DIRECTED BY Anthony & Joe Russo
STARRING Owen Wilson, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, Michael Douglas
US 2006 108 mins.
CARS *
[for kids: **]
DIRECTED BY John Lasseter
WITH THE VOICES OF Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt
US 2006 112 mins.
The trailer for You, Me and Dupree makes it look like a houseguest-from-Hell comedy, with Owen Wilson as the pest who comes to stay and won’t go away. That’s accurate, but also inadequate – and I’m guessing whoever made the trailer just didn’t know what to make of Wilson’s character, the eponymous Dupree, who’s an odd mix of innocent, feral, annoying and poetic.
Houseguests from Hell are usually slobs, or bullies, or just insensitive. The movie prototype is The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), where a family takes in a famous critic with a broken hip only to find themselves on the receiving-end of his witty barbs. Nowadays (witty barbs being rather outdated at the multiplex) it could be an Eddie-Murphy-in-Shrek type of character, rude and crude if ultimately good-hearted. Dupree is a little bit like that; among other things – this was the scene that got lots of play in the trailer – he walks in on his newlywed hosts (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson) while they’re trying to make love, and uses their toilet messily and disgustingly. But he’s also a sensitive soul, a manchild (kids adore him), a writer of poetry and generally a free spirit with an individualist motto: “Don’t let Life rob you of your –ness,” he counsels, meaning your essence, who you are, etc.
The plot couldn’t be simpler: Dillon invites Dupree to stay with them after he loses his job, apartment and car – and lives to regret it. Dupree is unemployable, though only because he won’t play the game; he lost his job as a salesman (he claims) because he thought the product was poor, and didn’t mind telling that to prospective customers. He’d rather hang out with the neighbourhood kids in any case, skateboarding and playing baseball. Strangely he’s also a bit of a ladies’ man, like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis rolled into one – or maybe not so strangely, since the film ties into a broader infantilism in Western (especially American) culture. It’s now okay to be an adult who does kid things like playing videogames and reading Harry Potter – and the laid-back Wilson, a major star since Wedding Crashers, typifies that wide-eyed manchild persona.
The film isn’t really very funny (though of course that’s subjective) but it’s interesting for what it says about Being A Man, and the way Dupree is offered as a solution to the male malaise. Dillon’s father-in-law (Michael Douglas) literally tries to emasculate him, urging him in all seriousness to have a vasectomy. Another friend is married to a controlling wife who stalks his every move. The film is set in a world where being a man (at least a young man) in the old-fashioned, macho sense is close to impossible. What to do? Enter Dupree, showing the way – a sensitive New Man who cooks and talks about feelings (Dillon, we’re told, can’t do this), yet also retains his independence.
Unfortunately the film is all over the place. The second half goes in a weird direction, with Dillon growing obsessively jealous of Dupree, imagining he’s after his wife and job. There’s something there, in that the film hints at Dupree’s passive-aggressiveness (early on, when he asks for best-man insignia at the wedding, he pretends to concede the point but gets his way anyway) – but since it mostly works to make him sympathetic, and Dillon’s reaction is so extreme in any case, there’s no comic tension and his rage just seems tedious.
In fact, You, Me and Dupree only works as a celebration – of Owen Wilson and everything he stands for, the serene blessed-out goofiness he brings to the role. Dupree’s big moment is when he addresses a classroom of kids on Career Day, albeit admitting he doesn’t actually have a career. His speech goes out to the languishers, he says – not the high achievers but those who’ll spend their lives lounging around, doing nothing much, waiting for their moment. “Stay loose,” he advises them. “Stay liquid. Laugh a lot.” The film’s philosophy is better than its comedy.
They could’ve used a Dupree on Cars, which I never thought I’d say of a Pixar film. Pixar is the animation company who broke through 11 years ago with Toy Story and has been on a roll, making one modern classic after another (A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles). You may not know this going into Cars but you’ll know it if you stick around for the closing credits, which blandly list the company’s Greatest Hits – a shameless attempt to strengthen the brand-name, so even tiny tots will know the bouncing table-lamp over the opening title spells Excellence.
In other words, Pixar has gone corporate and lost its mischievous edge – hence Cars, which borrows its plot from Doc Hollywood and its pace from The Andy Griffith Show. Most of this long, slow cartoon (kids, I suspect, will be restless) takes place in a small town teeming with small-town values, where successful but friendless race-car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson, again!) accidentally crash-lands. Sentenced to perform community service, he gradually becomes a better person – I mean car – but also manages to give back to the community, notably restoring the joie de vivre of grumpy ex-racecar Doc Hudson (voiced by Paul Newman). The sardonic edge of previous Pixars is notably absent.
