Brief movie comments
Went with my sister and niblings to see both Over the Hedge and Cars this week, and enjoyed the latter more. Both were, of course, fairly predictable in their plots (as most films, and especially children's films, are).
What was interesting to me was that both in their ways poke fun of certain aspects of modern American life -- suburban sprawl, fast-paced lifestyles, and so forth. There's also the requisite moral lesson of good behavior and so forth, but I liked it better in Cars -- actually got a bit teary-eyed towards the end when Lightning McQueen (the main character) does something especially noble. Perhaps also the fact that Route 66, what was once "America's Main Street" before the interstate highway system was built, was the location around which the film was built, made it more appealing, as I currently live (and also lived in college) quite close to the old route. There's a certain nostalgia about it. The characters in Cars felt more sharply characterized, IMO, and were more interesting; in Over the Hedge only a couple of the characters seemed to have more than one defining characteristic.
So -- both were fine kid films, but I don't expect I'll get Over the Hedge on dvd whereas I'll give serious consideration to getting Cars to add to the collection of mostly-animated kid stuff that we have.
Oh, and in incidental news, I made a deal with my nephew in which we went to Wendy's for lunch one day in return for him giving me his Jack Sparrow doll from the McDonald's Happy Meal that he had on the trip here. He'd really wanted the inflatable sword which his sister got, anyway.
What was interesting to me was that both in their ways poke fun of certain aspects of modern American life -- suburban sprawl, fast-paced lifestyles, and so forth. There's also the requisite moral lesson of good behavior and so forth, but I liked it better in Cars -- actually got a bit teary-eyed towards the end when Lightning McQueen (the main character) does something especially noble. Perhaps also the fact that Route 66, what was once "America's Main Street" before the interstate highway system was built, was the location around which the film was built, made it more appealing, as I currently live (and also lived in college) quite close to the old route. There's a certain nostalgia about it. The characters in Cars felt more sharply characterized, IMO, and were more interesting; in Over the Hedge only a couple of the characters seemed to have more than one defining characteristic.
So -- both were fine kid films, but I don't expect I'll get Over the Hedge on dvd whereas I'll give serious consideration to getting Cars to add to the collection of mostly-animated kid stuff that we have.
Oh, and in incidental news, I made a deal with my nephew in which we went to Wendy's for lunch one day in return for him giving me his Jack Sparrow doll from the McDonald's Happy Meal that he had on the trip here. He'd really wanted the inflatable sword which his sister got, anyway.