Toy Story 3

They want a 4th film now? Get my agent on the phone!

Grade: A –

Director: Lee Unkrich

Starring the voices of: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, John Ratzenberger, Estelle Harris, and Timothy Dalton

MPAA Rating: G

Running Time: 1 hour, 43 minutes

After years of producing films of evolving maturity and sophistication, it is legitimate to consider whether Pixar and its parent Disney– not immune to the sagging economy – are milking its first and most lucrative cash cow for an easy money grab by unveiling Toy Story 3 15 years after the original entry and 11 years after its sequel.

Notwithstanding the studios’ motives, this tertiary return of Pixar’s beloved playthings fits firmly into the studio’s blueprint of growing with its original core audience. Andy (voiced by John Morris in all three films, to my point) is now 17-years-old and leaving for college, and Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), and the rest of the playroom worry they’ll be consigned to the attic or, worse still, the trash heap – the soldiers are the first to parachute away: “When the trash bags come out, we army guys are the first to go.”

Fearing the unknown but still yearning relevance, the gang escapes to an alluring daycare with a sinister underbelly. They are greeted by a virtual island of misfit toys, run by Lots-o’-Huggin’ (Ned Beatty), a huggable pink bear with a genteel Southern façade that masks a despotic plantation owner’s cruelty. Backed by Lotso’s hench-dolls – the spookiest baby this side of Chucky and a metrosexual Ken (Michael Keaton, having a blast) – our newcomers are banished to the Caterpillar Room, a hellhole director Lee Unkrich depicts with the frenzied madness of an early Sam Raimi horror flick or the riot scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

From there, Toy Story 3 becomes, of all things, a taut prison-break flick, with Lotso playing the part of the warden from Cool Hand Luke. He brainwashes Buzz by flipping the Demo switch beneath his battery cover, which leaves it to Woody to help his mates escape using some Mission: Impossible style strategizing.

The visuals (3-D version not necessary) are still gorgeous but now hued with a comforting retro quality. And, the series’ trademark humor is as snappy as ever, although the obvious, uneasy chuckles at the expense of Ken’s foppishness and Buzz’s amorous Spanish language mode are the sort of things Shrek sequels do – “Like your as-cot,” Barbie coos to Ken.

But, only Pixar could craft a charming fable about facing one’s mortality, including a relatively macabre turn that sees our plastic protagonists linking hands in quiet acceptance of a seemingly inevitable fiery demise. While trying to find his way back to Andy, Woody is innocently nabbed by a toddler named Bonnie, whose bedroom is filled with a troupe of stuffed animals led by a British hedgehog named Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), who treats every imaginary tea party or outer space adventure like a West End production. As Woody joins in their playtime, a look of sheer, long-lost ecstasy creeps across his face, overjoyed to be working again…needed again…wanted again. The scene speaks to the plight of the jobless in our current economic climate. More broadly, however, it illustrates the universal urge to find happiness and meaning in our existence.

The script by Little Miss Sunshine scribe Michael Arndt always couches these thematic complexities in terms of workmanlike fun until the poignant final five minutes, which packs an emotional punch rivaled only by Up’s opening act montage. Oozing with bittersweetness, the denouement’s lesson about both treasuring and letting go of the past elegantly concludes this seminal trilogy. Behind your smile will be a lump in your throat, as Toy Story 3 just might send you rummaging through the bygone boxes in your attic.

Neil Morris

Confessions of a Shopaholic

The economic stimulus debate - now in Technicolor!

Grade: B –

Director: P.J. Hogan

Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Lithgow, Fred Amisen, Robert Stanton, and Julie Hagerty

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

The time, place, and tenor of Confessions of a Shopaholic opens itself to obvious accusations that it is merely a cheap knockoff of such haute couture homages as The Devil Wears Prada and Sex and the City. Here, Manhattan-based protagonist Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher, Wedding Crashers) intones Carrie Bradshaw-esque monologues about fashion; her roommate, Suze (Krysten Ritter), physically resembles a cross between Devil costars Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt; Kristin Scott Thomas plays a frosty French style magazine editor, following in the Prada-clad footsteps of Meryl Streep.

