Cars

Most of you have already seen this, but if you haven't, here is my "take" on it. (This is a Walt Disney/Pixar co-production, with the spectacular CGI that Pixar ["Shrek I & II"] has developed and which has set the standard for today's animated films!)

Watch for:

• "Serpentine! Serpentine!" (Pixar's homage to the 1979 original "The In-Laws," one of the funniest road movies ever made.)
• The Hummer with the Schwarzenegger accent which represents California's Governator.
• "Incoming!" from the military jeep when a runaway vehicle approaches.
• That same military jeep's rage at the Jimi Hendrix version of the "Star Spangled Banner" each morning.
• Organic everything from the hippie VW bus.
• The amazing studies in perspective during the speedway smash- ups.
• The nighttime lighting both on the interstate and off...
• Paul Newman is an experienced race car driver, how appropriate to voice a 1951 Hudson Hornet, "Doc Hudson"!
• The loving tribute to Route 66. (If you watch the DVD extras, you will see this is no coincidence!)
• The outrageous fins on the automobiles from the early to mid-50s.
• The little blue VW Beetles flying around.
• Doc Hudson's blue eyes...smile...
• The authentic desert landscape, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada... You know... Route 66...
• This is a good history lesson about the impact of the Interstate Highway System, which was built during the Eisenhower Administration, on small American towns bypassed into dusty oblivion.
• My guess would be that "Lightning McQueen" is named that because Steve McQueen was also a race car driver...

I hope you enjoy this as much as the rest of us did. It was given a Grade "A" by other reviewers!