Category Archives: Cinema

I am hereby declaring the following decree that should be followed by all analysts, all critics, all viewers, and all bloggers like myself. In light of the fabulous Pixar creation ‘Ratatouille’, I want to make something incredibly clear:

From this point forward, the success of a Pixar film shall never be measured by its box office results, but rather by its quality. Both Variety (Noting it could be a harder sell) and The Hollywood Reporter (predicting it would struggle to meet box office receipts) prefaced their reviews with a statement proclaiming that this might finally be the Pixar film that doesn’t live up to the rest financially. And, well, I don’t give a rat’s ass (Oooh, I know, bad pun). The fact of the matter is that this is one of Pixar’s finest films, in a league of its own, and its box office results don’t particularly matter. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter agree with my assessment of the film’s quality, but this need to address the pessimists shouldn’t be necessary. Pixar is making great films, and until they stop doing so “The End of Pixar” will be the last thing that enters my mind.

With this said, I invite all of you to peruse the following review to discover why Ratatouille is worth sampling when it opens in two weeks time on June 29^th…or, that is what I would say if I didn’t realize that I am quite unprepared to right a review at this stage of the game.

You see, Ratatouille is a film that I’m having a hard time criticizing. Every time I attempt to do so, I find myself writing sentences and sentences on one of its many fantastic elements. And so, over the next two weeks (Yep, I’m milking this one for all its worth), I intend on highlighting The Ten Reasons You Should See ‘Ratatouille’. Now, you might claim this to be some sort of viral marketing attempt, and it really isn’t. I might well be critical within these sections, but only in small quantities: admittedly, this is a film I loved and I am not afraid to say so.

However, in short, I will say this:

I believe that Ratatouille is perhaps the best example of a purely Pixar film since Toy Story. It is a film that engrosses itself in its setting, its characters, its universe more than any of their films in between. It has most of The Incredibles’ fantastic qualities (I want to marry Michael Giacchino right now), but does so within a more traditionally Pixar story…and that combination is hard to beat.

As the studio prepares to release a mostly silent film starring a trash compacting robot (Wall-E, 2008) and one about a park ranger and an old man fighting beasts and villains (Up, 2009), the time has come to appreciate Pixar just like you would any other movie studio: by the quality of their work. And this is a work of sheer quality.

And so, without further adieu, I introduce Reason #10 Why You Should See ‘Ratatouille’.

Reason #10 – The Story

SPOILER WARNING: While I will not ruin any of the best moments of the film, I am likely to allude to them in some shape or form, and this might not be in your interest. However, I will be as spoiler-free as physically possible.

The smallish theatre designated to this evening’s special sneak preview was pretty well to capacity, with nary a single seat left in the auditorium. The audience was varied: I attended with my parents, there was a twenty-something couple to one side of us, there was an older woman by herself to our right, and there were of course kids all around us. This was a diverse audience, which I presume will be a positive sign for the data collectors when they get this information. Because, even with an audience this diverse, they absolutely loved Ratatouille. And a lot of that has to do with its rich story. It is not number 10 because it is the least important, but simply because it is the one thing leaping out at me as I react to viewing the film for the first time.

The story isn’t original on paper, per se: a country rat ending up in the big city and having to come to terms with his two lives is treading on familiar territory. However, what needs to be made clear is that the story does not stop and end with that moment. Like Brad Bird’s other stories, such as The Incredibles, this is a multi-faceted, multi-layered story that spans species, generations, and professions to become something truly memorable.

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[Yes, while I have shifted to exclusively talking about television gradually over the past five months, I will be interluding with gems of information like this one.]

Pixar has been a studio that hasn’t taken a whole lot of risks with the subject matter of its films, even if technological and storytelling risks were certainly taken in the process. I say this because, technically, all of the films appealed to younger or established demographics. Toy Story was about toys, A Bug’s Life about cute bugs, Monsters Inc. about furry monsters, and The Incredibles about superheroes. Even Ratatouille, despite being very different story-wise from most animated films out there, remains firmly in the realm of the types of characters that can be made into furry stuffed animals if need be, or at the very least action figures.

However, news broke today that Pixar appears to be breaking out of this mold in a big way. With Disney’s own animation studio ramping up and beginning to deliver more films, and with Lasseter at the helm, Pixar is letting itself roam free…and roam ‘Up’.

From Variety:

Pixar is going a little older than its typical demo in 2009.

Toon studio revealed Monday that’s its release that year will be “Up,” about a 70-year-old man who teams up with a Wilderness ranger to fight a cadre of beasts and villains.

“Monsters Inc.” director Pete Docter is co-directing with Bob Peterson, an animation vet making his helming debut. Ronnie Del Carmen, a Pixar story supervisor, is writing the script.

This, my friends, is the best decision that Pixar has ever made. With Ratatouille I believe that the studio has its first chance at true box office disappointment, even with what looks like a fabulous film. With so many animated films flooding the market, oversaturation is going to keep Ratatouille from making as big of an impact as it might have years ago. The film will be a success, surely, but it won’t perhaps be a blockbuster. But, Pixar doesn’t need to make blockbusters, and that’s the whole point of their new development strategy.

Next year, Wall-E is a film with a lead character devoid of dialogue and who is a garbage collecting robot. And now, with Up, they’ve developed a film about a 70-year old man and a wilderness ranger teaming up to fight creatures of unknown origin. What we’re seeing is Pixar breaking free of its boundaries, free of the problems that plagued them when forced to develop Toy Story 2. While it is one of my favourite Pixar films, once can only wonder what original material they were cooking up…and now we don’t have to.

With Wall-E (Which will debut its teaser trailer in front of Ratatouille) and Up, Pixar is moving into a niche knowing that its name will carry with it some level of success. Fans of Pixar as a filmmaker, not just as a commercial enterprise, should be excited at this idea. No longer do action figure sales dictate the determined path of a film for the studio, and the result is two films that could return Pixar to its attempts to revolutionize computer animation in terms of its storytelling, its technology and perhaps even its audience. I don’t see toddlers getting a kick out of a senile old man cutting down demons…but I can’t wait.