Toy Story 3

Took the family to see the latest Pixar masterpiece, the final(?) installment of the Toy Story franchise. I went in with some expectations; being a toy collector, I spend a lot of time looking through the toy aisles. A lot of the TS3 merchandise I came across felt like spoilers. Fortunately, I avoided doing further detective work to piece together the plot and its resolution. It surpassed my expectations tenfold, and had me crying instantly and throughout the film. There was plenty to laugh at though, heroes to cheer for, villains to boo at, and edge-of-your-seat action. It was an emotional roller coaster, to say the least.

These movies go way beyond the gorgeous animation. Pixar has obviously perfected that tool, which they use to tell equally perfect stories about a beloved cast of characters. These stories are about family; sticking together, staying relevant, loyalty, friendship. This film deals with familiar issues for all of us; fear of abandonment, growing up and moving on, wanting to be held. Such an amazing job has been done over the past 15 years building the characters and their relationships. It's no wonder I have such an emotional tie to them. As a person whose played with toys all his life, I find comfort in the idea that mine are stored safely together at home in my attic. As a husband, son, brother, and uncle, I, at times, wish I could tuck my family away in similarly protective fashion.

It's unquestionably the best of the three Toy Story movies. The previous two were already awesome, so adding this one ranks it among the most perfect movie trilogies of all time. It's probably the best movie I'll see this year, probably the best movie I've seen in the past 10 years. I don't think a movie has impacted me emotionally like this ever. I haven't cried this much at a movie since Up, so it's no surprise that I did here even more. I'll still need the weekend to pull myself together, and maybe my bias will ease up and I can come up with a more level-headed assessment of the film. But really, if I try to think about the movie at all, the emotions come flooding back. I have to give credit to these filmmakers, who easily could have phoned it in, typically done with a third installment of a franchise. But they keep making films better and better and better. It's amazing that computer generated characters could effect me in such a profound way that no real live actor ever could or has. To the team at Pixar and Disney, on behalf of my family, We are eternally grateful.