"Treat your friends like your enemies and your enemies like your friends"

Toys

Director: Barry Levinson

Cast: Robin Williams, Joan Cusack, Michael Gambon, Robin Wright, LL Cool J

Released: December 18, 1992

Oscar nominations:

Best Art Decoration-Set Decoration (lost to Howards End)

Best Costume Design (lost to Dracula)

I said I would have another holiday movie review for you and I have delivered on my promise. Well, sort of. While Toys begins and ends with a Christmas song called The Closing of the Year (a song that I love, love, love and is probably one of the only good things about the movie!), the rest of it really has nothing to do with Christmas. It's been at least a decade since I've seen it, so please forgive my memory. You would think a movie that came out in December and has TOYS in the title would have something to do with Christmas! So I'm glad I at least gave you a true Christmas movie review with the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. Next year I will just have to make it up by doing THREE Christmas movies! 

I really don't know how to describe this movie. It is a flustercluck, for one thing! I feel like I am doing a disservice to the late Robin Williams by this being his first movie I reviewed since his passing. I will have to make that up by watching and reviewing one of his better movies in the future. This one is just weird with plenty of moments where you might go, WTF? 

Williams plays Leslie Zevo and Joan Cusack plays his sister, Alstatia (I'm still not sure how you pronounce that!). Their father, owner of Zevo Toys, a company that manufactures and sells toys, dies and his brother (Michael Gambon) takes it over. Why his brother, a stern, no-nonsense general, is the beneficiary of the toy company and his fun-loving and child-like son is not is because he doesn't think Leslie could be a successful leader. 

Mr. Zevo must have made a fortune selling his cheap toys because his children live in a house that pops out from a story book (and there's even a dollhouse replica in the living room); they have their own butlers and maids; and Leslie drives a Cadillac. Mr. Zevo even has his own wind-up (life size) ambulance to take him to the hospital for God's sake. I have no idea how he made such a fortune selling such crappy-looking toys, but it apparently worked so well that he was able to afford tons of workers who just sing and dance to a song called "The Happy Worker" (sung by Tori Amos) while they wait for large, colorful machines to spit out toy parts so they can assemble them. He can even afford to pay some guy whose job it is to hold a "Ducks Crossing" sign so people stop to let TOY duckling cross the street, I am not kidding you. The movie never states when it takes place. I was thinking maybe it was the '50s because most of the toys are those plastic wind-up toys of yore, but MTV and video games are also featured so therefore that makes it in the "present" day...or at least in the '80s as I was listening to a podcast (How Did This Get Made?....I highly recommend listening to this one, it's from September 2013) and they mentioned it took Barry Levinson ten years to write it! 

Another way they waste money (but still seem to have overloads of it!) is that they make a lot of joke toys (large attachable ears, fake vomit, hand buzzers, smoking jackets (those are jackets that literally smoke), etc...) and they pay people to research them. There is a really long scene where Leslie and the others are wearing white lab coats while going over different kinds of fake vomit and they are taking it seriously! Now the joke is that while they are discussing vomit, the room they are in is getting smaller because the General needs more room for a project he is working on. I don't understand the appeal of any of the toys that are created at this place. I can't see any kids wanting to play with them. The only visual appeal to the movie is the house they live in and the rolling green hills where they live. (Which I thought was filmed in England, but that was actually filmed in Rosalia, Washington.) 

Levinson must have had his heart set on very particular actors because this family doesn't make any sense at all. The General has a British accent, but everyone else is his family is American. They do sort of address this by him blaming his father for raising him in Britain and that's why he sounds different from everyone else. His (now deceased) wife was a Jane Fonda lookalike and yet they have a son named Patrick who looks like LL Cool J.... I'm guessing he was adopted? And then there's Alstatia who is just an odd character. She eats sandwiches with vitamins or applesauce (ugh!) only between the two slices of bread. Patrick makes a comment that she always looks the same age whenever he sees her. We later find out (spoiler alert!) that Alstatia is a robot that Leslie's dad had built for him because his mother died when he was young and he wanted to make sure Leslie had somebody to take care of him. So many questions! Why did Leslie's father make his son a grown up sister? (Remember, Patrick commented how she never ages, so it wasn't like Mr. Zevo built a robot every year to grow up with Leslie.) And why is he selling all these crappy, cheap toys when he can make robots that look like real human beings? Just think how much richer he could have been...and he made a fortune selling crappy toys and paying his employees to pretty much do nothing! 

