For Your Consideration: Toy Story 3

Assessing the year's best films, according to my refined tastes and, as usual, in no particular order (except this one). These are the top 10 movies I would select on my ballot for a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

Much like True Grit, this is one of the outliers on my top 10.

Toy Story 3 (G)
Voiced by: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen
Director: Lee Unkrich


Despite all the disappointments from 2010, there was a solid slate of animated movies that were far superior to a lot of live action movies (How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Tangled, Legend of the Guardians). Toy Story 3 is by far the best of them and is most definitely the best in the series. The movie wraps up all the toys' stories quite nicely and there's just a lot of fun with this one. The movie takes on a Great Escape-vibe and it works perfectly to tackle the underlying issues of the whole series - What happens when you're abandoned by those that you love? It's a very scary scenario if it wasn't all cute and about toys. But the movie finds deeper meanings in these adorable characters. I've even read a quite plausible Toy Story 3 Holocaust metaphor. Whether intended or not, it's hard not to argue that Toy Story 3 has a lot of depth to it. And that's what makes this movie fit in the Top 10 - I don't think I've ever felt more attached to any sort of animated characters as I do Woody, Buzz and the whole crew. The ending is gut wrenching and bittersweet. Not only because it's the end of Andy's relationship with his toys, but it's our ending with this franchise. Oh, I'm sure they'll try to make a sequel, but to me, this is the most fitting way to end their stories. Pixar has made it known they will only work on sequels when they deem the story completely necessary, but it seems they've already broken that vow with the Cars sequel. (Lightning McQueen dress up as a car super spy? Really, Pixar?) Sigh. The only bad thing I have to say about Toy Story 3 is the ending that seems to drag on forever! It's a bit over the top and I rolled my eyes a few times when they seemed to have been saved only to land in a much worse predicament. Just end the movie! Despite that tiny flaw, it's a wonderful film and completely deserving of the moniker "#1 Animated Movie of All-Time."