Why I don't like Cars 2

I want to start off by saying that I think Pixar movies are great.  Toy Story, Monster's Inc., and especially Wall-E are not only great cartoons, but great movies in general.  Now that that's out of the way, I will continue.

Miles and McQueen back in '10

My kids, especially Jonas, love Cars 2.  He wakes up in the morning to ask if he can watch it, he wakes up after his nap to ask if he can watch it.  He holds onto his Lightning McQueen car as though it gives him some sort of super power, and sometimes I think that it just might.  I know it's kind of snarky for me to do this, but I think that if  I don't process this a bit, I will hold bitterness and annoyed anger every time my kids want to watch Cars 2.

The truth is that this is technically a kids movie.  Pixar makes cartoons for kids,  though as we all know, the kid cartoons are becoming more and more parent friendly.  Maybe they figured out that, if they want a lot of kids to watch their movies a ton of times, they need to throw something in there for the parents to tolerate it.

The other truth, that bothers me whenever I watch it, is that Cars 2 is full of plot holes, annoying jokes that don't make any sense, and death.  That's right, death.  Cars killing other cars, squishing them into cubes or blowing them up with lasers;  there is a lot of death here.  Is this the first Pixar movie to feature killings?  Maybe.

If we back up to original Cars movie, we will see that the annoying, arrogant Chick Hicks is the enemy.  He's not a very nice car, races dirty, and in the end winds up doing a lot of damage to poor old Strip "The King" Weathers.  There is enough there to dislike the guy.  He didn't need to shoot anybody, or push anyone off of a cliff, or slash any one's tires.  He was a bad guy and we were all pretty happy in the end when everyone turned on him.  He ruined his own career and it served him right.

Cars is a fun movie.  Though, at the same time, it seemed pretty improbable and inefficient for Lightning McQueen to move his racing headquarters to Radiator Springs, AKA the irrelevant town with a gas station and a bunch of overbearing cars running the place.  Yet, if the whole story stopped there, it would have been fine.  Heck, maybe Lightning was just joking about moving there... 

The mess of Cars 2

...Yet, he wasn't.  In Cars 2 we see that he indeed was not joking.  Now, the town is hopping with people (for what reason I do not know), the old abandon Wheel Well Hotel just out of town is booming with cars, CNN is playing over the bar, and life is good.  All because a race car moved his head quarters there.  Good save, Lightning!  Maybe Lebron James can start an NBA franchise in Flint, Michigan.

And that's just for starters.  It's obvious that the producers wanted to make the movie all about Mater.  They squeezed every ounce of juice out of that character and splattered it all over the screen.  What happened was that everyone who watched Cars 1 a million times needed something new for their kids.  So Pixar brought out some smart, witty little short cartoons called Mater's Tall Tales.  I'm sure that my kids have seen those cartoons a thousand times, but now they're not even interested at all.  So, since that well ran dry, Pixar figured that kids wanted to see and hour and a half of Mater.  Hence, Cars 2.

According to the Internet, Mater is based off of a 1951 International Harvester.  Yet, throughout both movies, and the short cartoons, Mater is basically a child.  He's over 60 years old, but still needs people to take care of him.  Is this hinting towards him suffering from some sort of mental disease?  Maybe he had an injury many years ago that made him this way.  Yet, this is never explained, so we can only assume that they wanted us to ignore these facts.  In that case, here are the problems:

- Mater loves his dents because they are souvenirs from all of his good memories.  The problem with this is that he says that he came across "every one of them" with his best friend Lightning McQueen.  That is simply not true.  Mater and McQueen have been friends for a few years, so what Mater is saying that before he met McQueen, for the first 50 years of his life, he was dent free?

- Mater's whole shtick in the film is playing a sort of "Mr. Magoo" type.  He's ignorant of everything, stumbles into trouble that he's unaware of, and in the end saves the world but still seemingly does not completely understand how or why.  He tells the British spies that he'd been telling them all along that he's not a spy.  That is another lie.  If people think you are a spy, think that you have the ability to protect yourself and others in very dangerous situations, then you really need to be clear with them that you are indeed not what they thought you were.  In this case, Mater not only wasn't trying to tell them he wasn't a spy, for half the movie even he himself was unaware that he was a spy.

- Another problem with Mater is that he plays to the audience too much, breaking the "4th wall" rule in filmmaking.  Continuous "Mater jokes" are an obvious way for the filmmakers to make the parents laugh.  You know, "Like a good neighbor, Mater is there."

