CARS 2: I Really Am Just a Tow Truck

Cars 2 (2011) – The 12th Pixar Animated Feature – Directed by John Lassater – Starring Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jason Isaacs, Thomas Kretschmann, Eddie Izzard, John Turturro, Joe Mantegna, Tony Shaloub, Bruce Campbell, Franco Nero, John Ratzenberger, Vanessa Redgrave, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, Katherine Helmond, Jeff Garlin, Edie McClurg, and Richard Kind.

They made an entire movie about the freaking sidekick.

Not a direct-to-DVD movie. Not a made-for-cable movie. Not an animated short that gets played before the real movie, but an actual, honest-to-goodness $200 million release about the …

about the …

… about THE FREAKING TOW TRUCK.

Maybe John Lasseter’s office at the Magic Kingdom is actually in the parking garage, because sucking on exhaust fumes is one of the only possible explanations I can come up with for making this movie revolve around the one-note (one-not-really-that-funny-note) Tow Mater.

I had heard a lot of negative reaction to CARS 2, and through the first 30 or 40 minutes of the movie, I was wondering what could possibly have caused such a negative reaction. The film opens with a fantastic action sequence on an oil rig that sees Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) doing his whole super cool British spy thing. There’s plenty of action and the top flight CGI animation that Pixar does better than anyone else.

From there we head to Radiator Springs, where Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is returning home after winning his fourth Piston Cup championship. He reunites with best pal Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), his girlfriend Sally (Bonnie Hunt), and is about to enjoy some good ol’ fashioned time off when Mater gets him wrapped up in some international racing competition. Milex Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) has created this new alternative biofuel called Allinol and to prove how awesome it is, he’s going to stage the World Grand Prix, which will have race cars from all over the world, and from all different series. He’s on TV being interviewed alongside Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro), a Formula One-styled racing car, who loves himself even more than the ladies love him. Francesco does a bit of trash talking and next thing you know, Mater is calling in to the talk show to talk up the awesomeness of Lightning. When McQueen realizes what’s happening, he jumps on the phone and accepts the invitation to the race.

We’re off to Japan for some really gorgeous CGI and engaging hobnobbing and racing and espionage as Finn and Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) show up to meet with an American contact. The contact is supposed to be Torque (Bruce Campbell), but the bad guys are onto him. Mater gets in the middle of their battle because Mater is hilarious and Mater in a Japanese bathroom stall is hilarious times hilarious, and Torque attaches his information device onto Mater without the tow truck realizing what’s happened.

And from there the movie rather begins to sink, as it becomes apparent that this is a Mater movie, with McQueen relegated to doing some racing stuff in between Mater being hilarious with Finn and Holly.

I lay the blame for the disappointing CARS 2 solely on the decision to focus on Mater. The story is fine, in and of itself, though the larger themes of friendship and how it’s okay to be a stupid American while in other countries falls a bit flat. The idea of a World Grand Prix is a good one, and the espionage plot is well-conceived, too. Finn and Holly travel by plane and train as they seek to solve the mission of who’s behind the Big Evil Plot, but that idiot Mater is sitting right in the middle of all their espionage stuff being Mater. I just don’t understand what Lasseter was thinking. It’s a classic sequel mistake of taking what was funny in small doses in the original movie and then loading up on it because, obviously, if a little of something is funny than a lot of something is going to be super funny.

Except it’s not.

I suppose it might be possible to say that one’s enjoyment of CARS 2 is equatable with one’s enjoyment of Larry the Cable Guy. Well, my enjoyment of his shtick is rather low, and so every time he does his “dum dum dum der der dum dum der” routine, I want to hit the fast forward button. In small doses, it’s fine, but in large doses it’s just … so … tedious.

It’s a shame because I love the idea of CARS 2. I love the racing angle. I like the idea of taking McQueen and Mater out of Radiator Springs, but Mater’s whole “Dumb American Abroad” routine is as tiresome to me as it is embarrassing to Lightning. I don’t even mind seeing the secondary characters I liked so much in the original CARS become almost non-existent because we get a bunch of new, equally cool secondary characters.

But to build this idea around Mater … Ugh.

CARS 2 certainly isn’t an awful movie. If nothing else, Pixar has created a gorgeous movie to look at. Rather, CARS 2 a pretty good movie with a really awful center. I suppose it’s a bit like enjoying a Tootsie Pop but hating the Tootsie center – it starts all awesome and then bogs down in chewy junk.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN: I’m a Mean Motherf*ckin’ Servant of God

From Dusk till Dawn (1996) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Ernest Liu, Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tom Savini, Fred Williamson, Michael Parks, John Saxon, Kelly Preston, and John Hawkes.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN is a collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez; Tarantino wrote the script, Rodriguez directs the script, and Tarantino acts in the script. DUSK is really two movies mashed together, the Tarantino opening setting up the Rodriguez closing, and it’s a clear first run for their Grindhouse project a decade later.

