of experienced parents who are almost always there when needed and are always ready to be captivated by their kids. The always appealing Josh Duhamel as the uncle of the kid next door and Ginnifer Goodwin as Ramona’s beloved Aunt Bea make their love story work while keeping the focus on Ramona and her view of the world.
Ramona’s perspective is expertly handled, and some of the best moments give us the world through her imaginative point of view, whether turning a hole in her house during construction into a portal into adventure or believing that an embarrassing moment on the jungle gym is a humiliation heard around the world. The harshest criticism of Walden’s faithful adaptations of children’s literature classics is to say that they are a little too faithful. They err on the side of literalism rather than taking greater liberties to get the benefit of the full range of cinematic storytelling. That saps some dramatic tension from the movie, making it feel a little too episodic and discursive. But if it re-creates the feeling of the book that way and especially if it inspires young viewers to read it for the incomparable pleasure of Beverly Cleary’s writing, then that is fine with me.
Characters in frequent peril, tense confrontations, bully, dealing with loss
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
June 18, 2010
Date Released to DVD:
November 2, 2010
Amazon.com ASIN:
B00275EHJG
You won’t just forget you are watching an animated movie; you will forget you are watching a movie. That is how completely we enter this wonderful world, and how reluctantly we leave it.
“Toy Story 3” has more honest, acutely observed, and engaging characters, a more authentic understanding of the poignant complexities of the human condition, bigger laughs, and better action than most live-action films and is close to being as authentic and involving as real life. You have to remind yourself, a little sadly, that these are not toys you’ve played with and people you know. It is by any standard and in any category a masterpiece.
It was just 15 years ago that Pixar released the first “Toy Story” and changed the course of movies forever. They made it about toys because the limited motion and smooth, shiny surfaces of plastic made it possible to hide the limitations of the technology of the time. And as they have with every film they produced, they made the story and the characters come first. It was the writing — and the voice performances by Tim Allen and Tom Hanks and the rest of the cast — that made the movie come to life. Ten record-breaking, genre-shattering films later, Pixar returns to the story of Buzz and Woody with all of the humor and action and even more heart. The early works were kids’ movies adults could enjoy but as they showed with “Up,” they are now making films for grown-ups that kids will appreciate.
As with “Up,” “Toy Story 3” begins with a brief flashback sequence filled with a breathtaking mastery of telling, evocative detail. Once there was a time when children played with toys powered by imagination rather than batteries. We go back in time to see Andy playing out a fabulously inventive adventure and the buoyant energy of his vision, acting rather than re-enacting, is jubilant with the pure pleasure of making things up. (This must be what it is like to work at Pixar.)
But time has gone by. Andy is packing for college and the only way the toys who love him can get his attention is to hide his cell phone in the toy box. He has to clear out his room. Where will the toys go?
Through a mix-up, they find themselves at a day care center where they are at first warmly welcomed by the toys who live there, led by Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (voice of Ned Beatty). It seems perfect; with new children coming every year they will never be outgrown or neglected. “No owners means no heartbreak.” They have a chance to do what they love — making kids happy.
But things begin to go very badly. They are placed with children who are too young to make up stories for them or care for them. When Buzz Lightyear protests, he is rebooted, restored to his original programming. Once again, Woody must come to the rescue, and once again, they must decide what their purpose is and where their loyalties are.
The first movie came out in 1995, but the toys were intentionally retro, more familiar to the parents in the audience than the children. The little green soldiers, the barrel of monkeys, the Potatoheads, the slinky dog, and the cowboy were old school. Part of the poignancy of the first film was the arrival of the first battery-powered, space-age toy, Buzz Lightyear. And part of the charm of the second film was its theme about what value means — is it better to be in mint condition forever and sold on eBay as a collectible or to be played with and loved, knowing that childhood is brief and the person you are devoted to will leave?
The new characters in this film are perfectly rendered replicas of toybox classics (bet you grown-ups can’t get through the movie without saying to the person next to you, “I had that!”) and originals that fit in so perfectly you can almost remember seeing the ads and humming the jingle. Barbie (voice of “The Little Mermaid’s” Jodi Benson) and Ken (voice of Michael Keaton) show some unsuspected depth (her political views are surprisingly well-founded) and he has some unanticipated growth opportunities. His wardrobe provides some of the movie’s most delicious moments, especially when he reverses the usual movie convention to put on a montage try-on session. I also loved Mr. Pricklepants (voice of Timothy Dalton), a Vincent Crummles-style thespian (a stuffed and stuffy hedgehog) who reminds Woody about the pleasures of play, a theme that gently deepens and expands, so entertainingly you don’t realize how stirring it becomes.
All of this is done with wit and style and action-packed chase scenes, and then it is brilliantly, perfectly resolved, showing us that the time the toys spent with Andy helped to make him who he is. I dare you not to cry. It’s a happy ending that like all great movies makes us think more wisely about our own sense of purpose and connection. And it reminds us, too, of the pleasures of imagination by showing us what it can achieve.
Even in the era of Skype and Foursquare, it is hard to stay connected when one half of a couple is in New York and the other half is in California. Erin (Drew Barrymore) and Garrett (real-life on-and-off beau Justin Long) meet just as she is finishing up a newspaper internship in New York and getting ready to go back to California to finish school. They immediately bond over the Centipede arcade game and playing trivia. Within hours of meeting they have a tipsy but tender sexual encounter (to the strains of the “Top Gun” soundtrack). They like each other. And just as they discover how much, she has to go back home.
