ratatouille (sp)

...and I don't mean the Heartbeats singing A Thousand Miles Away. I mean the latest food/wine animated movie featuring rats.

I've been hearing good things about it. Anyone see it yet?

I'm going today. Will report back.

Mike

...and I don't mean the Heartbeats singing A Thousand Miles Away. I mean the latest food/wine animated movie featuring rats.

I've been hearing good things about it. Anyone see it yet?

Ooops... just posted a link to a trailer before seeing your post, Tom. It looks great - I am looking forward to seeing it.

Got back a couple of hours ago from seeing it. I'd recommend it. It has some of the somewhat cliched animated film aspects, but there's also a lot that a foodie can identify with. They bring in elements of everything from sell-out celebrity chefs to Marcel Proust. The movie puts stuff like sweetbreads, soup made from scratch, and the title dish in a positive light and corn dogs and frozen pizza in a negative one. The concept of comfort food gets a short but pivotal role.

One of the recurring themes is that one should not settle for bad food. One line went something along the lines of, "There is excellence all around you. You need only be aware to savor it." There are also a couple of neat scenes in which characters are transported out of their environment by really good food. The food becomes sounds, colors, and abstract shapes that then gather complexity as different taste elements come into play. Reminded me a bit of Fantasia.

They worked hard to give one an idea of the kind of frantic work that goes on in the kitchen of a high-end restaurant as well as the somewhat shady characters who sometimes work in them. I'm not qualified to judge the accuracy of this stuff except to say that it rings true in my limited restaurant experience. But there's a lot more to it than what I'm covering here.

I took my 15-year-old and she liked it. I'll probably take my 9-year-old when she gets back in town. If you have kids, use them as an excuse to go see it. If you don't, try renting some. For children, I think this movie amounts to foodie propaganda. God knows that kids in America today need all of that we can get them.


Mike

Just saw it as well. Loved the attention to detail, whether it's the streets of Paris, the way rats move, or the food. There's also a few wine references ('61 Latour and '47 Cheval Blanc) though they are not a major plot element. The Proustian moment toward the end was a blast. Though some of the underlying themes (be true to yourself, etc.) are not particularly original, I still felt the movie was fresh and engaging. Would definitely recommend it!

cheers
al

I have yet to read a bad review of this movie. I must get to see it soon.

I loved it. Alex nailed it. The detail was amazing.
I'm not particularly in love with the thought of rats in a kitchen, but once I got past that, it was fine.
They really captured a restaurant kitchen, perfectly.

Well done and I highly recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in wine and food.

Linda took Jimi to see it. He thought it was great and immediately wanted to go to McDonalds.

[James Roscoe]

Linda took Jimi to see it. He thought it was great and immediately wanted to go to McDonalds.

Like father like son?

I saw it. I think it is a cute movie and engaging, for the most part. The thing I thought had the greatest attention to detail was the movement of the rats. They scampered in exactly the way rodents do, traveling along the edges of structures using deft movement with purpose! Brilliant. The kitchen scenes with cooking staff was beautifully recreated. All the hype about the food, is just that -- hype. It's cartoon food. The deconstructed ratatouille was simply multicolored, round, stacked disks that could just as easily have been a stack of poker chips. Had they shown the squashes being sliced in the making, I could have crossed the threshole of imagination. The fact that Linguini couldn't hear Remy speak, but Remy pulling on Linguini's hair that made parts of his anatomy respond with apitude made no sense. What happens when Linguini starts to experience hair loss?! It's a cartoon for Chris sake -- if the rat could read human lettering, then he should have had the ability to form speech -- let's talk already! I enjoyed it.

I saw it. I think it is a cute movie and engaging, for the most part. The thing I thought had the greatest attention to detail was the movement of the rats. They scampered in exactly the way rodents do, traveling along the edges of structures using deft movement with purpose! Brilliant. The kitchen scenes with cooking staff was beautifully recreated. All the hype about the food, is just that -- hype. It's cartoon food. The deconstructed ratatouille was simply multicolored, round, stacked disks that could just as easily have been a stack of poker chips. Had they shown the squashes being sliced in the making, I could have crossed the threshole of imagination. The fact that Linguini couldn't hear Remy speak, but Remy pulling on Linguini's hair that made parts of his anatomy respond with apitude made no sense. What happens when Linguini starts to experience hair loss?! It's a cartoon for Chris sake -- if the rat could read human lettering, then he should have had the ability to form speech -- let's talk already! I enjoyed it.

Yeah it is kind of funny that they have a rat who can read, manipulate a human by pulling his hair, and who is a brilliant world-class chef, but they drew the line at him talking to people. It would be interesting to know why they made that decision.

Just saw it this evening! It was a delight: very funny, beautifully animated, with a great story line!