Cars: Standing the Test of Time

 This blog post will be analyzing the movie Cars (2006).  Cars (2006) is a comedy/animation movie that was released by Disney in 2006 and directed by John Lasseter.  Rewatching this movie again felt very nostalgic to me, as I haven't watched the full movie since I was very young.  However, despite myself being a lot older than I was back then, this movie was still very enjoyable.  The animation in the film is very good, even for today's standard.  Many of today's movies fall to the CGI trap, the CGI not being very good, but this film does not have this problem.  The animation on all the cars are crisp and smooth, and they feel like realistic animated cars, which showed that the animators had very good attention to detail.  Another thing this film does well, surprisingly, is the foreshadowing used.  An example of this is when Guido, early on in the film, states that he wants to perform a pit stop.  And at the climax of the movie, he ends up performing an impressive pitstop in the last race.  Funnily enough, the movie also does a fake out a little earlier than that, when he changes Lightning McQueen's tires in Luigi's shop.  Speaking of Lightning McQueen, his character arc/development in this film is very well done.  At the beginning of the film, he's this cocky, young hotshot racer on the rise that only cares about racing and being flashy.  But by the end of the film, he's a much more caring character towards the people he meets, and that he cares about more than just winning.  This is displayed throughout the film, with a lot of character to character interactions between McQueen and other characters, whether he visually realizes he's in the wrong, or has a change of heart.  Cars is a film that can appeal to audience's of all ages, can teach important life lessons to anyone, and can stand the test of time up to today's animated films.

Moonlight: Finding One's Inner Self

 This blog post will be focused on the movie Moonlight (2016).  Moonlight (2016) is a Thriller/Romance film that is directed by Barry Jenkins.  The movie follows Chiron, a black male who is trying to find out who he really is, and this journey is split into three acts, one when he is a child, one where he is in high school, and one where he is a fully grown man.  How the movie is built by these three acts and how they progress is one strong point of the film, as the film feels that it is telling a coherent and straightforward story.  The messages or themes in this film are also very good.  For example, the environment that Chiron grows up in is very realistic to the environment some young kids that live in urban areas are used to, and it isn't cliché either.  Also, as he becomes older and the story progresses from act to act, the amount of people that he feels comfortable being around becomes less and less because he starts discovering who he is, which is different from the community that he lives in, and that community is portrayed to not understand that difference.  

However, the best part of this film is the acting and performances.  Every single important character in this film plays a big role in the film, whether that be a friend of Chiron, his caretakers, or his "enemies".  And in all the situations they are in, they do a great job of making them feel real, and have real, genuine reactions to what is happening around them.  This is especially highlighted with all the actors that play Chiron, they all do a fantastic job of being real in the situations they are in, without forcing anything.  Moonlight (2016) is a film that puts a spotlight on what urban communities are like in the real world, and is a great example of how to do character development through a journey of life.