The Informer, The Informant!, Toy Story 3, & Day & Night

The Informer is a John Ford film about the IRA, and made just after the Hays production code was introduced. As such, the IRA was made into much more of a quasi-governmental organization than it really was at the time. Also, the woman in it was so clearly a prostitute, and they went to a whorehouse. And yet, they couldn't possibly mention either of those things in the movie. About the only surprising thing is that the eventual execution is portrayed as completely justified.

The Informant! is Soderbergh messing with you. Having listened to the This American Life episode a couple times, I knew the plot, so it was easy to enjoy Mark Whitacre's insanely random thoughts, and just how crazy he really was. The cast was full of extremely funny comics (Joel McHale, Tony Hale, Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Thompkins, Scott Adsit) and some other Those Guys (Scott Bakula, Thomas F. Wilson), but the movie really belongs to Matt Damon and Melanie Lynskey's reactions to him. As much as it can be anyone other than Soderbergh. He needs to make more movies like this. I will watch anything he does.

Toy Story 3 has Day & Night in front of it. Day & Night is the typical Pixar short, winning, almost dialogue-less, and impressive technically. The many women in bikinis was a little surprising, but there are no real complaints with it. Toy Story 3, however, has a lot to answer for: after 11 years, why the hell was it made? After watching it, though, it follows along perfectly with both those who saw the first one as children's growing up, along with Pixar itself. And it has one of the most depressing scenes of all time in a kids film. Even with that, I was laughing and crying throughout, and I just can't say enough: Pixar's batting average is the highest among all production studios. Only A Bug's Life and Cars (the latter the only one that is an actual bad movie) are not masterpiece's.