Here in my car, I feel safest of all.

Before going on, did you catch the reference in the title? (I think I may have explained it to Lemming, or I at least previously told him that that line is a reference. (There are people reading this who have a fighting chance of catching this without looking it up, although it might depend on how good your memory is.)

Anyway, a bunch of us went to see Cars on Sunday night. Our conclusion: Pixar is awesome! (OK, like we didn't know that before...) While Cars isn't as good as The Incredibles, that's pretty much only because that's a task that almost no movie can handle. This wasn't my favorite movie of the year, but it's on the short short list with V for Vendetta and Thank You For Smoking. (I'm not including older movies I've seen on DVD.) It may rank as my second favorite Pixar movie, but I'm not sure. (For me, there is a huge gap between The Incredibles, my 2004 movie of the year, and their other movies---though I like their other movies quite a lot.) The short movie before the main feature was also supremely awesome. (For that matter, I very much appreciate the fact that Pixar and Dreamworks are upholding the tradition of having a short cartoon right before the main feature. I have thoroughly enjoyed most of those that I've seen over the years.)

Which character was Fillmore? (It's not coming to mind.) Apparently, George Carlin did his voice. (Oh, I just realized it. He was the hippie. Dude, that is so bloody awesome!) "I'm telling you, Man. Every third blink is slower." John Ratzenberger, originally of Cheers fame, did his usual awesome job for Pixar. (I especially liked his voice work while the credits were rolling---simply awesome! People who have seen the movie know exactly what I'm talking about here...) Cheech Marin was the voice of Ramone. I also greatly appreciated the bit-part voice actors (like Bob Costas and Jay Leno) playing cars with analogous roles to what they do in real life. The bit role by Richard kind (the guy who refused directions) was sweet. (Kind also had an awesome bit role in the movie Bewitched and he was excellent in a regular role on "Spin City.") And Ahhhhhhhnuld as the Governator/Hummer was simply one of the best bit roles of all time!

Here are the wikipedia entries for Cars and for "Cars" (which is the song from whence the entry title comes). (People who lived or spent a lot of time in Kaos when I lived there heard me play a CD with this song a number of times.) They don't yet have a discussion of the English translation of a certain Italian phrase from the movie, but I imagine that will find its way there eventually. (There were apparently a bunch of very brief references to older Pixar stuff that appeared in the middle of the movie. I missed almost all of them. I wish I had caught the reference to "For the Birds," which is a spectacular short cartoon.)

Another thing worth pointing out is that Pixar avoided the tendency to overdo the Redneckery despite their choice of subject matter. My one worry about the film was that they might succumb to this tendency a bit, but there weren't any issues at all. The film was thoroughly enjoyable. If you haven't yet seen it, go buy tickets right now!

One final thing: "Freebird!"