I could write a dozen posts about all the RL stuff we've been doing lately, and I might do just that (don't count on it), but for now, I'll talk about why I didn't see
Cars.
As I briefly related in my last briefly written post, my dad, mom, and stepdad all came up to visit, as did Malaya's best friend from high school. I won't go into the whole thing, but we had several events to attend, and our time and my time was pretty tightly-booked for the past few days. Nevertheless, there were some down times, and times that had to be filled by events other than meeting various parental units for lunch and/or dinner. My mom and stepdad drove up on Thursday, and had to return Sunday morning. I saw them for dinner Thursday, and Friday as well, and after we ate that night they were heading back to their hotel. It was only 7 though, and when it's light here until 9:30, that seems early. They were planning on seeing a movie, and after deciding on Cars over An Inconvenient Truth, (which I'm sure they'll see back in San Diego), they asked if I wanted to go with them. I would have, but... I'd already contracted to see that with Dad on Sunday, when we were doing a combo Father's Day/Birthday thing (his F-day, my B-day 2 days early).
Surprisingly, they didn't like it. Talking to them at a party on Saturday mom said, "You'd better really like stock car racing if you want to see it." They'd actually walked out after 30 minutes, bored and unimpressed by the cartoon recreation of a stock car race that apparently occupies the first 1/3 of the film.
It's odd, since I've read a fair number of Cars reviews, and none have spent much time on the stock car aspects of the film. From what I gather, the first 1/3 is a race sequence with the hot shot car protagonist, the middle section is the car in a
Doc Hollywood-style small town where he learns to be a better person (anthropomorphic racecar?), and the finale is another stock car race. So yeah, if you're going to sit through the film, you've got to harbor at least some tolerance for watching modified sedans drive in a big circle. I've not heard a single critic talk about that though; they all focus on the human elements of the characters, how the hotshot punk kid grows as a person, learns about smalltown America, etc, etc. Did anyone really like or dislike the racing stuff, though? No one (but my parents) seems to care.
Anyway, Sunday rolled around and despite mom's less than enthusiastic review, dad and I were still planning on seeing the film. I don't give a damn about any sort of car racing (except for the crashes) and I have some active hostility towards the redneck spectacle that is stock car racing. Guys, would it kill you to you know, turn right once in a while? But despite that, I was trusting to Pixar's history of nothing but at least pretty good films, and figuring it would be worth seeing in theaters, instead of waiting six months and spending $5 on the used DVD.
When we got to the shopping center though, and found the entire parking garage full up to the 4th level, (I'd never seen it that full, even during Xmas shopping season.) dad got cold feet. He's like, "Do you think the movie will be crowded? I hate to see a movie in a packed theater with noisy kids." I said, "Well, it's a big family movie, it's Father's Day, it's a matinee, and it's Sunday." And that was that. Dad preferred to just browse around a bookstore for a bit, and since he was itching to get home he moved his flight up a couple of hours and made a slighly early departure.
And that's why I didn't see
Cars despite two opportunities, and why I had time to finish
Feast of Crows last night (review to come), and why today I've been lazily blogging and surfing and chilling out. In fact, I've been chilling out too much today (I can
not stop working my way through
these 80s videos.) and I don't even have time to get to the gym now, since we're supposed to head over to Malaya's parents' house for dinner in less than an hour. Tomorrow should be fun too, since it's my b-day and Malaya's been scheming up cool stuff we can do together, none of which I have the first clue about. Though I'll know a good deal more by this time tomorrow, I suspect.
Labels: movies, you tube
