TOY STORY 3 (3D)

Thank God it was so dark in there, I choked on a sob towards the end and wouldn’t have wanted all those kids to mark me. I’ve never seen a Toy Story, but then, I’ve lived one. I played with my batch overlong, in love with their haywire scale and serendipitous congruencies, their eloquent language of gesture and pose. Sartre: “Each object possessed, raised up against the background of the world, manifests the entire world…” The Silver Jews: “When something breaks it makes a beautiful sound.”

Woody (determined as Jonah Hex), buddy Buzz Lightyear, Jessie the cowgirl, the halfwit dinosaur, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (Jews), a soon-to-be radicalized Barbie, and all the rest wind up accidentally re-routed from a quiet retirement in now-grown Andy’s attic to a daycare center full of crazy-hyper toddlers. And find themselves at the mercy of an evil transitional object named Lotso, who rules the place with the aid of a swish Ken, an outsized doll called Big Baby, and a panopticon-monitoring monkey with cymbals poised at alarm. Our heroes’ dilemma: return to the boy whose name is etched on their bootsoles, or fulfill their purpose—be played with. Held. Or one other alternative: as Lotso puts it: “You’re a piece of plastic, you’re meant to be thrown away.” Indeed it’s their darkest moment, at the landfill, sliding down shredded-trash scree towards a fiery maw. They join hands and are snatched up by the fist of heaven—those little green fairies again. In the end Andy gives Woody to the little girl (O my Malkie, never leave me!), but only after instinctively, for a moment, grabbing him back. Selfishness is our nature, too, or so teach those Zen masters who occasionally snatch a morsel of food off a companion’s plate.

That they look, before they’re saved, so convincingly about to melt. And the gorgeously-noticed aspect of modern floor tile, outdoor light fixtures, dynamic black skin of a Hefty bag. Afterwards, in the park, one doubts the grass tousled by the hot, storm-sick wind. The sign—movie or toy—trumps the real thing every time, and even should we outgrow it promises to outlive us. Not “Lotso,” whose name bespeaks a plenitude that doesn’t wash, but To infinity, and beyond!—the ideal formulation, and still the only recipe for the sublime.