Word: ratted
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...Some of these movies (Rat, Feet) I loved; some (Paprika, Aachi) I studied with a cooler, appraisal admiration; and Queer Duck I thought just silly, sublimely so. But often, as I watched, I wondered: Why can't the makers of live-action films take one-tenth the care these guys did? Why are so many animated features bursting with wild imagination, coherent characters, glorious visualizing - all we should expect from film - and "real" movies aren...
...little group portrait of new animation, Ratatouille - a rat-out-of-sewer fable about Remy, the country rodent who tries to fulfill his dream of making great food by befriending a jerky kid named Linguini in a Paris restaurant - is the most familiar face. It has the format (a journey of self-discovery and friendship) and virtues (grace of movement, narrative power) of Pixar, the pioneer foremost practitioner of CGI features. It has set pieces worthy of the old Disney masters, as when Remy, on his first night in Paris, scurries and jetes to avoid the heavy footfalls of pedestrians...
...great acting: attend to the gestural brilliance in Ratatouille: Remy the rat's slight hunch of the shoulders and secret smile as he acknowledges that, yes, he has the makings of a great chef; or the face of the severe food critic Anton Ego as he takes a forkful of Remy's signature dish, and his sourness disappears, a beatific smile replaces the sneer, and Ego is transported back 40 years to the sublime memory of his mother's kitchen. "Yes, it's a super-cartoony design on his face," Director Brad Bird told TIME's Rebecca Winters Keegan...
...There's also a logical-logistical challenge. Remy, too small to do the handiwork himself, hides in the toque and directs Linguini's movements by tugging on tufts of the kid's hair. Thus does he manipulate Linguini's arms, legs, shoulders! We understand that the boy is the rat's marionette - but strings through his entire body? Whatever quibbles you may have, you would have to be an idiot of elephantine proportions not to appreciate Ratatouille's grace, humor and power...
...live-action films. The animators' motto might be: We draw you in. And in that magic or toxic world, anything is possible. Can a dream resolve our waking dilemmas? Can excrement induce ecstasy? Can duck sing a gay version of The Pirates of Penzance? Can a rat be a chef? In animation, the answer is always...