Toys...Not Just For Tots

Toy Story 3 is, without a doubt, the BEST installment of the franchise!  See it and I beg you to disagree with me.  Its animated, clever, and downright funny action-adventure story line makes you wish you didn't sell your Barbies at that neighborhood garage sale when you were thirteen, claiming you were too "old" for Mattel products.  Oh, and did I mention that Michael Keaton voices the Ken doll with the fabulous dream house outfitted with a closet that would make Carrie Bradshaw green with envy??  In fact, Michael Keaton was the selling point to getting my husband to agree that he wasn't too "old" for Woody & Co. (Sidenote: my husband has a slight obsession with MK.  Just say Mr. Mom or Multiplicity and watch his face light up like a kid in a candy store!)

11 years.  That's how long we've had to wait for the third movie.  Toy Story 2 came out in 1999 (Toy Story hit theatres in 1995.  Box office sales for both films? $850 million globally!) which means I was in eighth grade.  Eighth Grade!!  I'm now 25 and married!  So why did the third movie take so long to get off the ground?  According to articles I've read, it's a long and complicated story but you can point fingers at former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, and the contractual tensions between Disney and Pixar.  After Eisner left Disney in 2005, Disney wound up buying Pixar under new CEO Bob Iger who appointed John Lasseter, the creative heart and soul of Pixar and the director of the first two films, to help run both studios' animated divisions which meant that Toy Story 3 was back in business.

In Toy Story 3, Andy is all grown up and going to college.  Andy (voiced by John Morris) is the owner of the beloved toys including Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), Rex (Wallace Shawn), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Slinky Dog (Blake Clark), and Barbie (Jodi Benson, who also voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid).  Andy's decision to put his childhood friends in the attic or donate them to Sunnyside Day Care is a pretty tough decision for every child making the transition to young adulthood.  How long should one hold onto that childlike innocence?  When are toys from your past no longer needed in your future?  And what do your toys do when they think you've outlived their affections?  For Woody and the gang, they get ready to embrace day-care life until they begin to comprehend that Sunnyside is more of a dictatorship than a democracy, run by cold-hearted Lots-o'-Huggin Bear, the Southern-accented, strawberry-scented leader of the day-care toys.  Now it's up to the Gang to bust out of day-care and get back to Andy before he leaves for college.  Richard Kind, Teddy Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, and Timothy Dalton, along with Keaton, voice new Sunnyside toys who partake in all the fun-packed (and emotional!) action.

Those of us who have grown up with the Disney/Pixar franchise have matured with Andy.  At some point we all threw our toys into the dusty chest in the corner to make room for more adult toys like cars, cell phones, and computers.  For me, it was my stuffed animals.  Feeling too guilty to give them up, my three favorite bears still sit on a chair in my childhood bedroom at my parent's house.  Someday, these lovable bears will bring joy to my son or daughter just like they brought me joy all those years ago.

And now that I know of the horrors toys face at day-care, donating them is entirely out of the question.

Sex and the Sand Dunes

Last week, thousands of women slipped into their six-inch Manolos, grabbed their Vuittons, and met the girls for a cosmopolitan before heading to the theatre in groups of four to see the much-anticipated sequel to the first Sex and the City blockbuster.  As for me (and yes I'm going to brag about this), I happened to be in Las Vegas for Memorial Weekend and saw SATC2 in true Vegas VIP style - in a private screening room that resembled a home theatre complete with large, cozy reclining chairs and the kind of leg room that makes you wish your legs were six inches longer just to take advantage of all that extra space!  Oh yeah, and I even got to munch on bottomless popcorn.  For an amateur critic, there was nothing amateur about this movie-going experience.

The movie, which takes the gals out of their beloved NYC and places them in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (another city synonymous with extravagant spending), was all kinds of couture cheesy but what else were you expecting?  Note to SATC fans: PLEASE don't see this movie if you have difficulty getting past the fact that the fab four don't always bend to Middle Eastern culture and gender roles.  For crying out loud people, it's Sex and the City for heaven's sake!  If the ladies weren't dripping in couture while riding camels, I would have been sorely disappointed.  As writer-director Michael Patrick King brilliantly puts it, "It was 110 degrees and they're out there in their Hermes and Chanel.  I mean it's crazy!  And it should be.  This movie never stops being big."

Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha, and... Liza?  Yes, Liza Minnelli guest stars in the sequel as the officiant of Stanford and Anthony's nuptials and even performs her own rendition of Beyonce's "Single Ladies."  Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus, and Tim Gunn also have cameos.  And then of course there's Aidan.  If the producers were intent on making this movie bigger than Big, they sure pulled out all the stops!

SATC2 picks up two years after Carrie and Big (finally!) tied the knot.  Carrie's (Sarah Jessica Parker) about to publish her fourth book and ponders what it means to be a married woman.  Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is struggling with the challenge of raising two young children (and then there's the braless-brogue speaking nanny...), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is dealing with a new boss from hell, and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is fighting the onset of menopause.  Each woman, in her own way, is resisting traditionally defined roles.  In the words of Cattrall, "To transport these emancipated new-millennium women to a world that has not changed, in a lot of ways, since biblical times was a fascinating idea... Using that kind of tension to comedic effect was very clever."

And just like Miranda's character was in this film (refreshing!) so too was the idea to put a movie about a lavish, exotic, five-star vacation on the big screen in the middle of a recession.  Hasn't escapism been the main draw of cinema throughout the generations?  I mean, who wants to see Carrie & Co. wearing polos from Target and shopping in thrift stores?  Boring!!

Sure SATC2 may not be as popular among the legions of extremely loyal female fans as the first movie, but I guarantee that you'll leave last season's Havaianas at the door in favor of this season's more fashionable Jimmy Choo's.