Delectable Corn

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2006)

Walking into CARS was like opening the door into the past and reliving those Dominican festivals of corn: a contest consisting of virtually hundreds of corn-made confections and dishes, some sweet, some salty, some spicy, some thick with butter and cheese and chocolate, others with little more than the grain itself. CARS is one of these confections: a movie that is so drenched in displaced sentimentalism given to machines that it gives even the most shameless incursion into schmaltz seem like an experiment in Kubrickesque storytelling. It is tailor made for corn, for emotions, for the family, for pummeling its message with the subtlety of an A-Bomb. Anyone feeling surprised at the plot developments ought to be shot on sight and thrown into the nearest gutter. This one of the sweetest, corniest movies I've come across, so corny that when I took in its visuals I reeled back and caught myself nearly passing out. I then thought about the one fat mouse telling Ratatouille in the promo for next Spring's movie of the same name "If you can get past the gag reflex, it's not that bad," as he munched away at his grayish ball of... something, leaving Ratatouille even more determined to find great food in Paris even at the cost of his own life. And then there were moments when my corn-trip became real: I know it sounds like I lost my mind, but rivulets of butterscotch, peppercorn, and Mazola oil came flying out of the screen, engulfing the audience and myself as I sat near the door but could not make for it since I was firmly planted on my seat, being drowned in Life's Precious Lessons -- the Moral of the Story. It became hard to breathe and for a second or two I caught myself choking and sobbing a little. I counted the tears -- two of them, neatly creeping down my cheeks. And then the movie was over. Of course, when I met my friend for dinner, reeking of corn, she asked me, "So what did you watch today?" I told her, "CARS." She asked me, "And...?" I said, "I absolutely loved it. It's fake as a pair of silicone tomatoes on your average Californian wannabe actress/model, pre-planned and pre-packaged in advance, but I loved it." Of course, she didn't believe me for one second, but there it is. I do. I like it. Even if five people wrote the screenplay, and it runs just short of two hours, and the opening sequence, "One Man Band," is as marvelously cynical as CARS is a portentuous pile of ho-hum. So sue me, I bought it like a clotheshorse on a shopping spree at a designer store packed with fabulous sales.