The company have always stood for conservative values. Toy Story chose sensible cowboy Woody over flashy spaceman Buzz Lightyear. The Incredibles steered close to fascism in its hierarchy of the special and not-so-special. But Cars is downright regressive, worshipping an idyllic past, life ‘before the Interstate’ when people (I mean cars) were nicer to each other; there’s even a song, lamenting modern times with startling lack of subtlety. “Main Street isn’t Main Street anymore / Lights don’t shine as brightly as they shone before…”
It wouldn’t really matter if the film was inspired, or even funny – but it’s mostly tired. The set-ups are obvious (you just know our hero’s going to find a use for the backwards-driving in the big climax), and the minor characters – the hippy car, the soldier car – often feel perfunctory. The one minor triumph are the town’s tyre merchants, a pair of Ferrari-loving Italians, one of whom bears a passing resemblance to Beaker from The Muppet Show. The rest is just a drag.
Oddly enough, Cars is being shown together with a Pixar short called One Man Band, in which two street musicians vie for a little girl’s penny. Their attempts to entertain her grow ever more elaborate, till they finally backfire; the girl takes off, leaving them broke and exhausted – the moral of the story being presumably that simpler is better. At some point, says the short, if you over-egg the pudding you’ll end up scuppering your own ambitions. Toy Story clocked in at 81 minutes, and aimed only to entertain; Cars is half an hour longer and aims to make you laugh, cry, think about changing times and get your folks to buy you DVDs of all previous Pixar movies. Looks like someone isn’t following their own advice.
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks. Some may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.play.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, if not necessarily the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
INSIDE MAN: Smartest heist movie of 2006 comes with deleted scenes and a chat between Spike Lee and De
nzel Washington, discussing their fourth collaboration. [US]
NEW YORK DOLL: Genuinely touching documentary about former New York Dolls bassist Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane, abandoned by showbiz and ending up a Mormon librarian. Extras include an interview with Dolls fan Morrissey. [UK]
C.R.A.Z.Y.: Offbeat, much-acclaimed French-Canadian drama about misfit born to a family with five sons. Includes director Q&A. [UK]
HELL (L’ENFER): Stylish arthouse tale of “three sisters united by a common tragedy”, starring Emmanuelle B?art. Extras include a making-of. [UK]
PRISON BREAK, SEASON 1: A cult waiting to happen. [US]
OLD FILMS
JAMES STEWART: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION: First of two recent star collections, notably including all-time-great Western ‘The Naked Spur’ (1953), albeit apparently in a weak transfer. Lesser films include ‘The Spirit of St. Louis’ (1957) with Stewart as Charles Lindbergh, ‘The Stratton Story’ (1949), ‘The FBI Story’ (1959) and ‘The Cheyenne Social Club’ (1970), pairing him with good friend Henry Fonda. All titles also available separately, most including classic shorts and cartoons among the extras. [US]
RONALD REAGAN: THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION: Important Note: ‘Kings Row’ (1942) is available separately, and it’s a great film (also the one where the future US President spoke his famous “Where’s the rest of me?”). The others in this set are mostly for completists, including ‘Knute Rockne, All American’ (1940) and the surprisingly good ‘Storm Warning’ (1951), crusading against the Ku Klux Klan. Extras galore, including shorts and cartoons. [US]
THE FASSBINDER COLLECTION: First UK release for four 70s classics by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including three of his most famous: ‘The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant’ (1972), ‘Fear Eats the Soul’ (1973) and ‘The Marriage of Maria Braun’ (1979). Great films with good extras, including shorts and featurettes. [UK]
FANTASTIC PLANET (1973): ‘Masters of Cinema’, Part 1: excellent UK label, specialising in arty rarities, comes through with little-seen “psychedelic sci-fi animated feature”, winner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Copious extras, including a 40-page booklet. [UK]
FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (1969): ‘Masters of Cinema’, Part 2: insanely rare, taboo-busting Japanese cult movie with transvestite hero, apparently a direct influence on ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Intrigued? I am. Extras include a 36-page booklet. [UK]
THE CHILDREN’S CLASSIC COLLECTION: British-nostalgia double: ‘The Railway Children’ (1970) and ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974), priced at £15.99 for the pair. Can’t be bad. [UK]
THE FLYING NUN: SEASON 2: Sally Field in the 60s. [US]
THE ROCKFORD FILES: SEASON 2: James Garner in the 70s. [UK]
HONG KONG PHOOEY: THE COMPLETE SERIES: Timeless! [US]