The General wants to make war toys and video games to train kids for war in the future...IDK...it's so weird. And then there's a toy war with the General's toys against the Zevo Toys. It is the stupidest thing! There was a funny line where Leslie says, "Let's fight fire with marshmallows!" because all the General's toys come equipped with guns while you just wind up the Zevo Toys. He does give an amusing speech to his "troop" of toys where he begins with, "Four stores and many Christmases ago..." the speech has some clever dialogue, but it goes on way too long. And another question concerning Alstatia, why didn't they use her in the toy war since she is a freaking robot and can just be rebuilt. I guess since we find this out AFTER the toy war (I cannot believe I just wrote that!) ended, they didn't want to ruin the surprise for the viewer. 

While this movie is called TOYS, it is not for children! Not just because some innocent toys become victim in the toy war, but because Robin Wright plays Leslie's love interest (she was hired by his father the day before he died because he wanted them to get together, which is really creepy if you think about it) and there is a really awkward scene between them where you can't see it, but you  can hear it because the General has his men spying on them and her bra is covering the small robot that is their eyes. And they have one conversation and are pretty much in love the next scene, it is so ridiculous and stupid! 

This entire movie is ridiculous and stupid! The only good thing about it is the "Closing of the Year" song. And that's the only Christmas thing related to it! 

Rain Man

Rain Man
Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman
Released: December 16, 1988

Oscar nominations:
Best Picture (won)
Best Director - Barry Levinson (won)
Best Actor - Dustin Hoffman (won)
Best Original Screenplay - Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow (won)
Best Cinematography (lost to Mississippi Burning)
Best Art Direction (lost to Dangerous Liaisons)
Best Editing (lost to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)
Best Score - Hans Zimmer (lost to Dave Grushin for The Milagro Beanfield War)

Rain Man is about a relationship between two brothers who have just met and couldn't be more different. Charlie is the younger, success-driven, cocky a-hole brother. He's played by Tom Cruise who pretty much plays this type of character in all of his movies. After his father dies, he finds out he has an older brother name Raymond (played by Dustin Hoffman) who has been in an institution since Charlie was a young kid. He's autistic and needs to have a routine to feel secure. Before he finds out about his brother, Charlie tells his girlfriend that when he was younger he had an imaginary friend called the Rain Man who used to sing to him. Of course we learn later that it was Raymond who used to sing to him.

Charlie, who didn't have a good relationship with his father, is irate when he finds out that his father didn't leave him any money in his will. He thought he was supposed to get three million dollars, but it ended up going to Raymond. This is when Charlie discovers he has an older brother. He is furious that the money went to someone who can't even conceive of the idea of three million dollars. He plans to kidnap Raymond and only bring him back when he's given his share of the wealth.

Charlie learns very soon that taking Raymond out of his environment was, as Raymond would say, "bad, very, very bad." Raymond has to go to bed right at eleven. He has to eat certain foods on certain days. (In one scene where he has to have six fish sticks for lunch, Charlie brings him three and when Raymond starts crying, Charlie takes a knife and cuts them all in half.) He has to watch The People's Court every week day at four. If he doesn't, he throws a huge fit. His life is one big routine and Charlie has to adjust to this routine and, as he is of the selfish sort, it doesn't make him happy.

Charlie think he'll just fly back to Los Angeles from Cincinnati where Raymond lives, but Raymond refuses to go on a plane because all major airlines except Quantas have had major aviation disasters. When Charlie tries to reason with him and tell him it's safe, Raymond makes a big scene and the movie becomes a road trip bonding experience. Charlie's angry with his brother because he needs to get back to his job as a car dealer and instead of returning to L.A. that afternoon, it's going to take him three days to get back.

Charlie finds Raymond frustrating because he can't have a conversation with him and he doesn't know what's going on inside Raymond's head. He is amazed when Raymond drops a box of toothpicks and immediately says there are 246 toothpicks on the ground. There are 250 toothpicks that come in the box and there are four left in the box after Raymond drops it. Charlie is also amazed when Raymond can multiply five digit numbers together and claims he should work for NASA. He changes his mind, however, when Raymond can't add together two and two.

Charlie, who is in debt, gets a brilliant idea when he realizes Raymond can count cards and they make a pitstop at Vegas along the way. The most famous scene from the movie is when they're wearing matching suits and riding down the escalator side by side. It's been parodied in many other movies.

Throughout the film you see their relationship develop and the two brothers share a special bond even though Raymond has a difficult time showing feeling. Charlie wants Raymond to live with him, but in the end realizes it's better if there are professionals taking care of Charlie and he's in a place he's familiar with. There's a nice moment at the end when the two brothers show affection for each other by sitting at a table and leaning together, their foreheads touching, as Raymond does not like to be hugged.