Two animated classics where intensity meets beauty.
Toy Story 3 (2010; Disney+ or your library)
As Andy gets ready to move to college, his toys visit a daycare that could become their new home. Toy Story 2 was a perfect sequel. So is Toy Story 3. It takes the themes and characters of its predecessors to the nth degree. Engaging action, great humor, and powerful emotions.
One thing that makes Toy Story 3 perfect is how much it accomplishes with each individual character. Andy has winnowed his toy chest down to the essentials, and each toy gets to shine. Buzz leads in Woody’s absence. Jesse looks under her boot. Rex is the comic relief (director Lee Unkrich finds Rex hilarious). Even the Potato Heads and the three aliens get a story arc. In the meantime, the film introduces a new playroom of delightful friends and a daycare full of… interesting characters (including a Ken voiced by Michael Keaton!).
That daycare is a great example of how Toy Story 3 takes everything to the extreme. SO MANY toys. SO MUCH trash. A LONG heist/escape sequence. And in the end, the MOST moving emotions. It balances these intense sequences with quiet scenes that are just as delightful. That scene where Woody first leaves Sunnyside through the bathroom window and the roof—it’s simply an entertaining sequence of figuring out how to get out, like a puzzle or an escape room. No dialogue. Just character, humor and mild suspense. Captivating and fun!
For sensitive viewers: Occasional rude humor. Intense emotions and peril, including a few slightly frightening villainous.
Fantasia (1940; Disney+, DailyMotion, or in disorganized pieces on YouTube)
A classical concert of animated music videos—for seeing music and hearing color. If Snow White and the epic Pinocchio were ambitious, Fantasia takes the cake: an experimental art film composed of two hours of animation as “high class” as its soundtrack. Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky—this is a concert. If we pay to go to concert performances, why not this? Two for the price of one: great music and great animation.
Except, it’s boring.
The problem, I think, is that we’re used to cartoons. Animation is usually fast and funny—in a word, animated. Here, visions change in step with the music, and the music takes its time. Perhaps this is why most people would only recognize the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment—a straightforward, comedic story with Mickey Mouse, about the right length for an animated cartoon. Everything else is ambiance, brooding, color, dancing.
However, when you know what you’re getting into, it can be exciting. There may be sequences of centaurs or fish just grazing about everyday life, but there are also dinosaurs and explosions! The devil hosts a witches’ Sabbath; an endless line of nuns overcomes the darkness with candles. Besides, how often do you get to watch centaurs? It pays off. And there are seven quite different segments, so if you don’t like one, you might like the next. If it’s still not your speed to give this film your full attention, it is at the very least some good background art while you get something else done.
I have a theory about this movie. I propose that the seven segments match the seven days of Creation in Genesis 1:
1) Light and darkness, 2) the waters (and underwater), 3) gathering the waters, haha, 4) sun, moon, and stars, 5) flying animals (and water animals), 6) land animals, 7) Sabbath rest.
Do they match? Is the order of segments at least a jazz riff on this Ur-story of Creation? Is the whole film a pattern of multiple parts in harmony and disharmony, like the members of an orchestra, in this incredible symphony of life?
For sensitive viewers: Segments 2 and 5 feature nude mythical creatures—tiny fairies and female centaurs. The latter lasts only for the first part of the segment. Dinosaur and other predatory animal violence in segment 4. The “witches’ Sabbath” mentioned earlier is intense, but light will have the last word.
Nathan’s Writing Update
I am pleased to announce that my Toy Story video essay is nearly done! I have completed the editing through my commentary on Toy Story 3. Each segment has landed at almost exactly 4 minutes long, and I’m glad for the balance. If all goes as planned, I will complete this and uploaded it to YouTube this week in time for our final blog for the month! Best of all, it appears that the automatic YouTube copyright police understand that I am not posting the whole copyrighted content of any of the films in the video, so they are not going to restrict visibility! That is, except for the use of “Dream Weaver” that will make it invisible for the first month in two countries. Something about music contracts in Russia and Belarus…?