By Divina

June 18^th has come and gone and we have a new shining star of a movie from Disney Pixar.  I was so excited for this new release but also a bit cautious.  

You must understand readers, I LOVE Toy Story 2 whenever I have a bad day and need a pick me up I reach for one of three movies: Toy Story 2, Singing in the Rain and Little Mermaid. So when I heard that fellow reviewers said it was better than the second I had high hopes and many anxieties.

What if Disney Pixar ruined the Toy Story series for me in hopes of something more edgy, more actiony etc for the big finale, thankfully, my worries were unfounded. Though I don’t think Toy Story 3 is better than Toy Story 2 (I cried a little too much though number 2 will always be my favorite) it was movie excellence.

Disney Pixar has created a new kind of love story with Andy and super loyal toys Woody (Tom Hanks) Buzz, (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Hamm (John Ratzenberger), Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) and others.

Andy is now 17 years old and heading off to college. His mom tells him to face the music either throw away, donate or put in the attic his unused toys.  The toys led by Woody and Buzz must face the prospect of life in the attic with hopes of one day playing with Andy’s kids.

The entire movie is one final goodbye that starts in Andy’s imagination and how his pals Woody and Buzz always save the day and capture the bad guys. As time passes Andy grows up and we realize we have lost some friends through the years. Finally only the favorite few are left and the toys wonder what is next for them.

After being accidently thrown away and then donated to a daycare the toys find life after Andy with new friends and new opportunities but are they ready to stop being Andy’s toys?

The story is just heartwarming/heartbreakingly beautiful. Each scene made you laugh out loud or tear up. Continue Reading

About Divina Rodriguez

Divina is a wife, a Mami of 2 boys under the age of four and a full fledged social media butterfly with a Masters in Communications. She loves sharing the best of Disney on TheDisneyFiles.com whether its movies, video games, shopping or the themeparks. In addition to TheDisneyFiles, Divina writes about entertainment, technology and family products on www.DancingHotdogs.com and is a founding mother & partner at Trumpeting Media, a social media consulting company that is dedicated to using social media for social good.

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By Divina

I have to say one thing about Disney Pixar, hit after hit they always manage to keep surprising me, especially with the level of talent they have within the Disney Pixar organization.  The writing, the computer graphics, the directing and every other element of the movie is so well done it leaves no room for competition.  Yet with all the talent and excellent story telling prowess I was really disappointed by UP.

Quick synopsis: Ballon salesman Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner (the Boss from The Mary Tyler Moore show ) has lost the love of his life and is being pushed out of his lifelong dream home because of corporate suit-wearing developers.  He reaches his limit and decides to fulfill his lifelong dream he shared with his wife of visiting South America by blowing up thousands of balloons which he ties to his house and flies away.  Everything is good until Carl discovers thousands of miles up in the air he has an eight year old stowaway along for the trip.  Throw in some talking dogs, the jungles of South America and disgraced adventurer voiced by Christopher Plummer (he has done so much but I know him only as the dad from Must love Dogs ) and you have an adventure story from Disney Pixar.

Why was I disappointed?

This was a supposed comedy adventure family movie so why was I crying all the time?

There was some very adult topics discussed in the movie like death, divorce and life after  you lose a loved one and your world falls apart.

The graphics were exceptional along with the writing and directing.  Disney Pixar’s favorite actor John Ratzenberger  also makes another appearance. 

There was some funny moments in the film but the main message of the movie is life is too short! 

Don’t wait to have your adventure. 

Timing will never be perfect. 

You will never have enough money but we only get one life so make the most of it.

All in all a good movie but I would not bring small children to this movie unless you want another Marley moment.

Eddy’s Note: As far as I am concerned this was Pixar’s attempt to make not a cartoon, or children’s film but a true film with absolutely no age restrictions, which I believe they succeeded in doing.  I feel that Pixar has reached a point in movie making that they were no longer driven by providing movie goers with exactly want they want all the time (something that DreamWorks does with their movies ie. The Shrek series) ultimately they would have ended falling in a rut. Therefore, they decided to challenge the audience, both adults and children, into watching a movie with a deeper meaning and much more emotion that was present in their past movies.  To me this was a logical transition from Wall-E, and signifies substantial growth on the part of Pixar and it’s creative teams.

The true challenge for Pixar will be to continue this growth while staying within the confines of their older stories, which we will see with the sequels to Toy Story and Monsters Inc. They will no longer have the benefit of an original story of which they can manipulate and move to their purposes. 

