I can't lie to you, Internet. I was blinking back tears at the end of Toy Story 3. Not to spoil too much of the plot, but good god.
There's a scene at the end where Andy (the kid who "owns" Toy Story's entire cast of characters), now all grown up and going to college, gives away his toys to a neighbor's toddler, purely out of the goodness of his Disney-character heart.
The scene goes on for about ten minutes, and every single one of them was like an excruciating arm wrestling match against my impulse to just bawl in the theater.
In a movie that wasn't as well told, the moment would have been mawkish and repulsive―but sometimes, if a story really hits its beats, it earns a moment of genuine emotion. I was not expecting to encounter this type of catharsis during something in which a cartoon astronaut lip-synchs to Tim Allen's voice. My guard was down. I remain a man, even if my lip still gets a little quivery every time I think about how they'll... never see each other again.
Excuse me.
None of the small children in the theater seemed bothered. The sadness bundled up in the idea of leaving things behind was pretty clearly over their heads. Good children's movies always work on at least two levels, though, so I think they were probably enjoying themselves, regardless. I suspect some of them will feel the same gut-wrenching agony I did one day in fifteen years or so, when they're rewatching the movie for nostalgia value on mushrooms with their friends in some college dorm.
Unless by then movies can only be viewed in private, on approved devices, upon pain of death by electrocution from one's personal copyright-enforcing ankle bracelet. Then, at least, it would be okay to sob.
There was one other guy in the theater who seemed to be getting something out of the ordinary from the movie, but it wasn't what I was getting, and it wasn't particularly kid-friendly, either.
He was maybe in his fifties, with a scruffy beard and a pock-marked face, and he was wearing a trucker hat festooned, for some reason, with gold sequins. Every time something terrible would happen to the movie's protagonists―they ride off a cliff on a speeding train, say (this happens in the first ten minutes)―he would let out a long, phlegmy guffaw.
Is it better to be an innocent, to be an adult who mourns the leaving-behind of innocence, or to be one to whom innocence is irrelevant and laughable? A good children's movie finds a way to get ten bucks from all three.
There's a scene at the end where Andy (the kid who "owns" Toy Story's entire cast of characters), now all grown up and going to college, gives away his toys to a neighbor's toddler, purely out of the goodness of his Disney-character heart.
The scene goes on for about ten minutes, and every single one of them was like an excruciating arm wrestling match against my impulse to just bawl in the theater.
In a movie that wasn't as well told, the moment would have been mawkish and repulsive―but sometimes, if a story really hits its beats, it earns a moment of genuine emotion. I was not expecting to encounter this type of catharsis during something in which a cartoon astronaut lip-synchs to Tim Allen's voice. My guard was down. I remain a man, even if my lip still gets a little quivery every time I think about how they'll... never see each other again.
Excuse me.
None of the small children in the theater seemed bothered. The sadness bundled up in the idea of leaving things behind was pretty clearly over their heads. Good children's movies always work on at least two levels, though, so I think they were probably enjoying themselves, regardless. I suspect some of them will feel the same gut-wrenching agony I did one day in fifteen years or so, when they're rewatching the movie for nostalgia value on mushrooms with their friends in some college dorm.
Unless by then movies can only be viewed in private, on approved devices, upon pain of death by electrocution from one's personal copyright-enforcing ankle bracelet. Then, at least, it would be okay to sob.
There was one other guy in the theater who seemed to be getting something out of the ordinary from the movie, but it wasn't what I was getting, and it wasn't particularly kid-friendly, either.
He was maybe in his fifties, with a scruffy beard and a pock-marked face, and he was wearing a trucker hat festooned, for some reason, with gold sequins. Every time something terrible would happen to the movie's protagonists―they ride off a cliff on a speeding train, say (this happens in the first ten minutes)―he would let out a long, phlegmy guffaw.
Is it better to be an innocent, to be an adult who mourns the leaving-behind of innocence, or to be one to whom innocence is irrelevant and laughable? A good children's movie finds a way to get ten bucks from all three.
