The Ashimmy Blog

Pixar does it again, Cars has something for everyone

Just got back from the movies with my sons. As I wrote about earlier, we went to see the new Disney-Pixar film, Cars.  Over the years, we have seen every Pixar film.  Cars is one of the best!  It has all of the elements of the previous Pixar blockbusters, a great story with a lesson, fantastic characters and phenomenal, keep you in your seat, computer animation.  In fact, the animation in Cars is their best yet.  If you thought the underwater scenes in Nemo were good, you ain't seen nothing. At some points you don't even realize it is an animated movie. The "sets" of the race tracks are great, but the scenes of the American west around old Route 66 are breathtaking.  This movie raises the bar for animation technology. The car characters themselves look so realistic, you almost forget that cars don't have eyes in their windshields and mouths in their grills.  The light reflections off of their paint are fantastic.

Another very different thing about the movie, is there are no people.  It is a world of cars.  The fans in the stands, the folks inhabiting the world, the TV crew, everyone is one sort of vehicle or another.  Making these characters exhibit human emotions was quite a task, but Pixar pulled it off beautifully. You can really connect with the characters, they did a great job of humanizing them. From the peripheral characters, like the VW Van hippie and the Italian tire store owner to the main players, every character is done perfectly

This movie has something for everyone, including a hot little Porsche, named Sally.   Boys and girls, city folk and country folk, young and old, will all find something for themselves in this movie.  The tractor tipping is hysterical!  Don't worry if you don't have any kids to take with you to see this movie, it is no excuse.  I would recommend you go out and see it right away.

Just two more days until Cars is here

Forget all of this network security stuff, this Friday the new Disney-Pixar (they are the same now aren't they) movie, Cars, opens up.  I don't know which of us is more excited, my two sons or I.  We have been waiting for over a year for this one to come out.  It is by Pixar and is the latest in a long line of classics like Toy Story 1 and 2, A Bugs Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Monsters, Inc.  Everything we have seen indicates this one is going to be just as good.  My kids already seem to know the whole story and who wins, but lets wait and see if they are right. I will be taking them on Saturday, but expect big lines. Will be buying my tickets in advance tomorrow. It is good to see a movie with buzz coming out.

I know we are not the only ones waiting for this either.  Raj's two kids, Chloe and Rishi are all jazzed up by this one, too, as is Raj for that matter.  I think he is taking them Friday afternoon.  So you can run out and see it yourself or wait until after Saturday and I will post my review here.

The future of the movies

With all of the great home theater equipment available today, I have often felt that it spelled the doom of the movie theater experience as we know it.  Though popcorn at home never tastes as good and its still a relatively cheap night out, going to the movies seemed to have lost something.  The box office numbers certainly seem to prove that out.  Well movie theater fans, fear not.  I have seen the future of motion pictures in a theater environment and it is really cool!  I took the boys today to see the new Disney movie, Chicken Little in Disney Digital 3-D.  I know, I know, Chicken Little, huh, the future of the movies?  Forget the movie for a second (though it was a really funny G rated, computer animated, movie that the kids loved and had lots of stuff that just flew over their heads, that made me laugh too), it was the 3-D technology that blew me away.  This was not your parents red and blue paper glasses.  It was more akin to the 3-D movie experiences you see in the theme parks like Shrek 4-D at Universal in Orlando.  They gave you the same green plastic glasses that had a film like tint to them.  The effect was out of this world.  Really ultra-sharp 3-D pictures that put you in the middle of the action.  I am sure with the chance to experiment with this type of technology, the creative Hollywood types are going to give us some unbelievable experiences in the years to come using this.  This is not something you can recreate at home either I believe.

Go out and see this movie as soon as you can.  If you don't want to go without a kid and you don't have one, borrow someone else's but see the movie.  Also, be careful as there is a non 3-D version as well.  Be sure your theater has the 3-D one.  You won't be sorry 

It's still a great movie

I was a little hesitant at first to buy it, it seemed like such a girlie movie, but could not resist getting the new DVD of Cinderella from Disney.  Landon and Bradley had never seen the movie before. Tonight, while Bonnie was out at a concert with some friends, we sat down and watched the flick.  I had not seen it since I was their age myself.  The Disney people have done a great job restoring and remastering the original. It looked and sounded great on TV at home.  Most of all, pretty much right from the first scene, both boys were mesmerized by it.  They just about did not move for the whole movie.  For a 4 and 6 year old that is really saying something!  They and I highly recommend it to the young and young at heart.  A classic is always a classic.