Film Night: Cars
Aug. 2nd, 2006 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erastesYou see? Nothing much has changed...
I liked it. That's the short answer.
It might have been a TAD too Americana for me, and in that respect I probably lost a lot of the Injokes, but I did catch a lot of 'em. The characters were lovely, and having spent a decent amount of time crawling along route 66 from coast to coast a few years ago actually more sane than their real counterparts. The whole business of the sports coverage on TV meant little to me, I have to admit, and the names of the commentators were lost, although they are probably amusing piss takes. Loved that they got people like Andretti, Schumacker and Leno to do voices.
I've never heard of Larry the Cable Guy, and I'm glad I hadn't because he did a great job on Tow Mater (what a GREAT name, and I bet there is really a company out there with that name...) and i warmed to him far more than I ever did to Lightning, because I dislike Owen Wilson and couldn't get into the character. Once upon a time cartoons were voiced by relative unknowns and it made it easier for the watcher's imagination to take flight (I had the same reaction to Aslan in Narnia).
Slash Index? a decent six out of ten, I'd say. In fact, the girl car was superfluous. Completely. In fact she didn't even bother to come to the race, what sort of fan was she?
- lovely angsty old hero/rookie relationship between Doc Hudson/Lightning
- really amusingly portrayal of the Firetruck being "shy and sensitive" (I bet the Firemen of America are furious about that)
- the two delicious italians who just happen to live together.
Great injokes, as I said, specially the one (not) about nuts and (not) about "he did what in his cup?" I also particularly liked the tyre tracks in the sky, and the fact that all the other creatures were cars too, bugs and flies were all we saw though, I would have liked to have seen rabbits and gophers out of the corners of our eyes, that's the sort of detail Pixar usually excels at. The tractors and combine harvester were PRICELESS.
The detail is incredible. There's a scene where Lightning is talking to Mater and Bessie is behind them, just ignore the cars and concentrate on the steam arising from the tar - just wow.
However, deep at the heart of it was a message and it wasn't tub thumping, and rather contradictory too. I live in a nation where gas/petrol is £1 a litre (the equivalent approx of $10 a gallon) and stocks are running out. It burns me when I hear other nations complain when petrol is so expensive, I know it's all relative, but hey, we don't have oil fields. There's this message in the movie about people taking more time to see the beauty of America (and it IS beautiful, or rather what's left of the natural world is) and that interstates cut through the countryside rather than wind through Route 66. But the cars still speed on the roads at every available opportunity, and the parallel Nascar thingy is lionised.
So really I wasn't quite sure what it was trying to say. On the surface it was "stop and take time to smell the flowers" but it didn't make me think "we can actually use stuff other than petrol, you DO realise that, don't you?" which I guess even someone like Lassater wouldn't DARE do.
But - on the whole, it's very good. The Winniebagos (excuse spelling, I've only heard the word) and the different types of cars are brilliantly observed. I would have preferred "Sally" to have been trailer trash rather than a Porsche, to be honest. Paul Newman is amazing and it's a wonderful tribute to S.Mcqueen.
The credits are all new footage but I didn't stay because of the packed theatre, so I'll have to catch that another time.
Oh - and - the opening "short" (as ever, with Pixar) is incredible. Just incredible. We sat through the adverts, and there were adverts from every other studio you could think of, all trying to do CGI movies, and from the trailers, failing miserably. There are a polyglot of this sort of stuff. Iceage, Barnyard, Monster House, blah blah blah. But Pixar IS Lassater, and he's a fucking genius. "One Man Band" might only be five mintues long, but I felt like standing up and applauding at the end of it. Diamond.
Oh and this made me laugh so fucking hard today. Jean Plaidy wrote historical gay fiction? "Gay Lord Robert"..... yes yes I know she didn't but really... *giggles* I'm 12, all right?
I liked it. That's the short answer.
It might have been a TAD too Americana for me, and in that respect I probably lost a lot of the Injokes, but I did catch a lot of 'em. The characters were lovely, and having spent a decent amount of time crawling along route 66 from coast to coast a few years ago actually more sane than their real counterparts. The whole business of the sports coverage on TV meant little to me, I have to admit, and the names of the commentators were lost, although they are probably amusing piss takes. Loved that they got people like Andretti, Schumacker and Leno to do voices.
