I’ve recently seen Over the Hedge and Cars (did I mention my nieces are 11 and 7?). So I have things to report. But not right now. I’m a bit tired.
But you might want to go have a look here to read the Over the Hedge comic (from which the film was developed).
Super Size Me convinced me never to eat McDeath or other scary junk food ever again. OTH did a similar job. While it was a refreshingly child-centred film, the Message was decidedly anti-junk food and anti-television/sloth… not to mention anti-suburban development. It’s not a pixar-type multimodal/polyvocal text. OTH is a children’s film. But it was ideologically heavy in a very hippy-friendly way (well, perhaps without the ‘violence’).
Cars, on the other hand, was uncomfortable viewing for me. Very ‘go-cars!’, ‘drive one – now!’, ‘use fossil fuels – today!’. It didn’t sit well with me, and is my least favourite pixar effort to date. It looked great (but they all do, right?), but I just had this odd discomfort with the whole car/petrol/nostalgia thing. I’m not sure I want to revisit the 50s, where people drove just for the pleasure of driving (rather than getting places). Though I do dig neon.
It might have been my cold talking, but I also found it really really loud.
