Cars

Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) leads the Piston Cup in Pixar's new animated film Cars. As per all of their efforts, the hero must learn his lesson before being allowed to continue onwards and upwards, and in this film that takes place in Radiator Springs, a backwater on Route 66. It is with the other cars in the town he will learn the value of friendship and family and all those other Pixar values. Thank you Papa Lasseter.

CHRIS: It was again with a little trepidation that I went into Cars, from supreme animation house Pixar, and again directed by John Lasseter, who made the original Toy Story films. Much more obviously than say The Incredibles, this film is marketed and pitched squarely at a younger audience: the whole talking car thing does seem a bit 10-year-old boy. But it is of course pulled off with their usual flair and eye for detail, and a voice cast including one or two of the famous (Owen Wilson and Paul Newman) and many others not quite so well known. My first thought on seeing the film is that it actually worked quite well, as it avoided some of the pitfalls of say Shark Tale in which the animated characters have imported characteristics from their voice actors - though the pearl blue eyes of Doc Hudson are a dead giveway for Newman. Everything is animated spectacularly well, and there is some landscape recreation that is very pleasing to the eye; all of which we have come to expect from Pixar. So what is there not to like? I suppose it's that extra level that's missing from Cars: the ability to be appreciated by young and old isn't there I think; and as well there isn't much flair to the storytelling at all, limited as it is by its form.

The Incredibles has been the best animated film for many years in my opinon, and one of the great things about that film was that it (very consciously) catered for all of the people that would make up the audience for the movie. The first problem is that it deals with talking cars: the whole Thomas the Tank Engine angle just undercuts the story, and it's not as if it's just the cars talking: the concept of the film is that the world is populated entirely by cars. So we have lady-like Porsches, a Hummer which is clearly supposed to be Arnie, and even some little sports groupie hatchbacks. I can see what the filmmakers are getting at here, but I can't really accept it, especially when the cars go 'home' and into their 'rooms', I mean these things don't have arms! And Lightning McQueen doesn't even have headlights! I know that once again I haven't really taken the film on its own terms, but still it doesn't even go very far with the concept: the film could've been told with people and I would have got exactly the same things out of it. There are some neat gags, like going 'tractor tipping' but beyond that I think the director may have fallen so in love with animating the cars that he forgot to back it up properly. And so the message comes across in a very sugar coated sort of way, and it bashes you over the head to such a degree it borders on the insulting for anyone over about ten.

But despite all that, it's hard to dislike Cars. I think Owen Wilson is an excellent choice to voice the main character, and all of the others do a creditable job as well, especially the parodies. It's just too bland to stand out from the crowd I think, and it's definitely inferior to Pixar's previous efforts, despite the extraordinary quality of the animation - that's really going to be the form to watch in the next few years I think, especially with innovations like Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly, which will arrive in Australia later this year. If this film was live action, I think it would fall flat, and that's the greatest test of the form. This simply wasn't true of Toy Story, Finding Nemo and especially The Incredibles, and while Cars is diverting enough, and has its fair share of good moments, it really is nothing special.

CHRIS:

The Break-Up

Gary (Vince Vaughn) and Brooke (Jennifer Aniston) first meet in The Break-Up, which will jump straight from this point to their first argument and eventual split. However neither of them wants to leave their trendy Chicago apartment, and so they enter into an uneasy room-mate arrangement, while seeking advice and assistance from an impressive cast of supporting actors.

CHRIS: I'll readily admit that I wasn't too keen to see this film, the latest effort from the director of such classics as Down With Love and Bring It On and very much a vehicle for the questionable talents of Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. True to my expectations, it started off with one of the worst 'first meeting' scenes to have graced the screen, before completely wrongfooting the audience by skipping the actual relationship between Gary and Brooke - covering it all over the opening credits with goofy snapshots - and arrives straight at the dinner party which marks the break-up of the title. Perhaps it was a fault of the marketing, but this is certainly no RomCom: the first argument we hear between the two is both painful and also recognisable. Imagine my surprise when I actually started to laugh, and even enjoy the film...

The plot really is rather conventional: the two characters split up (she wants him to realise how much effort she goes to etc.), but realise that they're actually still in love, taking progressively worse advice from their friends until they reach the point of no return. Oh, and they're still living in the same apartment, he in the living room, she in the bedroom. Which all leads to some very funny (and perhaps obvious gags) about her trying to impress and make him jealous with a succession of attractive dorks and he returning the favour by playing strip poker with prostitutes in the dining room. There are some genuinely funny moments in this film, most of them provided by a very high-quality supporting cast, including Vicent D'Onofrio, Judy Davis and Jason Bateman (TV's Arrested Development). Jennifer Aniston, while not being an actress I admire, is one who it is very difficult to dislike, and Vince Vaughn has always been funny and interesting in his previous films, so The Break-Up actually does have a bit going for it.

