Cars

Dir: John Lassiter, 2006 (8.5*)

I loved this Pixar animated movie, from the same crew as Toy Story. The plot involves a young Nascar racer (the cars are characters), voiced by Owen Wilson, who gets dropped out of his trailer on the way to the next race, somewhere in the American southwest, and is basically lost along Route 66, in small town that somehow survived the freeway being built. He becomes trapped in the town, with some wonderful characters: Paul Newman as an old pickup truck who’s really a former Nascar champ, Bonnie Hunt as his lady friend, and a host of others (Cheech Marin, John Ratzenburger, Katherine Helmond, Larry the Cable Guy, George Carlin, Richard Petty) who have various businesses around a town that no longer has any tourists. Randy Newman wrote a beautiful song called "My Town", an Oscar nominee sung by James Taylor, about living in a small town like that time and freeways (and therefore people) have sadly grown beyond and passed by. Great script for me since I’ve been all the way across Route 66 twice, and crossed on the freeway (I-40) once, so the nostalgia of this story really hit home for me. For that reason, it's probably going to mean more to adults than kids, who won’t understand the references to America’s greatest highway. Look for the closing credits and all the towns the producers thanked, it reads like the songs "Route 66" and Little Feat’s "Willin" put together: Tucumcari, Tehatchopee, Winslow, Wynona, Gallup…