I've never heard of Larry the Cable Guy, and I'm glad I hadn't because he did a great job on Tow Mater (what a GREAT name, and I bet there is really a company out there with that name...) and i warmed to him far more than I ever did to Lightning, because I dislike Owen Wilson and couldn't get into the character. Once upon a time cartoons were voiced by relative unknowns and it made it easier for the watcher's imagination to take flight (I had the same reaction to Aslan in Narnia).
Slash Index? a decent six out of ten, I'd say. In fact, the girl car was superfluous. Completely. In fact she didn't even bother to come to the race, what sort of fan was she?
- lovely angsty old hero/rookie relationship between Doc Hudson/Lightning
- really amusingly portrayal of the Firetruck being "shy and sensitive" (I bet the Firemen of America are furious about that)
- the two delicious italians who just happen to live together.
Great injokes, as I said, specially the one (not) about nuts and (not) about "he did what in his cup?" I also particularly liked the tyre tracks in the sky, and the fact that all the other creatures were cars too, bugs and flies were all we saw though, I would have liked to have seen rabbits and gophers out of the corners of our eyes, that's the sort of detail Pixar usually excels at. The tractors and combine harvester were PRICELESS.
The detail is incredible. There's a scene where Lightning is talking to Mater and Bessie is behind them, just ignore the cars and concentrate on the steam arising from the tar - just wow.
However, deep at the heart of it was a message and it wasn't tub thumping, and rather contradictory too. I live in a nation where gas/petrol is £1 a litre (the equivalent approx of $10 a gallon) and stocks are running out. It burns me when I hear other nations complain when petrol is so expensive, I know it's all relative, but hey, we don't have oil fields. There's this message in the movie about people taking more time to see the beauty of America (and it IS beautiful, or rather what's left of the natural world is) and that interstates cut through the countryside rather than wind through Route 66. But the cars still speed on the roads at every available opportunity, and the parallel Nascar thingy is lionised.
So really I wasn't quite sure what it was trying to say. On the surface it was "stop and take time to smell the flowers" but it didn't make me think "we can actually use stuff other than petrol, you DO realise that, don't you?" which I guess even someone like Lassater wouldn't DARE do.
But - on the whole, it's very good. The Winniebagos (excuse spelling, I've only heard the word) and the different types of cars are brilliantly observed. I would have preferred "Sally" to have been trailer trash rather than a Porsche, to be honest. Paul Newman is amazing and it's a wonderful tribute to S.Mcqueen.
The credits are all new footage but I didn't stay because of the packed theatre, so I'll have to catch that another time.
Oh - and - the opening "short" (as ever, with Pixar) is incredible. Just incredible. We sat through the adverts, and there were adverts from every other studio you could think of, all trying to do CGI movies, and from the trailers, failing miserably. There are a polyglot of this sort of stuff. Iceage, Barnyard, Monster House, blah blah blah. But Pixar IS Lassater, and he's a fucking genius. "One Man Band" might only be five mintues long, but I felt like standing up and applauding at the end of it. Diamond.
Oh and this made me laugh so fucking hard today. Jean Plaidy wrote historical gay fiction? "Gay Lord Robert"..... yes yes I know she didn't but really... *giggles* I'm 12, all right?
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-02 11:46 pm (UTC)I think the message of Cars was the good old sickly-sweet "it's better to have one good friend rather than ten golden cups". It's so distastefully American that it ruined some of the movie for me, but in the end it was a good film nonetheless.
What is it with people not getting a character because of the person doing the voice-overs? I hardly recognise them. Wait, I recognised the cat from Shrek 2 (Antonio Banderas, Zorrrrro!) but it only added something to the movie for me. Didn't have a clue who Aslan was, either, though I wasn't too pleased with his voice. A lion should sound like a lion.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-03 09:41 am (UTC)I'd have liked an enviromental message rather than 'drive more, it's fun' type of thing, but yeah. Cute. Loved the gay firetruck.