Despicable Me (2010)

We all know there have been many films about orphans and the way they fall into some unsuspecting Joe’s life who has never had children before. We also all know that by the end of the story their usual carefree lifestyle has been significantly changed by the presence of unwanted responsibility and the unexpected rewards that raising children can bring. Usually this change and mentality in our new parent’s life is a positive one and everyone lives happily ever after.


Despicable Me proves to be much more than this. Sure, it follows this basic concept and you can almost guess how everything is going to turn out but what is not predictable about the film is how the characters arrive at the end of the story. Therefore it is not your average bachelor meets orphans fairytale.

Our hero… or villain Gru (Steve Carrell), which is actually what he is in the movie, is seen as a disappointment across the “bad guy world”. Although he has the smarts, the evil scientist/inventor sidekick, Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), and around a ka-jillion silly childlike, yellow minions who are just waiting to do his every bidding, he still seems to fall short on the super-villain scale. The new kid in town, Vector (Jason Segel), pulls off one of the greatest diabolical plans in the apparent history of evilness and leaves Gru wondering why he didn’t think of it first.

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Toy Story 3 (2010)

Until I became an older brother, I was an only child for the first 6 years of my life. All I had to keep me busy were my school friends, my parents (my father still remains undefeated in our career of random play fights at the very youthful age of 52) and my gi-normous box of toys which I had all to myself. I will take great pride in stating that even though I probably had every toy imaginable in my legendary “toy box”, I was never a spoiled brat. My mother refused to let me be. I think I still might have some battle bruises from the wars I also lost to her. Of course, that was back in the 80s and many kids nowadays would probably have no idea what some of those toys were. But ultimately, toys made my world go round, that and whenever my mother packed Kool-Aid instead of milk in my Knight Rider lunchbox. I also remember losing a lot of those toys but had never had any idea how that happened. It wasn’t until 1995 when a completely computer animated film called Toy Story was released and I discovered that my toys might actually be alive. I was like 13 by then so that premise never stuck but it did make me think.

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