Random DVD Round-Up 1 - ABSENCE OF MALICE

ABSENCE OF MALICE is a rather soupy middle-aged romance labouring under its aspirations to be an intelligent discourse about journalistic integrity. Sally Fields plays a grotesquely naive and sloppy writer for a local Miami newspaper. She's suckered into writing an ill-researched piece that accuses a local businessman (Paul Newman) of being involved in the disappearance of labour leader. Newman's character spends the rest of the movie asserting his innocence - despite his shady connections he's so transparently innocent there's not much tension. And to make things even more ludicrous, Sally Field's character even starts an affair with Paul Newman's character. Clearly, director Sydney Pollack and screen-writer (and ex-journo) Kurt Luedtke want to say something deep and meaningful about the sad state of journalism. What they actually end up with is a third-rate romance. Avoid at all costs despite the high-powered cast. BROADCAST NEWS runs rings round this flick.

ABSENCE OF MALICE played Berlin 1982 and opened in 1981 and 1982. Melinda Dillon, Kurt Luedtke and Paul Newman were nominated for Oscars but lost out to Maureen Stapleton (REDS), Colin Welland (CHARIOTS OF FIRE) and Henry Fonda (ON GOLDEN POND) respectively.

CARS - auto-porn for the under-twelves!

CARS is an almost perfect summer kids movie. The pedigree is flawless: it comes from the people who brought you TOY STORY, THE INCREDIBLES and MONSTERS INC. The execution is flawless: technically superb, imaginative, innovative. The characters are cute, funny and tug at the heart-strings. The jokes vary from slapstick to satirising Hollywood agents and 60s stoners to cow-tipping. The race scenes are exhilerating and will get your blood pumping. The plot - well, it actually exists and it really sucks you in. And while the movie has those usual earnest life-lessons we always find in kids flicks, it has some extra too: a narrative that is against the corrosive youth-culture of our times and which takes to heart the philosophy of Ferris Bueller: "life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you may miss it."

The story features a cute little red racing car called Lightning McQueen. He's a successful but selfish rookie racer on the verge of his first championship prize/phat endorsement cheque. On the way to his final race he finds himself stuck in nowheres-ville Doc Hollywood-style. Condemned to re-tarmacing Main Street road by the local fuzz, Lightning learns the real meaning of friendship, team-work and success. As cheesy as this stuff is, it's delivered with such good humour and by such endearing characters that I defy you not to get completely caught up in the final grand prix.

So, kudos to the animators and all of the voice cast, not least Owen Wilson who reprises his familiar role of charming but obnoxious frat boy who discovers he has a heart. Jeremy Piven is also especially hillarious as Lightning's sleazy agent, Harv, and as much as I love UK car guru Jeremy Clarkson, I hope it isn't the case that he is replacing Piven in the UK version.

I just can't say enough about how cool this movie is. The only very slight defect is that at 2 hours it's a bit long for really little kids.

CARS is already on release in Australia, Singapore, Canada, the US, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Netherlands, Israel, Aregntina, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Belgium, Czech Republic, Spain, Hong Kong and Poland. It opens in the UK on July 28th 2006 and Italy, Finland, Norway and Sweden on August 23rd. It reaches Denmark on September 1st, Germany on September 7th, Greece on September 14th and Turkey on September 15th.