While I agree with Divina that I was not overwhelmed with love for the movie like I have been in the past, I do find myself even more intrigued in what they will think of next.

About Divina Rodriguez

Divina is a wife, a Mami of 2 boys under the age of four and a full fledged social media butterfly with a Masters in Communications. She loves sharing the best of Disney on TheDisneyFiles.com whether its movies, video games, shopping or the themeparks. In addition to TheDisneyFiles, Divina writes about entertainment, technology and family products on www.DancingHotdogs.com and is a founding mother & partner at Trumpeting Media, a social media consulting company that is dedicated to using social media for social good.

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By Gem

I am a great lover of all things Disney and Pixar.  Because of my lovely mother, I was raised watching musicals, "Singing in the Rain", "The King and I", "Sound of Music", "Bye-Bye Birdie", you name it,  I have seen it.  I am only 27 years old but my favorite movie 1950s musical called "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".  I love it when Hollywood puts music into the story.  (I can’t wait for "Mamma Mia" to come out.  I saw the Broadway show and want to see how Meryl Streep holds her own.) Then add my other favorite movie, "Little Mermaid" coming out in 1989 and making a seven year old D a worshiper at the alter of Disney.  So to say the least, I was very excited about the new Pixar release. 

When new movies come out I try not to read reviews on them so I go in watching the movie with an open mind.  I heard WALL*E got great reviews and the director was the same guy who had done Finding Nemo.  So I walked into the theater thinking this was going to be an adventure story similar to Finding Nemo.  Imagine my surprise that after watching the whole movie it turns out to be a sweet love story between two robots!  Hey give me a break!  I just had a baby so I have been  kind of busy.

Quick Synopsis, a thousands of years into the future, Humans (why do they all look American and only speak English?) have polluted Earth so much it is just a wasteland of garbage.  All life forms have died or left the planet on a Space Cruise line.  WALL*E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) is the last of his kind robot. His directive is to clean up Earth and consolidate all the garbage into cubes.  Since there was so much garbage all of his fellow robots have ceased to function ( further showing how we have destroyed the planet.)  After hundreds of years of solitude, WALL*E has evolved and has a personality.  He likes watching musicals, collects interesting garbage (rubix cube, Christmas lights etc.) and has a pet Cockroach.  The story moves forward with the arrival of EVE a new sophisticated robot with a directive to find life on Earth so humans can finally come home.    WALL*E is smitten by EVE and does everything robotlike possible to get the girl.  EVE gets picked up and so begins WALL*E adventure across the galaxy to rescue his fair maiden. Through his journey this little robot changes the lives of everyone he comes in contact with.

WALL*E was a fantastic movie for the whole family.  Really a love story at heart but with its humor and robot action sequences everyone will have a good time.  Pixar is known as the innovators of CGI (computer generated imagery) and in this film they live up to their name.  The space scenes are amazing and look almost real.  The story was really well written and the characters were lovable.  I especially loved the malfunctioning robots who become unlikely heroes after they meet WALL*E.  For the first 45 minutes of the movie, there is no talking what so ever as, we are introduced to this little robot and the future Earth.  Surprisingly enough during this entire time, the story writers kept my attention. The only negative was until WALL*E’s adventure began it was just a bit to preachy.  Again, it’s the future and all the humans that look suspiciously like Americans, have completely destroyed beautiful planet Earth.  We can no longer live on Earth so we fly around Space waiting for Earth to be cleaned up for us.  Just as in real life during the Cruise the people just eat and are constantly waited on.  So we are all now lazy and obese.  Does that sound like a children’s story to you?  Luckily, WALL*E saves the day,  and he makes us realize that Earth is worth saving.  This being a Pixer film, John Ratzenberger voices one of the humans.

In true Pixar fashion, the film is innovative, fun and a vision of CGI at its best.  I would definitely recommend watching it in the theater and of course owning it forever.

About Divina Rodriguez

Divina is a wife, a Mami of 2 boys under the age of four and a full fledged social media butterfly with a Masters in Communications. She loves sharing the best of Disney on TheDisneyFiles.com whether its movies, video games, shopping or the themeparks. In addition to TheDisneyFiles, Divina writes about entertainment, technology and family products on www.DancingHotdogs.com and is a founding mother & partner at Trumpeting Media, a social media consulting company that is dedicated to using social media for social good.

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