In any other situation would it be normal for a person to walk around and make jokes about their own name?  Especially when British spies are wiring you up with weapons and explosives?  Maybe this should have given them a hint that maybe, just maybe, this idiot isn't pretending to be an idiot but is, in fact, and idiot.  Maybe we shouldn't wire him up with automatic machine guns.  Maybe.  The cap to all of this is that even when they find out he's an idiot, in the end they still want him to work for them.

- The sexy James Bond type female car in the movie is Holly Shiftwell, which in human terms translates to something like "Holly Turn-Me-On-Easily".  She is the new recruit for the British spies.  So, she must be pretty new.  Well, she ends up as Mater's girlfriend.  Mater is 60 years old and Holly could very well be 1 or 2 years old.  Also, in car terms, she is smart and hot, Mater's life has necessitated 24 hour supervision in a deserted town in the middle of nowhere.  It all just seems wrong to me.

- The money quote in the movie is when Mater races off to save the day and Holly calls after him, "Go and get more dents, Mater".   What she meant was, "Go and rough people up, creating more wonderful memories for yourself."  What I heard was, "Go and get more dense, Mater."  It could be the only time I laughed during the whole movie.  The absolute best part about it, actually!

I could go on, but I won't.

The main thing I hate is that they went from mean ol' Chick Hicks to murdering cars.  Maybe this would have worked for Cars 3.  They seemed to up the stakes a little too quickly for me.  The other main thing I hate about it is that Mater is basically JarJar Binks annoying, yet he's the main guy in the film.

Imagine a day when Pixar makes a cartoon all about JarJar and all our kids do is talk about JarJar, quote JarJar, and want JarJar action figures to play with, pee with, sleep with, and carry with them wherever they're little feet take them.  That's basically where we are with Mater.  The dude is annoying and I hope that, if there ever is a Cars 3, they go a different way.

There, I feel a little better now.

The Envelope, Please.

Jonas and Miles warming up for the Oscars in the preschool dance studio

 Word on the street is that it's almost March.  I have checked a calendar and have confirmed that it's definitely true.  More on that later.

The Oscars snuck up on me this year.  Last year I was well prepared, having seen all of the Best Picture nominated films prior to the event.  This year I couldn't even tell you all of the nominated films.

I did see Hugo.  It was nice.  Some of the 3D shots were nice, but in general the whole effect is quite distracting.  At times, like during conversation, the characters seem to be floating on the screen.  How much longer do we have to deal with this 3D craze?  I don't ever want to see another movie where I need to wear over sized glasses.  Unfortunately, the flaw in my plan to outlaw 3D films is that all of the glasses would then go to teenage girls who poke out the lenses and wear them as some sort of fashion statement.

Moneyball; that's a good movie, but mainly if you're a sports fan.  I understand that a lot of non-sports people liked it,  and it's a great story about a guy who still toughing it out with the low budget Oakland Athletics.  Great story.

I hear that the chubby guy was nominated for best supporting actor.  Not so sure about that one.

Anyways, I should stop talking about the movies that are nominated because after Hugo and Moneyball I haven't really had a chance to see any of them.

Billy Crystal is hosting again.  Last year it was Anne Hathway and James Franco.  I guess that whole "young and hip" movement ended pretty quickly.  Now they're resorting to what worked 15 years ago.  I'm sure they could have found someone else, but I guess they're scared of people criticizing their decisions, which is funny because that's what all of the critics are paid to do.

I think that the best thing to do is find a person who is connected with the film industry, but not very active in it.  In that way, I guess Billy Crystal is a good pick, but once again, the guy is closing in on 70 years old.  They're going to need to find some new people sooner than later.

Here is my short list of people who should host the Oscars:

Steve Carrell - He's a funny guy, but he can be serious as well without being annoying like Anne Hathaway, who was not funny and overcompensated with enthusiasm.

I think that the host shouldn't crack jokes like some sort of stand-up comic.  A little dry humor would be nice.  Maybe a little "I'd rather be some place else" attitude, yet into it at the same time.  Who does that remind me of?  Oh, yes...

Alex Baldwin - This is the guy.  I realize that he's hosted before, but that was with Steve Martin as a sidekick.  Let the man fly solo.

Everyone likes this guy.  He's got good stage presence and I think that he can make things seem like he's got a say in how things are going.  It's awkward to watch when the host is just some sort of robotic extension of the writer's jokes and the producers vision.  Let the host be in charge.

