Larry Crowne

Wow!  This is a great movie.  Not perfect...but very, very good.  Larry Crowne (played by Tom Hanks) is a Navy veteran who served as a cook during his 20 year stint.  Now, after divorce and loss of his job at U Mart he enrolls in a community college and takes a course on informal speech and another course on economics.  He ditches his gas guzzling SUV and buys a motor scooter from his neighbor Lamar (played by Cedric the Entertainer) and befriends and is befriended by a group of motor scooter rebels (really!) with a young lady who tries to update his home and his hair style and clothes.

His speech teacher, Mercedes Tainot (played by Julia Roberts) is a burned out frustrated teacher with a husband addicted to laziness, porn and general disrespect.  The ten people in the speech class are interesting characters who seem to learn and bond.  The huge economics class is taught by Dr. Matsutani (played by George Takei) and Larry learns much from him, including his need to allow the bank to foreclose on his home.

There are many sweet moments in the movie with real teaching and learning going on.  The Tainot character probably needs more development (it was difficult to understand why she was so burned out) and we’re so used to negative Hispanic characters in movies and on TV that we’re probably a little surprised about their sincerity as depicted in this movie. 

Larry and Mercedes have a very chaste relationship and real love (appropriately) does not blossom until after Larry completes her course with a great grade.  The ending is simple and rewarding.  It was a very sweet and nice movie.  Take the time to see it.

Cars 2

I waited a week to review this movie...partly because Alice was concerned about my impending negative review.  She liked the movie.  I’m not sure why, though she saw helpful themes about loyalty, friendship and dedication.  Yes, it was a buddy movie.

On the other hand, I just couldn’t get into this movie at all.  I think it probably was/is a fairly good movie at some level.  The dialogue was crisp.  The animation seemed superb.  There was lots of action.  The row of boys 6-12 behind us were on the edge, biting their fingernails and cheering their favorite cars in the various races.  They jumped up and down about the action going on.  They were excited, but, as I said, I just couldn’t get into it.

I can’t remember whether or not we saw Cars 1.  I think we did but I really couldn’t remember that movie at all.  For some reason I thought the first movie had people driving the cars.  The next day I even asked someone if the cars were replacing human beings as characters.  She looked at me as if I was crazy and her droll answer was, “Yes, of course.  That’s the point.” 

This second movie was, in essence, a spy thriller with cars replacing 007 and other secret agents and the tow truck Mater becoming very useful to the government in dealing with a group of “lemon” automobiles trying to take over the earth while battling “green” technology which is trying to replace gas guzzling engines.  The inside joke was that cars such as Gremlins and similar specific brands are visible to the viewer and are part of the lemon “gang.”  I found that there were lots of inside jokes that seemed difficult to understand without some extensive history about cars and lemons and previous spy movies.  By, the way, Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy) is really the only character whom I remember in the movie. 

Should you go?  Well, if you like cars and racing there is no question—go.  If you like careful and detailed spoofs of things like spy movies—go.  If you want to have some harmless fun—go.  However, I think I’ll stay home and skip the sequel.