Ratatouille: the best movie of 2007
Release Date: 29 June 2007 (USA)
Genres: Animation | Comedy | Family
Actors: Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Brian Dennehy, Peter O’Toole, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Will Arnett, Julius Callahan, James Remar, John Ratzenberger, Teddy Newton, Tony Fucile, Jake Steinfeld, Brad Bird
Directors: Brad Bird
Country: USA
Download "Ratatouille": DivX ($2.99)
Ratatouille is the best movie I’ve seen this year. Granted, we’re talking about the year of the threequels, where the only films opening to good reviews were The Simpsons movie that was a decade too late, a fourth Die Hard film and a tolerable Michael Bay film based on a toy franchise cartoon. However, even in a year where expectations were higher, Ratatouille would be the top of the pack.
The plot is a simple one: a rat with a gift for cooking and a lowly wannabe cook team up to pass themselves off as a world-class chef. One has the skills but is reviled, the other has the presence but needs guidance. That’s right, it’s the Cyrano de Bergerac plot again…but it’s all in the execution, and that’s where Brad Bird fires on all cylinders again.
Brad Bird, of course, is three for three. The Iron Giant didn’t do well at the box office due to a mediocre promotional campaign, but it is still a cult (and personal) favorite. The Incredibles needs no superlatives for the Monitor Duty crowd; you all know it is hands-down one of the best superhero movies ever made and one that is eminently re-watchable.
However, Ratatouille outshines them both, with greater fine tuning of expression and a more down-to-Earth "human" drama. No giant robots or destroyed buildings; intense dramatic moments are wrung out of a food critic’s decision or a scheming head chef’s conniving to control a frozen food empire. Brad takes something as impossible to communicate via film as the taste of fine cuisine and he manages to make it work; there are even moments seemingly borrowed from Fantasia where Remy discusses food while scribbly visuals evoke the aroma he envisions. Bird’s gift for manic comedy that was first displayed in "Family Dog" really shines here, as the seven inch rat Remy struggles to stay alive in the flurry of activity in a busy kitchen.
Remy the Rat is also something of a new experiment. Although he talks to himself, his fellow rats and his imaginary friend in flawless English (with the voice of geek fave comic Patton Oswalt), he cannot actually talk to humans. His thoughts are communicated entirely by expression and gesture. What’s more, he isn’t an anthropomorphized cartoon character. He moves like a rat. He has the anxious eyes and rapid heartbeat of a rat. And yet he’s adorable.
Tags: best movie 2007, Brad Bird, Patton Oswalt
Posted in Animation, Comedy | No Comments »
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Release Date: 27 July 2007 (USA)
Genres: Animation | Comedy
Actors: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Albert Brooks, Kelsey Grammer, Joe Mantegna, Karl Wiedergott
Directors: David Silverman
Country: USA
Download "The Simpsons Movie": DivX ($2.99), iPod ($1.99)
For many years the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, along with the town dwellers, has got rid of its toxic waste and garbage by discharging them into the lake. After the sinking of the barge the band "Green Day" (Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt) was performing on, Lisa Simpson (Yeardley Smith) convinces the locals to clean up the polluted lake.
But when her muddle-headed father Homer (Dan Castellaneta) dumps an overflowing silo of "Pig Crap" in it, he involuntarily causes ecological catastrophe. Induced by the treacherous adviser from the EPA, Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks), President Arnold Schwarzenegger (Harry Shearer) orders to put a giant glass dome over Springfield.
The Simpsons, however, manage to escape with a whole skin through a sinkhole in their baby Maggie’s sandbox and they flee to Alaska. Having heard of the president’s villainous plan to destroy Springfield, Homer’s wife Marge (Julie Kavner) and his kids try to persuade him to return to the town but all to no avail. Therefore Marge, along with the kids, leaves Homer. But a meeting with a medicine woman (Tress MacNeille) drastically changes his outlook and Homer comes to the conclusion that he must defy the president, once known as Terminator, so as to save the home town, which is on a razor’s edge, and reunite with his family.
"The Simpsons" is a very funny movie, loaded with dumb jokes that are often as funny as the clever ones, and full of the anarchic, generous, good-natured humor that is the show’s enduring signature.
Tags: simpsons, Simpsons movie
Posted in Animation, Comedy | No Comments »
