![]() ![]() Carl and his wife Ellie bought it for a song and quickly got to work on their fixer-upper passion project, sawing and hammering and shellacking away to realize their slice of domestic bliss. Once upon a time it was just a boarded-up hovel consumed by overgrowth, not unlike 320 Sycamore from It’s a Wonderful Life. For more than a half a century he has lived in the same house, a quaint two-story Victorian with scalloped shingles and a modest front porch. ![]() Carl, voiced by Ed Asner, is in a bit of a bind. “The town got bypassed just to save 10 minutes of driving.” “Back then cars came across the country a whole different way,” says Lightning’s companion, waxing nostalgic about pre-highway countryside. It’s at this point that the history lesson comes into focus. “Look at that: they’re driving right by, they don’t know what they’re missing,” he naively says. One day, Lightning is on a ridge overlooking the town when he notices the band of highway just beyond it, cars whizzing by. Through trial and hardship, and with the help of new friends, Lightning discovers the rich and storied history of the town: Once a beacon in the desert, with its glowing neon signs beckoning travelers far and wide, Radiator Springs fell on hard times, largely due to the construction of Interstate 40 in the early 1960s. While en route to California for his next race, he inadvertently detours to Radiator Springs, a dusty, one-road town along Route 66. As rookies go, he’s par for the course: flashy, headstrong, a bit of a prima donna. Our protagonist, Lightning McQueen, is a race car new to the circuit. Let’s begin with Cars, the characters of which, if you are not familiar with it, are sentient automobiles. ![]() As it turns out, Pixar is preoccupied with the urban condition, and we’re all just poisoning and consuming ourselves to the brink of extinction. They also help frame what amounts to a rather grim prophecy. It’s no coincidence that these corporate entities are of dubious character. Interestingly, two elements that do manage to tether the films together are the corporations Dinoco (oil/gas company) and Buy n Large (global conglomerate in the vein of Amazon), which appear in several movies. And although I was familiar with Pixar, watching the studio’s movies in this unprecedented context felt like experiencing them anew.Īlthough Pixar films do exist within a common cinematic universe, their connective tissue is loose. And yet, despite pangs of homesickness for our beloved Brooklyn, we have found solace in our newfound suburbanization: backyard, vegetable garden, washer/dryer … even a second kid on the way! As we settled into our new routines in the land of sprawl, the pandemic struck and, like countless parents, we subscribed to Disney+. In my house, toys are no longer organized by function or size they’re relegated to piles, tossed in corners, buried beneath other things. For anyone who has weathered the pandemic while simultaneously raising a toddler: I feel your pain. ![]()
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