By Mike Wilmington Wilmington@moviecitynews.com
Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Box Sets. Toy Story Ultimate Toy Box Collection;Toy Story 3D Trilogy
The Toy Story Ultimate Toy Box Collection (Blu-ray/Blu-ray 3D/DVD/Digital) (10 discs) (Four Stars)
U.S.: John Lasseter/Lee Unkrich, 1995-2010 (Walt Disney Video)
U.S.: John Lasseter/Lee Unkrich, 1995-1999-2010 (Walt Disney Video)
The Great American Feature Cartoon Trilogy, The Godfather Trilogy of feature cartoons actually (see below), crammed with extras. Of these two box sets, the earlier 10 disc “Toy Box” is the one to get, but the 3D Trilogy is at least more compact. And no, you don’t have to buy the toys too. Unless you have kids.
U.S.; John Lasseter, 1995 (Walt Disney)
Toy Story 2 (Four Stars)
U.S.; John Lasseter, 1999 (Walt Disney)
Toy Story 3 (Four Stars)
U. S. Lee Unkrich, 2010 (Walt Disney)
In many ways, the most important and influential American movie release of 1995 was director/co-writer John Lasseter‘s Toy Story, the first animated feature from Pixar — a visionary company that scored a big audience hit with this bouncy, funny tale of a community of toys who (just as we always expected) come alive when their boy-owner Andy (voiced by ) and his mom (Laurie Metcalf) leave the room. Among the delightfully computer-animated gang: stalwart cowboy Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), timid dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn), excitable Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), lovelorn Ms. Bo Peep (Laurie Potts) and the newest arrival, intrepid, granite-faced cosmonaut Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) — whose arrival creates a surfeit of heroes, and spurs a potentially dangerous rivalry between Woody and Buzz.
Toy Story seduced and conquered both audiences and critics, and it was succeeded by Toy Story 2 –in which Buzz and the gang have to save Woody from an evil toy seller Al (Wayne Knight) and a life in the Al’s Toy Barn toy warehouse museum, with yodeling Cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) and gabby old coot Stinky Pete (Kelsey Grammer). It’s one of the rare sequels that is both a totally logical outgrowth of the original, and maybe even better than its predecessor as both art and entertainment. It’s no exaggeration to say that Toy Story 2 is the Godfather 2 of feature cartoons. (See above.)
Both “Toy I” and “Toy 2,“ by the way, boast song scores by that sardonic song-writing genius, wicked Angeleno, and seeming nemesis of short people and long red lights, Randy Newman. His “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (from “Toy I“) is a great kid anthem. And his abandoned toy ballad “When She Loved Me“ (sung by Sarah McLachlan in “Toy 2“) is a real heart-tugger. (In Newman’s defense, for writing “Short People,” I’d like to point out that all the toys are actually quite diminutive, and that the songwriter’s heart is obviously with them.)
Toy Story 3, arriving a little more than a decade later, was a perfect series capstone and just what we’ve come to expect from Pixar: a brilliantly conceived and immaculately animated knockout of a family show, witty and scrumptious, moving and marvelous, and something that, again, parents can enjoy every bit as much as their children will.