Archive for June, 2007

Ratatouille – *****

Sunday, June 17th, 2007

Holy crap. I expected nothing, and got a great movie that had very few flaws.

The animation – spectacular. The water sequence was as incredible an animated water sequence as I’ve ever seen.

The voice acting – perfection. Casting Patton Oswalt as the intellectual rat Remy was simply genius, and he delivered.

The score – Michael Giacchino does it again – his score for “The Incredibles” was PERFECTION, and this matched it.

The story – the one area where Pixar generally makes every other digital animation company look like hacks…and they don’t disappoint. This movie was full of heart and thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end.

In fact, the only flaw I see is that it’s not much of a kid movie, and its title is hard to pronounce and doesn’t really tell you much about the movie (though it makes sense when you watch the movie). The fact that it’s been marketed as a kid movie will make it a harder sell to some critics who can’t accept good stories if they’re directed to a family audience.

“Ratatouille” was better than almost every movie I’ve seen this year in just about every way.

I absolutely loved it. Brad Bird does it again – “The Incredibles” was a great movie, and this one matches it, in my opinion.

Even with my 3-year-old son making it a lot less fun to watch, the movie was great.

Special kudos to the team who did the short that ran before the movie, called “Lifted” – it was hilarious.

Thanks for making my evening, Pixar. You’ve done it again.

Vive le “Ratatouille”!

Knocked Up – *****

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

Believe the hype.

It IS that good. It is crass and touching at the same time.

Perhaps I’m a little biased, having knocked someone up and lived the dream of it working out, but Judd Apatow has managed to make a movie that is as good as the other movie he made, which was EXCELLENT. The 40-Year-Old Virgin was awesome in that it somehow managed to be disgusting and touching at the same time. This movie is no different. I LOVED it.

In my ideal world, this would be the blockbuster movie of the summer. Fuck Spider-man, The Fantastic Four, or any of those popcorn monstrosities. This movie was funny, touching, and completely entertaining in every way.

I highly recommend it.

***** (that’s five stars, not some censored curse word)