Toy Story 3

When I first saw the trailer for Toy Story 3, I was excited and sceptical at the same time. I was excited because it is my favourite Pixar movie franchise and sceptical because…well…you can see that from Shrek. The move of Toy Story 3 to 3D worried me even further as I thought do they need to do the Avatar gimmick (which I don’t think is a great movie anyway) to sell a well established franchise and its characters?

I went into the theatre, all worried and then 5 minutes into the movie I was completely blown away by the creativity and rich story that Pixar managed to create with our favourite characters. Toy Story 3 is about toys but it is not something that Pixar just toyed around to make another buck. It is about toys growing up with their owners and facing their own dilemmas and crisis in an innocent and “toyish” way. It is not just a kid’s movie as there are scenes that are so moving that even if you are a bloke you might want to bring a pack of tissue with you before you go into the theatre.

Toy Story 3 happens around 5 or 6 years after the second movie. Now Andy is all grown up into his late teens and going to the college. He and his family are facing the fact that the boy is all grown up and leaving home for a bigger world – and so are his toys. On the way to this part of the story, the toys have already lost some of their comrades to yard sales and “voluntary” disappearances (from those who move on to find new owners themselves). The remaining toys are the ones that Andy dearly loves and refuses to give away but keep them inside a chest in his room. The fact that Andy is moving out and clearing his room really caused a lot of anxiety for the toys and they are looking for resolution in their lives. The story just unfolds from this point onward.

Sounds familiar? Yes this is the phase that every grown up like us faced in our lives – what are we going to do with the toys that we once treasured but not as highly “regarded” by our parents? We all went through the heartache of watching our favourite toys being given away or being sold at yard sales. It is not a matter of we clinging ourselves to our childhood but it does feel like part of ourselves being torn away from us when this happens. This is an excellent territory that Toy Story 3 treaded into for Pixar created something so special that both adults and kids alike will enjoy.

Throughout the last 15 years, computer animation technology has improved a lot. When we look back at the first Andy showed in Toy Story, he was like a potato face with limited expression and human characters were largely avoided because of the technological limitations. Toy Story 3 exhibits a masterpiece that shows you – and all other movie makers – that technology advancement have to go hand in hand with rich storytelling to make a great movie. Late teen Andy is full of expressions and the details Pixar put in to tell the story about Andy and his toys growing up was so spectacular that they can rival real life actors’ performance. The voice over by great actors like Tom Hanks and Tim Allen without a doubt helped a lot to bring these characters to life.

Another great thing about Toy Story 3 is that after 15 years and with so many outings, Pixar still managed to deliver a creative movie that keeps on surprising you. The opening scene was breathtaking, creative and hilarious. The story between Barbie and Ken really took the movie by storm and sometimes sidelined Woody and Buzz. The lines given to Barbie and Ken will continued to ring inside your head long after the movie is finished. The innovative use of the detachable parts of Mr and Mrs Potato Heads just made you wonder “how did Pixar manage to continue to come up with such brilliant ideas after all these years?” Also the inclusion of Hayao Miyazaki’s Totoro and stayed true to that character really makes you appreciate the inclusive nature of the world Toy Story 3 created.

Toy Story 3 is not just another animation. It is a celebration of technology, character and rich story telling. I will highly recommend anyone who wants a good cinema experience to go and watch it. And for all the blokes, seriously, remember to bring a pack of tissue with you or ask for serviettes from the candy bar before you go in.

Oresteia

Greek tragedies are hard to tackle, especially in modern days. Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Oresteia is another bold attempt in its 2010 season. The results? On the night that I went, 1/5 of the audience left during the intermission.

The problem to me doesn’t seem to be in the text and in fact I think the text is well adapted by Tom Wright. But the whole production and experience was so disconnected that you sometimes do wonder what on earth is happening on stage? The play reminded me heavily of a segment in “War of the Roses” – lots of powder spraying and fake blood spilling – for no reasons apart from the apparent killing of certain characters. That use of these visual aids didn’t disturb me, but annoyed me when you got such an overdose for no apparent reasons.

I digressed. Back to the play. It is the story after Troy was destroyed at a time when Argos was trapped in time and space wondering what happened. The women of Agamemnon waited for the return of their king for different reasons. And the story unfolds to tell a tale of family curses and revenge – in Greek tragedy style. The play was modernised with characters entering and leaving in one of the three elevators, which is quite smart. But the smartness ended here.

The opening monologue started off well and then descended into a series of disjointed and unconnected words from the actor that you would lose your concentration and stared into the space like the actor did. The same actor continued with unstable performance throughout the whole play and as a key narrator / character, it really disintegrated the binding elements that are essential to keep the play together. As a result you feel like the actors are just doing each of their own thing. There seemed to be no communications among the characters despite the fact that conversations were being carried out.

Then it comes the chanting…and lots of them. What were they chanting for? There were times they were justified but there were other times you just kept wondering and wondering and they stopped and suddenly turned into dialogues and monologues that weren’t necessarily related to the chanting at all. I know art is abstract but the degree of abstractness exhibited in this production completely fell short to its story telling.

Having said that, there were some really good performances from the actors who actually “got it”. Tahki Saul and Zindzi Okenyo were the stand outs in the whole production. They nailed their monologues and lines perfectly and delivered performances that inhabit their characters completely. However, their presence on the stage was not long enough and it moved back to absurdity once they were off stage. The actor who played Queen Clytemnestra was not bad either with a good range of emotion displayed rightfully at right places. The other actors did a fair to average job but the disappointment was Ursula Mills whom I felt she sometimes really had no idea what the words coming out of her mouth meant, and with only facial expressions of 4, 6 and 7 and gestures 9 and 11 to play with during the whole 2.5 hour, it is really a stamina test for the audience.

Oresteia is an ambitious production that was disintegrated by its own ambition. It is over-stylised and underperformed. I was not surprised that half of the row in front of me was gone when I returned to the audience that night as all three of the other persons in the audience I happened to chat with during the intermission also disappeared from their seats in the far left. In my opinion, if you want to over stylised a production, first you need to get the actors to understand the text completely and this is definitely not the case in Oresteia. And man God forbid we waste milk as they did – there are people starving in other parts of the world you know? If you have spare money and time, I think you might get more out of your money by having a sip at the Wharf Bar.