Midnight in Paris

I haven't watched any of Woody Allen's recent movies since Scoop, so I don't know how he's been doing lately, but based on the overall integrity his huge body of work, he'll always be one of my favorite filmmakers. He's made some stinkers in his time, but when he's on, his movies shine.

Midnight in Paris is one of those shiny movies, a whimsical fantasy about the magic of Paris; the city's ability to transport you to another time. At the same time, it's also a dose of reality. The past can never live up to the nostalgia-laced version you see in your mind's eye. It is very much a companion piece to Allen's classic, The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Owen Wilson stars as Gil Pender, a successful screenwriter of hacky Hollywood movies, trying to launch a more fulfilling career as a novelist. On a visit to Paris with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams), he expresses his desire to stay in the city and live a Bohemian life like his heroes of the 1920's. Inez scoffs at this, and encourages Gil to spend time with her parents (Tea Party Republicans who don't like him) and know-it-all friends.

Fed up with the people in his life, Gil opts out of yet another night out, and chooses to wander the streets of Paris. At midnight, a 1920's car rolls up and waves him in. Inside, he finds the life he always dreamed of. He befriends F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso. He shows his manuscript and takes writing advice from Gertrude Stein. He meets and falls in love with Picasso's mistress, Adriana (Marion Cotillard).

Soon, Gil is carrying out a love affair with the 1920's, spending his days in the cold reality of today, and his nights living it up with his heroes in the past. Eventually his night life gets complicated, too, though, and Gil must decide between his two lives.

I do believe this is the best Owen Wilson has been in a movie in ages. Since Royal Tenenbaums, perhaps? Heck, maybe ever. This is exactly the kind of movie he should be making. He's great at playing intelligent, soul searching, existential characters. I always thought his diversion down the path of dumb "Frat Pack" comedies like Wedding Crashers was a mistake (though I do love Zoolander). In Midnight in Paris, Wilson plays the Woody Allen analogue without doing a Woody Allen impression, something I never enjoy as much. My favorite moments were the dumbfounded look on his face when he realizes where he is, and the scene where he confesses that he's from the future to Salvador Dali and his surrealist friends.

Midnight in Paris is a delight. It is my favorite Woody Allen film that I've seen since 1999's Sweet and Lowdown. I never hammered down a list or anything, but I would probably also put it somewhere in my top 10 for 2011, and hey, it might even creep its way into my top 10 favorite Woody Allen movies! The guy has a LOT of great movies, so this is high praise indeed.

Cars 2

Well, it finally happened. Pixar made a stinker. I hoped we would never see this day, but I guess if it was going to happen, it was going to be Cars 2. The previous Cars movie, while my previous least favorite Pixar movie, was still pretty good. Just not my kind of thing. This one is, well, not so good.

What went wrong? A few things, really. I feel like Cars 2 skews too young. Pixar is in the business of making movies for everybody. Cars 2 feels like it's just for 5-to-8-year-olds. There is little to no humor in it that would appeal to parents or adults. This is not my beautiful Pixar!

The biggest mistake was making Mater the redneck tow truck the main character. I can't imagine any moviegoer over the age of 8 can stand Mater in this capacity. Poor Owen Wilson, who was likeable, funny, and easygoing as Lightning McQueen in the first movie, gets shoved aside to b-story duty, and doesn't even get to say any jokes. Not only is Lightning McQueen neglected, the rest of the supporting cast of the first movie are pretty much only cameos. Remember how the Toy Story sequels gave you more of all the characters you love?

This time around, the story follows Mater as he stumbles his way through a globe trotting spy mission. He's joined by Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer as British car spies who believe him to be their American contact. They're trying to stop a conspiracy of crappily-made cars to get revenge on their better-built superiors. I thought that was actually pretty clever. But why oh why does Mater have to be the main character? If this was Lightning McQueen on a spy mission, I bet it would have been fun.

So here's the thing: there's no real emotional arc in the movie. The main character arc is about Mater, who starts out happy and secure in who he is, becoming happy and secure in who he is. He ends up in the same place he started! He's stupid and annoying but if other people don't like it, that's their problem, not his! In order to do this, they have to run in circles to undo the fact that he was happy to begin with, so he can end up happy again. Pixar, this is not like you! You are SO much better than this!

There are moments in there where what we've come to expect from these good folks shines through. Let me talk about some things I liked.

The music was a big improvement over the first one. Michael Giacchino is my favorite composer working today, and he delivers another fun, sixties-inspired score, something of a specialty of his (see: Speed Racer, The Incredibles). The first one had several awful modern country covers of songs with driving themes (Life is a Highway, etc.). This one does have an overproduced cover of The Cars' You Might Think. If they're going to include pop songs in it, why not just put the original? It's one of my favorite songs from my childhood, and much better than the one they used. Besides that, though, the score was my favorite part of the movie.

Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer were fine, as was John Turturro as Lightning's new rival, a Formula One car. None of them get much of a chance to shine, though, because, well, this is Mater's show.

The animation is beautiful, of course. There are, as always, several breakthroughs in computer animation in Cars 2. I love how every year, you can expect Pixar to raise the bar once again.

There were a few chuckles. None of the big laughs I've come to expect from Pixar, but a lot of the visual gags were funny. In the first movie, we saw how Cars' lives mirrored ours, and in this one, we see the way that is reflected in foreign countries. They have the Cars equivalent of high-tech Japanese bathrooms, for instance. I liked seeing Tokyo, London, and Rome re-imagined as car cities.

I'm sure this will just be seen as a hiccup in Pixar's domination. This crew knows what they're doing. These movies are all labors of love for them. I mean, they've made what? A dozen movies? It took them this long to make a misstep. It had to happen sooner or later. Now I hope they learn from their mistakes and apply these lessons to their future films.

I still love you, Pixar!




Oh, one more thing: They talk about dinosaurs in this! Do they really want to open up that can of worms? If there were dinosaurs, then there was once life on this strange car planet, and the cars know about it! Doesn't that freak you out a little? Were there ever people? Who created the cars??? Aaaaand so on.