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Breaking character
With lead roles in three new films, Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the great character actors of the '90s, is about to hit the big time. Are we sure we want him to?
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[11/22/99]

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"Sleepy Hollow"
This Ichabod is a tortured, if not terribly bright, goth dreamboat.
By Stephanie Zacharek
[11/19/99]

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"Felicia's Journey"
Atom Egoyan's follow-up to "The Sweet Hereafter" is a dank and claustrophobic thriller.
By Andrew O'Hehir
[11/19/99]

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"The World Is Not Enough"
God save James Bond.
By Charles Taylor
[11/19/99]

Movie Review
"All About My Mother"
Passionate and florid, Almodóvar's valentine to motherhood breathes with vibrant, chaotic Barcelona life.
By Stephanie Zacharek
[11/19/99]

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The room erupted in a dozen wisecracks as the animators envisioned Buzz taking the place of Warren Beatty in "Shampoo," ad-libbing lines like "You are so much more beautiful than the other trolls." Lasseter concentrated on whether they could make Buzz's combing stroke more vertical and modulate the troll's blinking eyes just before Buzz combs downward. The director sighed in admiration at his team's handiwork -- and at the dexterity of his leading man. "Buzz is good at everything," he pronounced with pleasure.

So, it seems, is Pixar. It overcame the second-feature jinx with last year's gorgeous "A Bug's Life," and it triumphs over "sequelitis" in "Toy Story 2," which goes even further than the original in celebrating and satirizing the real bonds between humans and toys -- and the imaginary bonds among playthings. "Toy Story" was every inch a buddy movie, with cowboy raggedy-doll Woody and sleek Space Age action figure Buzz going through the roughhouse version of getting-to-know-you familiar from "48 Hrs." and "Lethal Weapon."

"Toy Story 2" is giddier, warmer and harder to classify. It's an ensemble comedy about several unexpected matters, including Woody discovering his show-biz roots -- and his "inner cowboy" -- and Buzz soldiering on through a hall-of-mirrors-like experience similar to the one John Malkovich endures when he goes into his own brain in "Being John Malkovich." The movie was originally intended for direct-to-video release, but when it was re-slated as a theatrical sequel before it went into production, Pixar threw its full resources behind it. (Lasseter is listed as director, but there are two co-directors beneath him, Ash Brannon and Lee Unkrich.)

Michael Sragow Michael Sragow's column appears every Thursday in Arts & Entertainment + Archives

Rather than exhaust the toys' possibilities, the Pixar team keeps opening them up -- maybe because the manic camaraderie of the toy box echoes the madcap creativity of its meeting rooms and cubicles. Lasseter and Co. know that unfettered group invention was one of the keys to great silent comedy and to classic animation. And they don't leave their ebullience in cartoon dailies -- they get it on screen.

In an interview two weeks ago, Joe Ranft, the co-head of story (along with Dan Jeup), told me that when they first got the idea that "Toy Story 2" could contain a cheeky "Star Wars" parody, "We were all cracking up. And that's what's great about Pixar. We all thought, 'We could actually do that!' -- not, 'We can't do that, that's too funny.' And we milked it all the way."

Ranft speaks, in every sense, with animated authority. As a story man (a story developer and storyboard artist) he's been mixed up in nearly every cartoon-feature breakthrough of the last dozen years, from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" to "Beauty and the Beast," from Pixar's three features to "Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach." (He was story chief on those last two Henry Selick puppet-animation pictures as well as on "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life.") A gifted sketcher, yarn-spinner and performer, Ranft typifies Pixar's team spirit.

"The great thing about Pixar," he told me four years ago, "is that everybody is in on the story. Dozens of people here have read screenwriting books and gone to screenwriting conferences, and we collaborate in a form of oral storytelling, with people trying to top each other, acting out parts. I imagine it's what it must have been like in the Mack Sennett silent clown days, with a bunch of guys selling ideas, then going off and making the movie."

Next page | Woody and Buzz: This is no G-rated relationship