In the first half of the film, we focus on Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino) Gecko’s run from the law. Seth is the cool bad-ass and Richie is the disturbed psychotic; the former kills only when necessary and the latter kills whenever he can. Both Clooney and Tarantino are fantastic as the brothers; while his status as an international movie star is now a given, DUSK was the film that proved Clooney could transition off the ER set and become a movie star. He’s electric as Seth, playing the cool customer who’s got the simmering anger waiting to explode beneath the surface.

We first see the brothers in action in a crummy roadside liquor store, operated by John Hawkes and visited by Texas Ranger Earl McGraw (Michael Parks, who also appears in Kill Bill and Planet Terror as the Ranger). The brothers are hiding in the back, keeping hostages close and mouths shut, but Richie kills McGraw with a bullet in the back of his head. Seth is furious, but Richie insists that he saw the cashier mouthing help to the Ranger. We know this is false, and Seth has to know this is false, but this is the lot he’s drawn so he ends up blowing up the liquor store before heading to Mexico.

They entered the store to get a map, and ended up in a bloodbath, which is the S.O.P. they follow for the rest of the film. They get a hotel room in order to contact their handler that guarantees a place for them in Mexico, and Richie ends up raping and killing their hostage. They kidnap Jacob and his two kids, Scott and Kate (Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu, and Juliette Lewis) because they’ve got an RV that Seth is convinced can help get them across the border, and then when they stop at the Titty Twister bar to wait for their contact, a vampire massacre breaks out.

It’s the second half of the movie that most people remember, of course (I was a bit surprised when I watched DUSK again the other night that the Tarantino half of the movie takes an entire 45 minutes to work through), because this is where all the blood and killing and dancing Salma Hayek happens, but it’s the first-half of the movie that’s more enjoyable for me to watch. If Tarantino is remembered for only one thing when he’s done making movies, it will be his dialogue. While there’s nothing as memorable here as Pulp Fiction, or as cool as Kill Bill, or as intense as Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino knows how to play characters off of one another. When the Gecko brothers first encounter Jacob’s family, Seth wants to know what relationship Jacob and Scott have, asking, “What’s the story with you two, you a couple of fags?”

Jacob answers, “He’s my son.”

“How’s that happen? You don’t look Japanese.”

“Neither does he. He looks Chinese.”

“Well, excuse me all to hell.”

There’s a real unbalanced relationship between the five traveling companions that’s driven by Clooney and Keitel; Seth comes off as a likable guy, but one that’s never far from violence. He wants everyone to get along because he’s in a good mood, but Jacob stakes out his own ground in order to protect his kids. Seth is protective of the kids, too, knowing that Richie’s interest in Kate isn’t one of captor and hostage, but while he keeps Richie in check, he also lets Jacob know that he can unleash Richie if Jacob doesn’t do what he wants.

Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu are good as Kate and Scott as two kids who obviously love their father but are also intrigued by Seth’s lawlessness. When Seth demands that everyone drinks with him, Scott and Kate are hesitant at first but willing to knock a few back. The scene works because Seth and Jacob, seated next to each other, are clearly battling for control. “Are you so much of a f*cking loser that you can’t tell when you’ve won,” Jacob asks. Seth flips, but Jacob is right and Seth knows it.

At the Titty Twister, the tone shifts from Tarantino’s slow burn to Rodriguez’s splatter revelry. A bunch of Rodriguez regulars make an appearance (Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Hayek), Tom Savini and Fred Williamson are tossed into the mix, and after a non-strip table dance from Satánico Pandemonium (Hayek), it’s all vampire killing until the end. All of the vamp splatter is good fun, as each of the participants falls in turn, until we’re left with Seth, Jacob, Kate, and Scott.

Jacob is bit and he forces his kids to promise him they’ll kill him once he starts to turn. They don’t want to do it, of course, but he insists that he won’t be their father any more, but rather, “I’ll be a lap dog of Satan.” The final run through the vamps is a good shootout that sees Jacob turn lapdog, Scott get devoured, and only Kate and Seth survive. Kate lets Seth know that she’s available to go with him, but Seth tells her no, that El Ray is too rough a town for her. “I may be a bastard, Kate,” he insists, “but I’m not a f*cking bastard. Go home.”

As Seth and Kate drive away in separate directions, the camera pulls back to reveal that the Titty Twister was located atop an old Aztec temple, hidden and buried but still very much active.

There’s nothing legendary about FROM DUSK TIL DAWN and I can see why people would get frustrated with a film like this; Tarantino and Rodriguez are so talented that it could seem a bit odd that they’d combine their talents for a splatterfest, but it’s movies like DUSK that provide such an insightful key to their more respected and beloved works. Tarantino and Rodriguez love the entertainment aspect of movies more than the literariness of movies; they’re no more right, of course, than those who favor the other side of the coin, but neither of these men are ever all that interested in the deeper questions of life, the universe, and everything. They’re more interested in people trying to get through the day and past the obstacle in front of them.

