Pixar continues to roll out the hits!

Everytime I see a new Disney/Pixar animated feature come out I think about how close this amazing alliance came to splitting up! Thank goodness they were able to resolve their differences in a true Hollywood rarity!

Having said that, "Cars" is another gem from this unbelievable collaboration! Cars is the tale of a race car on his way to a huge race to decide who will be the "Piston Cup" champion. This is like no other racing movie in that it is being told from the car's view! There are no humans or animals in cars. Everything from people to animals to bugs are cars, trucks, tractors, etc. This is a really cool concept & it is done extremely well!

The race car, Lightning McQueen, is accidentally lost in the dessert & finds an 'out in the middle of no where' town on what is essentially old route 66. The town has fallen into decay because of a new super highway that has by passed the old route. McQueen inadvertently destroys the town's main road & is forced to repair it. During his 'community service', McQueen begins to befriend the denizens of this burg & realizes there are more important things in life besides racing. This will serve him well later in his big race! He also picks up a few tips from the town's unknown former racing champ. Of course there is a love interest in the form of a Porsche named Sally.

As in all Disney/Pixar films, this one is loaded with colorful & amusing characters! It also has a ton of stars adding their voice talents & all of these are cast quite well! McQueen is voiced by Owen Wilson & Bonnie Hunt is Sally. Other's of note are Cheech Marin, Larry the Cable Guy, Paul Newman, Michael Keaton & George Carlin to name just a few. As this is a racing movie, there are plenty of voice talents from the racing world including Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr & Mario Andretti + many more! There are also plenty of other voices supplied by members of the entertainment & sports world. All are given amusing car related names.

As usual, Pixar supplies plenty of bonus features on their DVDs & this is no exception! It contains 2 short features as well! Don't run away after the movie though! Stick around for the credits as Pixar takes a moment to make fun of itself & actor John Ratzenburger ( a voice in virtually every Pixar film!) with a run down of all his performances done in Cars fashion! It is very hilarious!

I almost skipped this film when it came out in theaters, but opted to go & was blown away! Don't make the same mistake I did! Buy/rent this film, watch it & be amazed & entertained! It's great fun for the whole family!

Cars Posted by CK-Auctions

Posted by CK-Auctions

Movie for movie, Pixar is commercially the single most successful studio ever in this industry, and their initial six feature films were widely considered to be classics from the moment their first digitally-rendered frames splashed across theater screens. Let's go ahead and get this out of the way first: yes, Cars probably is the weakest of their releases so far, but griping that Cars is Pixar's least impressive movie is kind of like complaining that you missed a number on a lottery ticket and only won a couple hundred thousand bucks. When a studio has a list of movies like Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles under its belt, merely being "very good" kinda pales by comparison. Still, if you're willing to appreciate Cars for what it is rather than debate how it stacks up against the rest of Pixar's filmography, it's hard to imagine anyone feeling disappointed.

This may be hotshot Lightning McQueen's first year in the racing circuit, but he's already favored to be the first rookie in history to ever take home the Piston Cup. Lightning's good, and he knows it; he's too insufferably cocky to keep a steady pit crew on the payroll, and he's eager to shrug off Rust-eze Bumper Ointment, the low-rent sponsor who took a chance on him, in favor of a fossil fueled corporate behemoth. His arrogance nearly costs him the 'Cup, and on his way to a second race to break an unprecedented three-way tie, Lightning finds himself stranded in the sleepy little town of Radiator Springs. It used to be one of the highlights on Route 66, but as travelers gravitated towards the newly constructed interstate, Radiator Springs literally dropped off the map. Anymore, it's the kind of place you'd call "backwater" if it weren't smack-dab in the middle of the desert, and that rare occasion when someone passes through is treated like some sort of epochal event. Without any way of contacting the press or his sponsors, Lightning's stuck there until the law's satisifed that he's finished repaving the road he trashed. As he gets to know townsfolk (towncars?) like the sleek big-city-lawyer-turned-not-so-​big-city-hotelier Sally and rusty, dimwitted tow truck Mater, it starts to strike Lightning that maybe there's more to life than the fast lane after all.
Okay, the Doc Hollywood-meets-Days of Thunder analogy that every movie reviewer is contractually obligated to toss out about Cars isn't exactly unfounded. The skeleton of this fish-out-of-water tale is overly familiar and doesn't really take any unexpected detours until its very final moments. At 116 minutes, it's (just barely) Pixar's longest movie to date, and with its first act lacking a strong hook, Cars probably would've been a much smoother ride if the road to Radiator Springs weren't quite so long. Just a little of the humor also aims lower than I'd expect from Pixar, and some of the double-underlined moral lessons and oversentimentality can be really heavy-handed, but...once the movie settled in, very little of this actually bothered me. Its characters may be Detroit steel, but there's more under the hood than just crankshafts and carburetors. There's a real heart to the movie, and by the time its first hour had ended, I was completely hooked.

