Ratatouille by Finn mac Cumhal

TALK STORY

Ratatouille

POSTED BY: FINN MAC CUMHAL
UPDATED: Wednesday, July 4, 2007 05:10
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VIEWED: 927
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Wednesday, July 4, 2007 5:10 AM

Ratatouille n. fr. (ra-ta-'tü-E)
:a seasoned stew made of eggplant, tomatoes, green peppers, squash, and sometimes meat

Ratatouille is the latest creation from Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar is best known for its lovable CG children’s animated movies like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Monsters, Inc. All blockbuster hits and fabulous children’s movies, that never really did much for me, but with Ratatoulle Pixar has created an animated G-rated feature that is so good it transcends the label ‘children’s movie,’ and completely redefines animation.

Ratatouille is the story of Remy, a French country rat with a nose for fine cuisine. After the near escape of Remy and his clan from their residence in the attic of a country shack, Remy gets separated from his family and finds himself in Paris. There he meets the garbage boy, Linguini, at a high-end fine restaurant being run into the ground by its greedy chef, and together Remy discovers that by tugging on Linguini’s hair he can turn the garbage boy into a gourmet chef. Remy find himself struggling between two worlds trying to decide if he is a rat or a human, but in the end he discovers that he’s neither – Remy is a cook.

The story is cute, but Pixar is well known for cute stories. What separates this story from Pixar’s other features is its complexity and depth. There is little that can be left to stereotype. This is a story about French cuisine and rats in the kitchen, and not human-like, cuddly talking rats. While they do talk, they aren’t understood by humans and tend to crawl around on all fours with hair and feet and tails so finely pixilated and beautifully rendered that some scenes can cause shivers of nastiness. This alone would likely kill a lesser story, but Ratatouille uses this to maximum effect, contrasting and uniting rat-prepared peasant food and the refined Parisian culture in a way that is nothing short of ingenious.

The graphics are brilliant. Many scenes are so magnificently rendered with vibrant complex colors that it looks every bit real. Granite cobblestones with texture that is indistinguishable from granite. Rolling water surfaces reflecting the Paris cityscape. Double reflection effects. And bread that is full of bread-like breadness. I don’t know how to describe it any other way. I promise you, you’ve probably never seen bread rendered so real, outside of real bread.

The children will love it because it's a lovable animated story and adults will love it for its beautifully rendered images and endearing message.

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/ratatouille/

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 95% of a 132 reviews!
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ratatouille/

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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