More on Cars.

Yet another Cars Review pouring in. One note that the reviewer points out is that there is a tribute to Joe Ranft in the credits and he is listed as a co-director.

I'm aware that most people actually don't want to see Cars, because they have no interest in cars or racing, and whatnot. I have to ask - do you have a particular interest in bugs and fish? I doubt it, and A Bug's Life and Finding Nemo are such good movies that things such as what species the main characters are just doesn't interest me. Here's something the reviewer said to hilight this:

"To put a lot of your minds at rest, the film , although it does have a strong racing theme, was not like watching a movie about racing. I am not a fan of racing for one. But the racing scenes were just thrilling to watch. Don't let the fact that your not a racing fan put you off. [...] When John Lasseter first said to his wife Nancy that he was going to finally make his 'Cars' movie, she said to him that 99.5% of the world are not racing fans. And John Lasseter has made sure everyone will love this film."

Via the [TAG Blog], Wall Street Journal analyses the upcoming release of Cars:

"Still, it's unclear whether the main characters -- cars -- will grip audiences the same way that digital toys and fish did. Mr. Iger has surprised Wall Stree and the world in his first months on the job with a willingness to challent the status quo and operate differently than his predecessor, Michael Eisner. But if "Cars" becomes the first Pixar movie to hit a phothole, his honeymoon as Disney CEO could lose its sparkle."

Oie. Talk about pessimistic!

If want to see more reviews, check out the Rotten Tomatoes Cars page. As of today Cars is at 89% favourable reviews (far cry short of the 100% that Toy Story and Toy Story 2 got, 98% for Finding Nemo the 97% for Incredibles, 95% for Monster's Inc). Keep in mind that Cars is based upon only 9 reviews. Toy Story 2 is based on 106. My guess is that either way it'll probably have mostly favorable reviews from critics (my guess is in the 90% range). The next-lowest rated Pixar film is A Bug's Life with 91%.

Of interest, here is the link to the 1 bad review by Nick Schager of Slant Magazine. A summary of the worst stuff:

"its dawdling, unfunny 116-minute story stalls at nearly every turn, peddling ho-hum morals about community, teamwork, and altruism while also proffering tired, red state-pandering rural-vs.-urban hogwash"

"Despite the fact that their expressiveness is constricted by their physical limitations (i.e. no useful appendages, only one bodily position), Lasseter and company's four-wheeled protagonists resemble reasonably dynamic Matchbox toys sprung to life, their shiny chassis and vigorous velocity helping to partially distract attention away from their insanely creepy tongues (which floppily protrude from their mouths in a manner apt to give small tykes nightmares)"

And last but not least:

"Cars' story is a hoary romanticization of all things rustic (and implicit critique of many things contemporary) that, in its schematism, comes off like a thinly veiled Hollywood olive branch extended toward conservative heartland inhabitants. Musty, corny, and largely devoid of any enchanting magic, it's also the pioneering Pixar's first effort that, trailblazing technical virtuosity be damned, feels disappointingly regressive."

On the flip side Cars gets two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper.

One more thing about Cars for today: Jim Hill Media posts about how Cars will likely have to make 75+ million in its first weekend to be seen as a commercial success.

Remember, June 9th!

Also on the Tag Blog is this post regarding a visit to Disney Feature Animation. He mentions the movie "Joe Jump" in development, as well as American Dog and Rapunzel. Anyone heard of Joe Jump?

People keep point out to me all the time that I must read a lot of blogs to keep up with the news, or something. I just use an RSS reader. What's that, you say? It's essentially a light browser designed to subscribe to blogs and sites with rss feeds. Ever subscribe to a podcast on iTunes? An Rss reader lets you add your favorite blogs and sites that have feeds to it and tells you which have updated - most let you choose an interval where it regularly checks for updates, as well as a manual way of 'updating now'. This is great if you're looking through 300+ blogs and more than half of them have not updated. If you're on a Mac like I am, the best one that I've found is NetNewsWire - it has a built in tabbed browser based on Safari and works great!. I've also been searching around for a good one for windows and am surprised at how unpopular RSS Readers seem to be. The most popular reader has only had 70,000 Downloads. The one I chose for windows is RSSReader. I'm giving it a whirl and will tell you if it works well. One thing that I've noticed with RSSReader is that it requires you to type in the url + atom.xml. So, for my blog, to add it, you need to enter in "http://cookedart.blogspot.com/atom.xml". Other than that it works great so far. Man it sucks adding all the feeds the first time... but believe me, it saves you time in the long run. Believe me.