So what comes next is the kind of old-fashioned courtship people used to have before they went to bed together, in the days when people did not take their clothes off until they decided they probably loved each other first. The essential sunny sweetness Barrymore brings to the role and the almost-quaintness of the way they try to stay close when they are far provide a tender grounding to the chaos around the couple caused by economic conditions in both of their fields (he works for a record label) and the usual gang of quirky friends and relatives who exist to populate romantic comedies. I believe they have evolved from the classical Greek chorus as a device for exposition and making the main characters seem normal by comparison and also lovably tolerant.
Here the surrounding group is top-notch, with Christina Applegate, who is superb as Erin’s tightly wound but affectionate sister and Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis as Garrett’s clueless but affectionate guy-buddies. The raunchy humor is delivered in a matter-of-fact way that can be very funny and true to the honest spirit of the characters and the pressures of the economy are lightly but effectively conveyed. The best news about the script is that it avoids the usual rom-com staples of misunderstandings and incompetence. Director Nanette Burstein and her movie trust us and trust its characters as it allows them to learn to trust each other.
After two years as Mrs. Big, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) admits that she’s feeling a bit too “Mr. and Mrs. Married.” Mr. Big (Chris Noth) wants to stay at home with take-out and cuddle while watching black and white movies on the big-screen TV he thought was a wonderful anniversary gift. But Carrie, who apparently wanted to get married because she thought it would be just like dating but better because she wouldn’t have to worry about whether the guy was into her, thinks they should be dressing up (and as we all know, that means DRESSING UP) to go to crowded events featuring red carpets, velvet ropes, and high, high fashion. Big wants to pass on that? Go figure!
That conflict is about as close as we get to a plot in the leisurely 2 1/2 hours of “Sex and the City 2” onslaught of fabulousness. When Carrie tells Big it is hard to keep “sparkle” in their relationship after a while, she is speaking for the highly lucrative franchise as well. Once we left everyone living happily ever after once in the television series and then again in the feature film, how many eggs are we really willing to unscramble to crank it all up again?
Not too much, which leaves us with about 150 minutes that feel more like an infomercial than a story.
The first movie ends with a wedding; the second begins with one. In the television series, Carrie and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) each had the fashion-forward divette’s most indispensable accessory, a gay man to serve as adviser, confidante and acolyte and to provide an endless supply of “you go girl” support and guidance. They hated each other on sight. But fabulousness requires that somehow, off screen, they decided they were in love. And so we begin with a wedding that makes over the top seem under the bottom. When a guest, observing the gay men’s chorus singing show tunes, the swans, and the “snow queen exploded in here” decor asks rhetorically if it could be any gayer, the answer arrives as the officiant turns out to be Liza Minnelli, who throws in a rousing rendition of “Single Ladies” after the vows. With a brief flashback to explain how the fabulous foursome originally met so we can see their 80’s looks (I predicted Miranda’s power suit with gym shoes look but not Samantha’s efforts to channel Lita Ford) the movie hits its high point.
To get the ladies and the story away from the dreariness of post-financial meltdown economic doldrums, the foursome jets off to a luxe week in Abu Dhabi (filmed in Morocco). The burka and camel humor (Charlotte actually falls off a camel) has the sophistication and cultural sensitivity of a Hope and Crosby movie. But there is a brief if awkward nod to global sisterhood and at least the Mideastern characters are played by Mideastern performers. The real fantasy here is not the endless spending power of the ladies or the objectification of the men; it is the way they eat and drink and loll around but still maintain their highly disciplined figures and radiant complexions.
The trip gives them many opportunities to change clothes (they put the “lug” into “luggage”). And it is here where the story veers into Lucy and Ethel territory and the puns get truly painful. Samantha (Kim Cattrall) worries about menopause (the movie makes some very dangerous endorsements of self-administered medications that have been called quackish and even harmful). Charlotte worries about whether her husband will be tempted by the nanny (the gorgeous Alice Eve as “Erin go braless”). Miranda wonders who she is away from her job. And who does Carrie run into on the other side of the world but the one who got away, Aidan (John Corbett).
It starts to get out of control more than once, but it continues to be grounded in what made the series work — the unconditional love and support of the four friends. On the other hand, we never see them providing any support to the men in their lives. Carrie’s insistence on going out is particularly poorly timed because her husband has had a difficult day at the office. She never makes any effort to understand what it means to him to have the market drop 100 points or to express anything but petulance and self-absorption. This movie is a grown-up equivalent of playing with Barbies and Carrie’s ideal man is an 8-year-old’s idea of what a Ken doll boyfriend (with operative ability) should be like. They are forever devoted, out of the way when not wanted, make no demands, look good in formal wear, and give lots of bling. We are supposed to find her endearing, but when she is with Big, she seems like a selfish child. Even the mistake she worries about is all about her, not about him.
And yet, I found myself smiling as I watched more than once. Writer/director Michael Patrick King knows it is not the fashion or the romance we tune in to see but the bond between the women who acknowledge that they are each other’s soul mates. It isn’t the fantasy of glamor and Ken doll boyfriends we respond to. It is the reality of women’s friendships, which we love to see recognized and appreciated.
Go back in time with a sumptuous new 25th anniversary Blu-ray or DVD of the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Even Doc Brown could not have imagined that a quarter-century after Marty McFly got to meet his parents as teenagers and change the course of history the movie would be available with all kinds of fabulous extras including storyboards, interviews, and trivia. Can you believe that in Part 2, when he goes forward in time to an era with hoverboards and fuel made from garbage they’re in….2015?
I have two copies to give away, one DVD, one Blu-Ray. The first to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Back to the Future DVD” or “Back to the Future Blu-Ray” in the subject line and your address and favorite scene from the movie will be the winners. Good luck!
And check out the new “Back to the Future” game with Christopher Lloyd providing the voice for Doc Brown and a sound-alike for Michael J. Fox.
