"Cars 2"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
Cars are one of the cool things about the James Bond series. From Aston Martin DB5s with pop-out gun barrels and a remote control BMW, the autos have been a big part of those spy stories, so I guess it makes sense to make a spy story actually starring cars, but will it make sense to the kids it is aimed at?
The twelfth Pixar film, "Cars 2" comes five years after the original won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. Once again, the story begins in the town of Radiator Springs, hometown to champion race car Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson), his pal Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) and a host of other anthropomorphic cars and trucks.
The action begins when McQueen and his tow truck BFF leave town to take part in a World Grand Prix race. While McQueen tears up the racetrack Mater good naturedly becomes embroiled in a top secret case of international espionage involving alternative fuel, corny jokes -- "Is the Popemobile Catholic?" -- and lots of frenetic action.
The first "Cars" film was my least favorite Pixar film -- until now. The original was expertly made and wildly popular but for my money, lacked the kind of emotional punch of movies like "WALL-E," "Toy Story" and "Up." The new film has much of what you expect from Pixar -- like beautiful animation -- but seems to have left its heart at the junkyard. For the first time a Pixar movie feels more like a cynical excuse to sell merchandise -- the original generated more than $5 billion in swag sales -- than a fully realized film.
Stories laden with carefully developed messages and themes have always been Pixar's strong point, but "Cars 2" with its overly complicated narrative and hard to follow messages about the importance of alternative fuel sources misses the mark. Before seeing the film I would have guessed that if anyone could make a kid's movie about "big oil" and pull it off it would have been Pixar, but I would have been wrong.
The colorful characters will likely have the same kind of appeal for kids, especially young boys, as they did the first time around but fore me the new car smell is completely missing from the sequel. "Cars 2" is a clunker.
"Bad Teacher"
Richard's Review: 3 gold stars
In the new Cameron Diaz movie, "Bad Teacher," she plays -- you guessed it -- a bad teacher! More concerned with hooking up with a wealthy co-worker (played by her real life ex Justin Timberlake) than with her students, she doesn't make much of an effort to actually educate until she learns there's a cash bonus for the teacher with the highest classroom grade average.
Diaz will never be the funny, fresh face she was in "There's Something About Mary" and "The Mask," and in "Bad Teacher" that's a good thing. The very slight patina of age and experience in her manner adds some extra desperation to Elizabeth, who is pretty on the outside but ugly underneath.
It's a daring character to build a comedy around, and luckily, as good as Diaz is, she is leading a well cast ensemble. English actress Lucy Punch (last seen over here in the Woody Allen film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger) brings some off kilter energy to Amy, a tightly wound teacher uses cute sayings,--like "I have weapons of math destruction."—to teach her class.
Also strong are "The Office's" Phyllis Smith, Justin Timberlake, who performs the year's most uncomfortable sex scene, and Thomas Lennon, but the movie's heart and soul belong to Jason Segal who brings a easy humor and a great deal of charm to the role of gym teacher Russell. His warmth is a nice, and needed counterbalance to Diaz's caustic gold digger.
The supporting cast don't exactly rescue this movie -- it doesn't need rescuing -- but without them "Bad Teacher" wouldn't be nearly as much fun. "Bridesmaids" is still the funniest movie of the summer, but it is heartening to see another female lead comedy score so well.
"Happythankyoumoreplease" DVD
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 STARS
"Happythankyoumoreplease" is the kind of movie Woody Allen might have made if he wasn't a genius. Set in New York City it's a look at the lives of a series of interconnected late-twenty-somethings as they navigate their way from hipsterhood to adulthood.
Writer-director Josh Radnor (who also stars on TV's "How I Met Your Mother") is Sam, a freelance writer who "adopts" Rasheen (Michael Algieri), a boy he finds on the subway. The youngster, separated from his foster family, becomes entwined in the lives of Sam's friends, bartender and singer (and love interest) Mississippi (Kate Mara), Mary Catherine and Charlie a painter and filmmaker played by Zoe Kazan and Pablo Schreiber and Annie (Malin Akerman), a friend with alopecia and her suitor Sam # 2 (Tony Hale). Together and separately they traverse the gap between where they are, and where they're going.
"Happythankyoumoreplease" is a likeable but slight movie, the kind of indie flick you probably didn't go see when it played for a week at your local theatre. It starts off strong as we get to know the characters but by the time Sam and friends, by sheer repetition, have burned the hipster mantra "awesome" into your deepest consciousness, the movie wears a little thin.
But what it lacks in real depth it makes up for in charisma. Radnor (who proves himself a capable director) makes for an interesting central character, funny and self-depreciating and Malin Akerman, as the hairless girl with self esteem issues, shines.
In the end if you scratch "Happythankyoumoreplease's" cooler-than-cooler veneer there is an under coating of heart. It's no Woody Allen, but worth a look.