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Posted by CK-Auctions

CARS races toward the checkered flag!

The folks at Pixar Animation Studios have successfully teamed up with the Walt Disney company to produce some of the highest quality films ever made. Each one has its own style. Of all of the films they have released, perhaps their best work is the 2006 movie, "CARS". From start to finish, this gem of a motion picture has something for everybody. The racing sequences are a real blast. As a matter of fact, they almost look real. Coomentary from Bob Costas and Darrel waltrip highlight these moments. Racing legends Richard Petty and Dale Earnhart, Jr. also add a unique touch to this production. The additional voice cast truly make it shine. Owen Wilson is great as Lightning McQueen, who races for himself but eventually realizes that there is more to racing than just winning. Paul Newman, Michael Keaton, Cheech Marin, George Carlin, Katherine Helmond, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Dooley, Tony Shaloub, Larry The Cable Guy and a host of others round out an exceptionally well-cast group of talents as the voices for the many vehicles that inhabit the small town of Radiator Springs, located in Carborator County. Even Mario Andretti and Michael Schumacher provide cameo vocals, as well. Once again, the Disney/Pixar team has created a modern classic movie masterpiece that people will enjoy for a long time to come. And, the short film "Mater And The Ghost Light" is the perfect companion on this DVD.

Fun For the Whole Family

Disney Pixar's Cars is highly original and creative containing elements that everyone in the family would enjoy. Taking advantage of America's love for auto racing, Cars employs the voice talents of actual racing icons such as Richard Petty [The King], Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Darrel Waltrip to go along with the other A-list voice talents---Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, and Larry the Cable Guy. Cars centers around the rookie racing season of phenom Lightning McQueen [voice by Wilson], who is talented enough to be in contention for the prestigious Piston Cup, but lacks humility and appreciation for what he has. He works alone and realizes that he is just that when he gets lost in an out of the way hamlet off of old Route 66 called Radiator Springs. The citizens of the town are pleased to have a visitor, but are not impressed by Lightning's celebrity---much to his chagrin.
Cars runs longer than any Disney movie---at nearly 2 hours (116 minutes)---but is well paced and engaging enough for toddlers. I know that is the case with my own kids (aged 4 and 2) who watch it daily, which is why I had to buy this copy here on eBay. There isn't much that I disliked about the story or DVD. Included in the DVD are two animated shorts One Man Band which was played during the theatrical release and Mater and the Ghostlight which was made for the DVD release. Cars doesn't have Disney's Fastplay feature, which is great if you want to a couple of minutes to just plop the kids in front of the TV, but not really all that much of a hassle.
Children will love the originality of talking cars and adults will enjoy the novelty as well. Cars is an instant classic and the last of the Pixar films that the whole family can enjoy.

Pixar Perfection

Pixar hits the mark again with a movie that has something for the whole family. Cars tells the story of a rising star of the 'Piston Cup' racing world, who finds that real happiness comes with helping others, instead of just serving yourself. Ultimately, our hero trades in his dream of a prize for the joy of caring for others, and finds love and true friends along the way. It is set in a 'world' made up entirely of vehicles, from the main characters to the insects (little flying VW bugs).

This film has all the action and adventure that a kid could want, loads of great music, and a fantastic message. The folks at Pixar also understand that the adults are likely to suffer through a child's favorite movie over and over again, so they put alot of subtle things into Cars (and their other films) for the parents to enjoy (like the old rusty car in the back of the crowd shouting 'Freebird!'. The writers at Pixar seem to have a real gift for creating scripts that mix various levels of humor targeted to many different age groups and cultural backgrounds, and Cars is no exception. I really enjoyed watching the movie the first 4-5 times, and have been easily able to tolerate it the following 50 times.

The graphics is top notch (the norm for Pixar), which in this case really helps develop an emotional understanding of characters that are ... Cars! We're talking leaps and bounds ahead of the Chevron commercial cars. Pixars cars display real feelings in their facial characteristics and body language. The voice cast is excellent overall, but I must say that Larry the Cable Guy as Mater and Paul Newman as Doc nearly steal the show.

Finally, the DVD contains some great short movies, including "Mater and the Ghostlights" starring the Cars cast, and "One Man Band", which we originally saw in the theater with Cars. Both are very entertaining. A variety of other fantastic bonus features rounds off the Cars DVD to make a fantastic package of entertainment for a reasonable price. A real bargain if you ask me.

I enthusiastically give Cars a 5/5!