Indeed, a disconnect seemingly runs throughout this adaptation of the first two books in British writer Sophie Kinsella's popular series. Fashionistas will ogle the endless array of Gucci, Burberry and Yves Saint Laurent literally bursting out of Rebecca's closet (the film's costume designer is Patricia Field, who did similar work for Devil ... and Sex ...). Meanwhile, other viewers will choose to focus on the revolving credit lines and compounding interest endemic to Rebecca's corrosive consumerism. Her predilection for $200 underwear and $78 jars of honey soon adds up to $16,000 of debt accrued on 12 maxed-out credit cards. At her most literal and cynical, Beck is a sherbert-colored offshoot of the debtor society that has marched us to the edge of our current economic precipice.

Foiled in her attempt to land her dream job with a trendy fashion journal, Rebecca settles for work at a struggling money magazine, where she parlays her angst into a column on financially prudent shopping. The column becomes an overnight sensation, catapulting Rebecca and her dreamy Brit boss (Hugh Dancy) into celebrity. All the while, Rebecca does her best to conceal her personal financial woes and dodge a persistent collections agent (Robert Stanton).

Aussie director P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding and My Best Friend's Wedding) keeps the message buoyant and mostly on point. Indeed, the film flies when Hogan accentuates the sly and surreal. During an elevator ride following a relapse of Rebecca's shopping binges, a muzak version of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" plays in the background. And, a veritable chorus of animated mannequins appears throughout the film to woo Rebecca with its siren song of crass consumption.

Hogan's keen direction complements sturdy supporting turns from Thomas, John Lithgow, Joan Cusack, John Goodman and even Julie Hagerty. But, Fisher's razor-sharp comic timing is the true star, single-handedly generating an effervescent, whip-smart spunk that carries the film through several dull spots. Thematically speaking, Confessions of a Shopaholic tries to have its cake and eat it too, but Fisher turns out to be the icing that hides any imperfections.

Neil Morris

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

Little Miss Sunny-Side-Up

Grade: B –

Director: Patricia Rozema

Starring: Abigail Breslin, Julia Ormond, Chris O’Donnell, Jane Krakowski, Joan Cusack, and Stanley Tucci

MPAA Rating: G

Running Time: 1 hour, 41 minutes

Although so mawkish it borders on banal, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is solid, innocuous children’s fare that will entertain pint-sized viewers while likely inducing their parents into a diabetic coma. Adapted from the “American Girl” doll and book series, the ubiquitous Abigail Breslin stars as Kit, a Depression-era, 9-year-old sprite who harbors dreams of writing copy for her hometown daily, the Cincinnati Register. Against a backdrop of financial hardship and class conflict, where selling eggs is just one step above hobos, Kit’s father (Chris O’Donnell) moves to Chicago in search of work, leaving Kit and her mother (Julia Ormond) behind to stave off foreclosure.

To make ends meet, the Kittredges rent their home to several boarders, including a ditsy mobile librarian (Joan Cusack), a leggy dance instructor (Jane Krakowski), and an unemployed magician (Stanley Tucci). They also barter for the labor of two young hobos, Will (Max Thieriot) and Countee (Willow Smith). When a hobo crime spree hits the greater Cincinnati area and the houseguests’ belongings go missing, Kit turns into a proto-Nancy Drew to track down the real thieves. Breslin’s shtick has grown increasingly weary over her past several films, but here her precociousness fits well with the whimsical milieu. She also benefits from a uniformly solid supporting cast, which also includes Glenne Headly and young Zach Mills as neighbors forced to move into the Kittredge home.

The film’s plot and characters form a facile meringue that, as with a good pie crust, is given shape by a genteel historical backdrop that dares to educate while entertaining its young viewers. While director Patricia Rozema flashes little filmmaking flair, she manages to maintain a delicate balance between sunny fantasy and its harsh reality underpinning, at least until a painfully saccharine denouement whose convenient loose-end tying treads into It’s a Wonderful Life treacle. For all the fancy of treehouse clubs and whodunits, we also get portraits – sunbathed as they are – of financially broken families and homeless shantytowns.

Kit Kittredge is an American story about an American girl mass produced, like their retail antecedents, for American consumption. Marketing an era of economic cataclysm? Hey, only in America.

Neil Morris