How about Ellen and Justin Timberlake co-hosting?  They'd be good together.  Maybe that would work in a few years, maybe 10, when they're older.  JT is cool, but maybe too hip and cool.  After a few years he'll age into a well dressed older fellow, which will make him less intimidating to the pickier crowd.

In my opinion, the people who shouldn't host are the straight stand-up comedy guys.  This is what I don't like about having Billy Crystal so often.  He's a joke crack after joke crack after joke crack kind of guy.  That gets old pretty quick.  I mean, that was funny when Bob Hope was hosting, but that was also 50 years ago when comedy started at slapstick and ended with boss/wife jokes.

Finally, I must address a snub.  All of the movies being nominated for Best Picture (there are 10 of them!) and there's no room for Melancholia?  This is a beautiful movie.  I wrote about it in my movie reviews section. 

Everything about it worked perfectly, like some sort of happy accident.  Seriously, how did this movie turn out so perfectly?  Lars von Trier, for the first time, makes a movie that everyone can appreciate.  Kirsten Dunst acts like no one knew she could, much like Natalie Portman did last year in Black Swan.  Charlotte Gainbourg ties it all together.

The thing I loved about this movie is that I found it so fulfilling to be able to relate to all of the main characters, and yet they're all so different.  It really touched on a lot of emotional levels; fear, depression, anger, helplessness, arrogance, love...  It just had it all.  And besides all of that content, the opening of this film is perfect.  The most perfect opening to a movie I have ever seen.

I guess some of the reasons for the film receiving zero nominations would include that Lars von Trier is pretty weird, said some controversial things this year, and has never been to America before so he probably wouldn't show up anyways.

As a warning to those of you who are thinking of going out to watch this movie I must add that it does contain mature subject matter and may not be suitable for all walks of life.

In any event, I plan on downloading the Oscar show sometime next week.

March.  March is upon us.  And movies are a fun time, but in March there will be a lot of preschool buzz.  Joan Rivers will show up at the preschool with her daughter and they'll both be talking about all of the gorgeous and handsome preschoolers.

"Who's she wearing?" they'll ask.

"What kind of statement is he making," they'll wonder.

It's going to be the talk or the town, and in fact, it already is over here on the 10th floor.

My wife Barbara will be opening her preschool on the 5th to a small group of foreign and local kids.  It's the trial semester, the time when they can work out all of the bugs and get things ready to open it up to a lot more kids in the Fall. 

I'll write more about this at a later date, and there will be photos with all of the juicy news and excitement.

We're all pretty excited about this.  Barbara has worked very hard over the last few months preparing things, learning things, and just diving into things (not literally).  We're all very proud of her, and would gladly award her the Oscar in the category of Achievement in Sticktuitiveness.  She is very sticktuitive and lovely.

"Brettaking" and Jeremy's last name.

With Jeremy Lin's game as the talk of the NBA town, the whole league is said to have embraced "Linsanity".  Get it?  Pretty clever.  You kind of have to feel for the guy, having such an easy name to interlace with a wide assortment of words:

Lincredible

Linvincible

Relinventing the game

I scratch my bellybutton lint, he's so good.

Lin in.  Closer... I want to tell you a secret... this guy's good!

Turn down the Linkin Park CD.  Thanks, boy that was loud and annoying.  Anyways, I have news... this guy's good!

My wife lint some candles for a nice, romatic meal, but I couldn't tear myself away from the Knick's game.

Linin' the dream!

Walk right lin and dominate the NBA.

Nice game lining shot against the Raptors last week.

Lindescribable.

He drives the lin like Micheal Jordlin.

Kobe who?  Lin it really comes down to it, there is only one linteresting player this season.

People are lining up to watch this guy play.

Ladies and Gentlelin, lind me your ears...  This guy's good.

People will always remember the linter of 2012, the Linter of Lin.

Jeremy Lin just might conlince me to follow the NBA agalin.

"Attention:  all Linternational flights are delayed because the Knicks game went into overtime."

Yao Ming?  More like "Yao Ling!"

Last week, the police began a linvestigation into the whereabouts of the entire Toronto Raptor's defense scheme.  They have no leads.

Lint ain't over til lin's over.


Okay, I better stop here...



Anyways, it's really that easy... and enjoyable to make up puns involving this guy's name.

For me, it's been Bretzky or Brett, Brett, or Bee Rett.  Then the well runs dry.  My name, like "Lin" is only one sylabol, but for some reason much harder to come up with cool ways to work it into inspiring and exceptional puns.  Though I am warming up to "Brettaking".