Unfortunately though, the quality declines as the film goes on, and this leaves you asking more and more questions about the plot. For a start, the entire relationship is unconvincing, as the two seem so ill-matched, and their apartment is ludicrously expensive-looking given their jobs. Maybe it's my age, or my sex, but I also didn't think people would ever actually behave like this. This is hammered home in a scene near the end of the film where Gary rejects the olive-branch Brooke offers. Which brings you to the major flaw in the film: the men are horrible. Jason Bateman's real estate agent is a schmuck, Jon Favreau's best friend a complete idiot, John Michael Higgin's sexually questionable brother inexplicable, and Brooke's succession of toy boys seem like horrible parodies. Even the Vince Vaughn character is really just not very nice, and in a film that relies heavily on its leads for spark and emotion, this really is a major sticking point. Vincent D'Onofrio and Judy Davis are excellent in their characters, but they don't get enough screen time to overcome the shortcomings of the script. All of which is very odd in a film directed, conceived, produced and written by men! Perhaps that's what they're like, but it makes for an unconvincing film. Its cynicism impressed me at times, and parts of the film come off with genuine flair, but in the end there is little here except a fleetingly amusing collection of stereotypes that hinder some great performances.

CHRIS:

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Uncle Toby (Rob Brydon) and Widow Wadman (Gillian Anderson) in one of the more post-modern sequences in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. The film tells the story of the making of a film version of Sterne's novel, but gets caught up in telling the story of the film's production before abandoning the real world characters and attempting to get past the moment of Tristram's (Steve Coogan) birth.

CHRIS: Any film by Michael Winterbottom is going to be an interesting experience, even if his latest efforts, including Nine Songs and Code 46, have had mixed receptions. In Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (an interesting release title in Australia: the first part was omitted in the UK release), he tackles the 18th century "unfilmable" novel by Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman which - to give you some idea of the tone of the picture - is glibly described as Steve Coogan as "post-modern, before there was any modernism to be post about..." in a scene in which he's being interviewed for fictional DVD extras for the film we are watching being filmed by Tony Wilson, who Coogan played in Winterbottom's earlier film 24 Hour Party People. And if that sounds confusing, it amazingly plays out quite logically on screen, especially given Coogan is moving between playing Tristram, his father Walter, and a version of himself (still called "Steve Coogan") in the more 'real-life' section for the film. Any synopsis of the action of the film must stop about there.

The film teeters dangerously on the edge of horrible self-consciousness and although it's not quite as funny as it thinks it is (there are some in-jokes I'll happily admit to not having the slightest clue about), the film is a genuinely original and enjoyable experience. The novel veers off on many, many diversions in its attempts to chart the life of the protagonist, though he can never get past the cirumstances of his conception and birth in his attempts, and it seems that Winterbottom's approach is far and away the best (and perhaps only) way to tell such a story. Completely in the spirit of the source, the film replaces some of these diversions with the story of the film's production over one night in a country house hotel. Each of the main actors play versions of their real-life selves - particularly Coogan and Rob Brydon - and we also meet much of the important crew of the film as they struggle to make commercial and creative decisions about the film that we are watching. Unlike the documentary style of say Lost in La Mancha (about Terry Gilliam's aborted Don Quixote), A Cock and Bull Story is definitely a fiction, though how much of one is open to debate. It is often these moments that, as well as some genuine insights into filmmaking, provide the most hilarity: Coogan is priceless with some hot chesnuts, and Naomie Harris (popping up just about as far from Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest as it is possible to be) as the eager runner whose film knowledge outstripts the rest of the cast and crew does a great job.

All of which is not to say it is a flawless film, as the major 'joke' does wear a little thin and the first half is superior to the second, but it's definitely a good ride to go on - and a commendably short one. I particularly enjoyed the way Tristram's story mirrors that of the actors and celebrities in the film production, and there is some very interesting camera work and editing, as well as a fascinatingly eclectic soundtrack that heighten the self-refrentiality of this film. For example, the Handel 'Sarabande' Kubrick used in Barry Lyndon, makes a memorable appearance alongside the music of Nino Rota and Michael Nyman. The ending too perhaps loses out over the rest of the film, as it doesn't seem in the reckless spirit of the earlier part, though the routine that Coogan and Brydon perform during the closing credits will keep the audience laughing way past the 'legal services' credits when most usually flee. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story offers a humourous, understated film with a killer cast (I haven't even mentioned Dylan Moran, Stephen Fry or a particularly good Gillian Anderson) and a quirky story that will both interest and amuse.

CHRIS:

NOTE: Much as we may try and arrange it otherwise, we are inevitably going to see films seperately sometimes, and in those cases you'll unfortunately have to make do with a monologue-style review. Hopefully they prove equally worthy!