Team Experience: Recommendations, Hot Wheels To Replace "Cars 2"
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 12:46PM 
Since we have a great roster of erratic contributors here at TFE, we should use them more often, right? What has Team Experience been watching?
What's the best and/or worst thing you saw this week?
Kurt (Cinema de Gym): The best thing I saw this week was Page One: Inside the New York Times, a doc that filled a little empty spot in my soul. Of course it's slanted so as to exalt the Gray Lady, but so what. It's thus far the most comprehensive film we have to address where we stand in the world of media, and thank GOD for the invaluable David Carr, a shut-up-and-listen voice of reason who defends the fundamentals amidst legions of people blindly barrelling toward an all-digital climate of media without merit. The worst thing I saw was Bad Teacher (my review) which couldn't even appeal to my sinful love of hating on goody-two-shoe types ("Bad Santa" this is not) and it contains the year's worst character in Lucy Punch's Amy Squirrell. She's unwatchable.
Robert G: Best: Noriko's Dinner Table--so many questions, so few answers. How could Suicide Club become more confusing and addictive with a sequel? Worst Thing: 8213: Gacey House--I have a high tolerance for bad horror. This overloaded my circuits.
Jose: Eclipse Series 27: Raffaello Matarazzo's Runaway Melodramas. Move over Sirk, Fassbender, Almodóvar and Visconti, this man owned when it came to suffering women! I'm still recovering from gasping and sobbing so much.
JA: I'm sort of completely and totally obsessed with Adrien Brody's brief bit as Dali in Midnight in Paris right now. I can't stop hearing him pronounce "RHINOCEROS" inside my head. He says it so many times that the word loses all meaning and becomes this jumble of sound, all nonsense, which is obviously the point - hysterical nonsense.
Robert (Distant Relatives): I caught up with the 1962 samurai film Hara-Kiri. It's always great to have even high expectations exceeded and see an old film that still feels modern and poignant.
Michael (Unsung Heroes): A second viewing of the terrorism comedy Four Lions on Netflix Instant. I declared it the funniest movie of 2010 and I'm pleased to report it has the main quality that makes a cult classic: it gets funnier on repeat viewings.
Craig (Take Three): The best thing I saw this week, cinematically, was Bridesmaids, which was a daftly hilarious experience. (Yes, there categorically should be Oscar nods for Wiig and McCarthy. I ain't kidding.); worst thing, sadly, was Dario Argento's The Card Player (2004) apart from a ludicrous scene involving a life-or-death poker match played on train tracks to a pounding techno score.
Alex "BBats" The best thing I saw this week was a documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival called Salaam Dunk about a group of Iraqi female students playing college basketball. I love sports docs (ESPN's 30 for 30 was amazing) and the concept of one focusing on women in the middle east was too interesting to pass up. It was a well balanced film about positive changes that are coming to the region while keeping the problems and challenges in clear perspective (I always forget that Iraqis call the war "The Invasion") The girls are all so wonderful and their coach is hilarious and so caring towards his students. Definitely check it out when you get a chance. Didn't see any terrible things this week, but will say that Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur, while having great moments and acting, was a very emotional confusing movie. It's like a revenge drama where revenge is taken within and often against oneself.
Andreas (Mix Tape): The best movie I watched was John Ford's unduly obscure Two Rode Together, which is essentially Jimmy Stewart & Richard Widmark reenacting The Searchers. The film is dripping with moral ambiguity & gets really emotionally intense toward the end; also, the usually lovable Stewart plays a total scumbag. It works. I loved the movie.
REGARDING CARS 2
I (Nathaniel) meant to write a review but every time I sat down to do so I was just angry. I hated -- and I do mean h-a-t-e-d -- the decision to make Pixar's absolute worst character "Mater" the lead of a nearly two hour movie. I figured I had to ask if there was anything salvagable in the concept of anthropomorphic cars.
Which movie car would you willingly spend two hours with?
Jose: The Phantom Carriage so I could grab Cars 2 and send it to hell where it escaped from! (*sob* I really tried to like it.)
Robert G: What could be better than a ride on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? A ride where the flying car lets you know how to avoid the Child Catcher and just have a good time.
Michael (Unsung Heroes): I would like to see a full length feature starring the second hand police car driven by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers. It would have a nice deadpan sense of humor, its radio would play nothing but great rock and roll, and unlike the insufferable Mater it would be a car of few words.
JA: My first thought was Sam Raimi's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, which has made an appearance in all of his films. It could star in its own documentary - I bet it's got stories to tell. Like, I've always wanted to know what having a 23 year old Bruce Campbell sitting on you was like.
This is where we get off."
Kurt: I have a soft spot for the Batmobile from the 60s TV show/movie, which actually just made an appearance at my favorite local theater (alas, I missed it). The car reminds me, of course, of watching the show (Pow! Thwack!), but also of being dragged to auto shows with my dad, which I hated in the moment but now think of fondly. They always had cars like the Batmobile at those things. I imagine the Batmobile and I would discuss chasing Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt, how it was ever able to sleep with all those Batcave gadgets buzzing, and if there's any competition among the other Bat vehicles (that Batsub will cut you!).
