Trailer Wednesday: Toy Story 3 and Get Him to the Greek

I’ve been waiting for some worthy trailers to round up for a posting and I’ve finally found a couple: a more in-depth trailer for Toy Story 3 and a spin off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall character Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) entitled Get Him to the Greek.

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Toy Story 3

The plot becomes a bit clearer in this trailer. We knew Andy was off to college and that the toys were getting dropped off at a day care center. Now we know that their plan is to escape because life is not all it seems at Sunnyside Daycare — just ask Mr. Potato Head. Woody also wants desperately to make it back before Andy officially leaves. Problem is, the Sunnyside toys don’t like those plans.

Prominent new characters so far are Ken (voiced by Michael Keaton) and Lots-o-Huggins (Ned Beatty) the old stuffed bear who is in charge of the Sunnyside toys. But that’s just this trailer. There were countless toys in the periphery here and we do know Timothy Dalton’s thespian hedgehog Mr. Pricklepants is expected to be a somewhat significant part. The movie hits theaters in Pixar’s money summer spot, June 18.

Watch the Toy Story 3 trailer on imdb here

My Thoughts: I’m a bit overwhelmed by the toys here. I trust Pixar to do a good job not making the film like that and simply using shots of so many toys as a selling point, but in general the trailer is pretty helter-skelter. Pixar is at least sticking to its guns with a familiar story: the toys needing to get somewhere and having to traverse the real world to do it. The question still remains as to whether all the craziness you see here will come together nicely, but faith and Pixar have gone hand-in-hand these last few years especially.

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Get Him to the Greek

The Apatow Production offering this summer is an unusual move: a spin-off of a character from another movie. Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller saw the potential for the UK rocker character Aldous Snow to have his own film, so two years and much more celebrity status for actor Russell Brand later (thanks to two MTV award show hosting duties) “Greek” is ready to make some money at the box office.

The film is about Aaron (Jonah Hill, playing a different character than the waiter with a man-crush on Snow in “Marshall”) one of Diddy’s (yes, that Diddy) assistants, who comes up with the idea to bring Aldous Snow back across the pond to the Greek Theater for an anniversary concert. He’s then assigned to escort Snow himself, a task that’s not so simple when you’re dealing with a sex and drug-obsessed rock star. As you’d imagine, drug, sex and puke at parties jokes ensue. It all arrives in time for summer on June 4.

Watch the Get Him to the Greek trailer on imdb here

My Thoughts: Not having watched MTV in ten years, Russell Brand’s humor is still fresh to me and I’m pretty fond of Stoller’s style from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I do think there’s a chance “Greek” recycles some overused party jokes but there were some fresh things that I liked such as the camera mount on Jonah Hill after he’s on absinthe. It’s definitely a movie worth keeping an eye on — the Apatow brand has been iffy lately, but the last good movie, in my opinion, was in fact “Sarah Marshall.”