Cars: A Quick Review

This may go without saying, but I love Pixar movies.  True, I'm not a fan of "A Bug's Life" or "The Incredibles," but I plan on learning to love them.  I hear they are quite good.  Well anyway I watched "Cars" again recently, in preparation for "Cars 2."  While, it's not quite as good as some of their other hits like the "Toy Story" fims, "Finding Nemo," or "Up," it is still highly entertaining and way better than 90% of the crap that passes for family entertainment these days.  Family movies should be enjoyable for everyone, not make people with an IQ higher than 12 want to harm themselves during the movie.  Anyways, "Cars" in a nutshell is about a race car named Lightning McQueen, voiced by Owen Wilson. As I'm sure people close to me know, I find him incredible annoying.  In this movie for the most part he is tolerable, but every so often I wanted to scream because he is such an annoying actor with dumb hair. He is trying to win the Piston Cup, but obviously there's a three way tie and he has to travel to California for the tie breaking race. Naturally, he ends up in a mostly abandoned town out west.  After all, movies need conflict, otherwise it's a waste of time, money, and brainpower.  He's a jerk at first, and is quite the fish out of water, a popular plot device in millions of movies and television shows, but learns valuable lessons about friendship and other exciting things.  The cast, like all Pixar movies is phenomenal and includes the likes of Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, John Ratzenberger, George Carlin, and several others.  Also, the animation is beautiful, with vibrant colors, and incredible "shots" of various vehicles driving across long stretches of highway, and nice shots of the west.  I'm hoping "Cars 2" is not the start of Pixar selling out...the reviews thus far are not promising.  I guess millions and millions of dollars off of toys alone was hard for anyone with a functioning brain to pass up, and a sequel was inevitable.

-Joseph Sbrilli