Tucked between Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, between Desperado and The Faculty, (forgetting the forgotten Four Rooms, in which each directed one of the four sequences) DUSK doesn’t hold a candle to the films that come around it, but it’s still an enjoyable romp.

DESPERADO: Bless Me, Father, For I Have Just Killed Quite a Few Men

Desperado (1995) – Directed by Robert Rodriguez – Starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, Carlos Gallardo, and Quentin Tarantino.

DESPERADO is one of the coolest movies of the 1990s. I just reviewed Walter Hill’s Wild Bill, which spends a lot of time trying to be cool through style and editing, but DESPERADO simply is cool through the power of Banderas’ performance, Rodriguez’s energetic (but not headache-inducing) camera work, a fantastic score and soundtrack (thanks, Los Lobos!), and great performances that all blend together to create a very believable, hyper world of drugs, sex, and violence.

It’s telling that both films are released in 1995, where the old hand is trying new tricks and the new hand is reaffirming the old ones. I applaud Hill for trying something different with Wild Bill, but I’d be lying if I said it worked. DESPERADO, on the other hand, proves that Rodriguez can do with $7 million what he did with $7,000 in El Mariachi without getting lost amidst all his new toys and possibilities.

DESPERADO is a sequel to El Mariachi, with Antonio Banderas stepping into the role Carlos Gallardo originated. (Gallardo has a smaller role as Campa, one of Mariachi’s allies.) Banderas and Gallardo bring different qualities to the role of Mariachi. Where Gallardo infused the character with a boyish charm, Banderas gives him a much more traditionally cool, masculine edge. At the start of the film, Mariachi’s unnamed, storytelling ally (Steve Buscemi), enters Cheech Marin’s bar to spread the word that Mariachi is in town and to look for the local reaction when he mentions Bucho, the target of Mariachi’s quest this time around. Buscemi (I’m not going to keep calling him “unnamed storytelling ally”) gets the crowd’s attention by saying he just came from a bar where he saw “the biggest Mexican I’ve ever seen in my life,” signalling to us that Mariachi has grown quite a bit since he picked up Domino’s dog, hopped on her bike, and almost ran over a turtle.

Mariachi is now killer first, music being relegated into the stuff of dreams. He tries to play a couple times, but his damaged left hand (shot through by Moco at the end of El Mariachi) keeps him from being able to hold the neck, so first a little kid and then later Carolina (Salma Hayek) try their hand at accompanying him.

As with El Mariachi, it’s the non-action scenes that make DESPERADO something better than a solid action flick. Mariachi’s relationship with the young boy who walks around town with a guitar both humanizes him (when he’s teaching the boy) and then propels him towards greater anger (when he discovers the boy carries drugs in his guitar for Bucho), and finally shows us compassion (when the boy is accidentally shot during a showdown with Bucho’s men).

Where DESPERADO exceeds its preceding part is in not only Rodriguez’s growing abilities as a filmmaker, but in the extended cast of high-quality actors who are put to excellent use. There’s great chemistry between Cheech Marin as the bartender and Buscemi: “Hey, the bartender always survives!” “No, man, the bartender got it worst of all.” Danny Trejo shows up as a killer sent by the Columbians to watch over Bucho’s operation and take care of Mariachi. Forget Machete, this is Trejo at his bad-ass best as a silent, stalking, dangerous killer who uses throwing knives instead of guns. And Joaquim de Almeida steps into the role intended for Raul Julia and delivers a rather complex villain role. Alternatively, he’s mean, charming, scared, violent, conniving, generous … but his best moment comes when he’s trying to call the phone in his brand new car from his compound but he can’t because no one knows the car’s phone number. “Does anyone f*cking know the phone number to my car?!?” he yells to a compound full of henchmen that clearly don’t.

Rodriguez also shows he knows how to put together a great sex scene; instead of simply feeling perfunctory, Rodriguez puts as much attention to this scene as any of his shoot-’em-up sequences. Banderas is one half of the coupling and Salma Hayek is the other. DESPERADO is the film that launched Hayek into the Hollywood consciousness, and she’s rather good at being the gorgeous, semi-naive coffee shop/bookstore owner who ends up as Mariachi’s ally, nurse, and then lover. When Mariachi finds out she’s been allowing Bucho to use her store as a drop for drugs, Mariachi is furious with her, and it’s in these moments of desperate rage that Banderas really wins me over.

If there’s a weakness with DESPERADO it’s the ending twist of having Mariachi and Bucho be brothers. It’s not really needed but I suppose Rodriguez didn’t want to go down the same road as El Mariachi, with a bad guy who’s courting the woman who falls for the hero. That’s here, too, of course, but the thrust of these final scenes is between Bucho and his little brother.

DESPERADO is fantastic from start to finish, a slick, totally cool action flick that’s as good a contemporary western as anyone could want, and a fitting end to Western Month.