Alex "BBats": I wish the car from The Car (1977) would follow Mater across a bridge...
YOUR TURN, READERS... What have you been watching and which movie car would you gladly see anthropomorphized for a couple of hours?
Batman, Cars, New York Times, documentaries
Reader Comments (11)
Finally saw Super 8 this weekend. I still don't know what to think of it. The first part of the movie (despite that train crash, which really needs to be seen to be believed) is such a marvel of narrative economy, and the kids are uniformly excellent. And then they completely biff the monster/alien/whatever. I wish it had more beastly as opposed to so arachnid-like. It was just wrong. And the end was rushed and made little sense. And there's no major character arc for any of the main characters. Best part of it was "The Case," which was pretty great.
I also finally got around to the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. And all I have to say is; Noomi Rapace really got Best Actress traction for this? I mean, she was good, but... really?
I refuse to see Cars 2. I haven't even seen the original Cars. I just never had the desire, and now with all the mediocre-to-bad reviews I still don't have the desire. However, I might go to see the next Fast & Furious movie if their cars talk back to them. That would be fun.
Since I'm a huge tennis nerd, the best thing I've seen all week (and the only thing I have seen really) is Wimbledon coverage. I had to add "coverage" since some might mistake it for the film Wimbledon. Dunsts as a tennis pro, that's funny. As for the worst thing, I don't really have one. I do have The Other Woman from Netflix which I've been meaning to watch, so that could change.
Cars is still the only Pixar film I haven't seen. I guess Cars 2 makes it... two Pixar films I won't see. How about a Back to the Future revisit with someone finding the classic DeLorean?
My exact words on Faebook about "Super 8," which I saw over the weekend, were: "Three distinct movies -- all of which we've seen in better iterations -- that are more effective individually than they are as a complete film."
I've also seen a great deal of crap via Red Box (and I do mean "crap" in the pejorative sense) -- "I Am Number Four," "Vanishing on 7th Street," several straight-to-video hack jobs. Watching "Vanishing" I was struck with the realization that I'm still not certain exactly whether or not Thandie Newton is a good actress or REALLY bad one. She tends to be compulsively watchable but for all the wrong reasons.
I saw "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", which I loved. I also watched "When in Rome" on netflix instant, which was terrible and offensive - also terrible and offensive was "The Women" (the old one) although Rosalind Russell was pretty great, so tonight I will be watching "His Girl Friday".
The Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill getting revenge on all the DIVAS' modes of transport.
Happy 63rd Kathy Bates.
The Good there's no reason for you to get plastic surgery so you actually look younger than both Jessica Lange and Faye Dunaway but still not Cher young. You also have a hit show where you're the lead on a struggling major network and you may earn your first Emmy after 8 unsuccessful nominations.
The Bad your theatrical career sucks. The performances are ruining all the good will you bulit over the 90s -- when the Academy denied you access to Best Actress after taking the prize home.
Favorite thing I saw this past week was At Long Last Love which had a rare screening in New York. So excited as I've always wanted to see this movie, being a big Bogdanovich fan and a big musicals fan. Well, I'm really glad I saw it and I enjoyed it because it's the kind of movie I enjoy but...its terrible reputation is not unjustified. It's a mess. But in a way that is never boring and is still able to engage.
I'm not a car person, I don't drive them and I never notice them in real life beyond color and how many doors. I was going to go with the car from Grease (Greased Lightning?) but that's the car in Cars, no? They're kind of the same, right?
Oh my God, Robert, Hara-Kiri is such a wonderful masterpiece. Top 5 60's material. Yes, it is. I went nuts when I first saw it. I love its narrative, like a graphic novel, with static frames, but written by Shakespeare himself. The leading performance by Tatsuya Nakadai is a killer. If you loved Hara-kiri, go see Samurai Rebellion, with Tatsuya Nakadai AND Toshiro Mifune. It's such a beautiful tragedy. WOW
Anthropomorphize a car? That's part of the reason I was uncomfortable with "Cars." If you include humans in the universe, you get into the uncomfortable (and natural) questions regarding objectum sexuality. The idea of an athropomorphized car is, kind of like the original idea for Cool World, an R-rated idea in a culture whose oldest members STILL views animation as a G-PG concept, even after 20 years of South Park, Father of the Pride, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, Invader Zim (never actually rated TV-14, but there are a few episodes of Zim that would get at least a PG-13 rating (most blatantly Dark Harvest which is, up front, about organ harvesting and I'd actually say there's an outside chance that that one would get an R rating) if actually released in the multiplex) and all of the Adult Swim line to convince them other wise.
Which movie car would you willingly spend two hours with?
Well, I like Guide the best. So in Cars 2.0 Guido goes to Formula 1 races in Italy, where he meets his relatives and falls in love with (she) mountainbike. How about that? And you can lovingly recycle and spoof some scenes from Godfather, Il postino and Triplets from Belleville to name a few.
why cant' i find any of Raffaello Matarazzo's movies on netflix??? I especially want to see "Chains" which was featured in "Cinema Paradiso"..