Toy Story 5

I saw Toy Story 2 in the theater when it came out in 1999 and I was 21 years old. I remember watching the movie for the first time, to the this day I remember it, because it was one of the rare times that I cried in a movie as an adult. When the Sarah McLachlan/Randy Newman song When She Loved Me started, Jesus Christ, my chest got all tight, I couldn't breathe, I might even have had a minor panic attack, but I did not feel great because I was emotionally shredded by what I was seeing and hearing on the screen.

(My god, I just watched like, 20 seconds of it on YouTube and had to turn it off. Like, they should put a trigger warning on that video. Warning: Might drown your heart in a bucket of boiling tears, as a wise man once sort of said. )

Well, cut to 27 years later, and the nice folks at Pixar and Disney decided to take that traumatic and perfect scene from Toy Story 2, and then make a WHOLE MOVIE OF THAT SCENE. MY GOD.

Folks. I might of cried a little bit. I was stoic as shit through the whole thing. Laughing and enjoying myself, and REFUSING to let myself give in the FEELINGS. The weird, awful, deeply buried feelings.

There's a thing that you find out in this movie that destroyed me. Like, everything I felt in Toy Story 2 when I was 21 came shooting right into my heart and I had to sit there with my jaw clenched and my eyeballs stinging. It was awesome y'all!

I am flabbergasted by how much I enjoyed this movie, that I almost didn't see at all. Toy Story 4 didn't work for me. I didn't enjoy it, I don't particularly care to ever see it again. I think Toy Story 5 is now my favorite of the entire series. It was incredible. Just wonderful.

It felt like this one had something to say, and it was a smart something. You think you know where it's going, because a lot of movies and TV shows go this way, but then it doesn't. It goes a smarter, more interesting way. What it does, actually, without spoiling the movie, is heal a lot of the wounds left in me by Toy Story 2 (which was my favorite before this one came out) and I appreciated that so much.

Listen: I'm not really a guy who goes to a lot of cartoon movies. I don't look down on them, but I don't generally find them entertaining these days. I like some of the old animated 2D hand drawn Disney movies. The classic ones. Jungle Book, Alice, Little Mermaid, those movies still hold good will in my heart. But I don't go see like, Minions or How To Train Your Dragon or like, Lego Batman or any of that stuff. It just don't do a lot for me. Nothing wrong with them, and I can enjoy a good one from time to time. I liked those Spider-Man Spiderverse cartoons. Those were good. But otherwise, not for me.

Except for Toy Story. Like I said, I almost let this one go out of theaters without seeing it, guaranteeing that I would never end up seeing it. But, we had a boring Saturday and I thought hey, lets go see us some Toy Story, and I sure glad I did.

The movie centers Jessie for the first time, and I was excited to see that. It's definitely Joan Cusack's movie, and I loves me some Joan Cusack. In fact, I got blocked by John Cusack on Twitter because I posted that I thought the math went like this: Joan Cusack > John Cusack. I guess he didn't like that and blocked me. GOOD. It's TRUE. Block me again, Chucklefuck, I dare ya. Not that I'm on Twitter anymore. I'm not a C.H.U.D..

THE SCORE! It's INCREDIBLE. This is gonna sound shitty, but I had to ask Sandra to look up if Randy Newman did the score or not, because it sounded much more ambitious than any of the other Toy Story movies, and I really enjoyed it. It felt like the soul of the movie.

HEY! I love Randy Newman. Maybe even more than you do. But I can also admit that he has a lane. Or I thought he did. This one felt bigger, and more boombastic, and not what I expected from Randy, but I was happy with it.

This movie has a lot to say, and it says it all very persuasively and thoughtfully. It feels like a modern movie. Not a cheap way, just in a savvy way. It knows all the tricks, and how to use them.

Anyway, if you like Toy Story movies, this is a damned good one. The best one, I think. Also, if you delightful things, here's miss Swift with Randy. Because even though me and Tay are on a break, this made me happy.