Cartoons + Wine = Saturday Night!

The Movie: Cars, directed by John Lasseter
Recommendation: Dee
Reason: "I heard it's cute!"

Okay, so that might not be the actual reason for the recommendation, but it'll do. I'm 2 tequila sunrises, 1 Smirnoff Ice and 2...no, 2 1/2 cups of wine in, and reasoning's getting a little fuzzy. Hey, no one said I had to be sober watching these movies, right? But that's enough about my weekend drinking habits. On to Cars. Despite my love for Pixar, my anticipation for this movie was minimal. I saw the ads, I saw the box office, saw the box art and I heard the reviews, but still I wasn't convinced. After such monuments to excellence as The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, I need to reexamine some of my 'acceptable movie' criteria. Cars (and Finding Nemo before it), proved that I'm far too eager to dismiss a movie based on silly criteria. In this case, my lack of knowledge of Nascar and low enthusiasm for any movie that spent so much time focusing on vehicles contributed to my late viewing of this movie.

As I said, I should have learned from Finding Nemo. When I first saw the ad campaign for that movie, I believe my exact words were something along the lines of "They're making a movie...about a reef." Of course, I've eaten those words. Cars was similar. I was engaged by the movie (intoxication level aside) from start to finish. I can't watch Nascar or really any sort of racing, but somehow, Cars drew me in. I think I would have to attribute that to the fascinating little world that the Pixar artists developed around the concept of the film. It was the little details that were so enthralling. Cars doing the wave using their headlights. Pit crews made up of little forklifts. The Zoom Zoom river valley. The small touches, basically.

The voicework in this film was alright. No one particularily stood out, though Dee continued to comment that Lightning needed to have a crooked nose. Cars don't have noses, I told her, but she was not to be dissuaded. The characters were quite entertaining, the voice acting adequate, the movie was nicely entertaining.

-37/365 down, 328/365 to go