It’s been a long time between drinks (of harmless red cordial, of course) for the Toy Story gang, but they’re back. I was surprised that after 11 years there hadn’t already been a dodgy, straight-to-DVD-without-the-stars (or twelve) film to cash in - credit to Pixar and Disney for holding off until they could do it right. And do it right they most certainly have - Toy Story 3 may just be as good as the first. You don’t say that often about a film with a “3” in it.

Plenty of time has passed in the trilogy as it has in real life - Andy is now off to college, and it’s been quite a while since he’s taken his old friends out of the toybox. So the news that they are being sent to a day care centre, where children will play with them all day every day, seems to some like the best news they’ve heard in years. Clearly in the last 15 years they’ve forgotten Sid Phillips... not all children are as fun to play with as Andy was.

All the favourites are back, along with a few new toy friends. Better you don’t know much more of the plot, rest assured it’s a lot of fun with possibly more crammed in to entertain the adults than the kids. Which makes sense given some of the tots who watched the first one have their own kids now. Toss in some themes, some lessons, some big action scenes and a healthy dose of hilarious character interaction and you’ve got yourself a winner. Oscar #6 for Pixar? I expect so.

If I had my way, I’d screen a Christopher Nolan movie at least once every semester. He is a modern master of the medium. He’s already created two instant classics (Memento and The Dark Knight), as well as rebooting a franchise killed over a decade ago by self-indulgence and creating the best superhero movie ever IMHO.

As we are screening his latest, the mysterious Inception, this semester, we thought we’d revisit one of his great films, Insomnia. This gripping psychological thriller has Will Dormer (Pacino) travelling to Alaska, where the sun shines every minute of the day (hence the title), to head a murder case. One of the local police, Ellie (Swank), is a fan of Dormer, and is only too willing to help out wherever needed. However another crime case rears its ugly head, and when local author Walter Finch (Williams) becomes a suspect, things start to take an eerie turn…

The highlight of this movie is by far Williams – this is him in edgy mode (à la One Hour Photo), when he’s at his greatest. All the performances are great though, and even though I haven’t seen the original Norwegian version, I understand this is regarded as the better film. If you’ve only come across Nolan recently through the Batman franchise, I encourage you to get along here tonight and check out how expansive he is in his directing talent. You won’t be sorry.