THE MOVIE SHELF: The Pundit's Prediction For 2008

Predicting Politics Is Tricky Right Now, So I Think I’ll Go With This Prediction Instead.

If You Didn’t See It Buy The DVD; It’s Worth it and You Need A Short Break!

Oh, And please click on the graphic for the detail. It took some time and trickery of my own.

http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/ratatouille/main.html

Ratatouille (9 minutes provided by Disney)

This is a fan site for the movie Ratatouille, and is not related to Disney or Pixar in any way.

Read the Ratatouille PlotMovie Release Date: June 29, 2007

DVD Release Date: November 6, 2007 Official Site: www.ratatouille.comGenre: AnimationRating: G

Distributed by: DISNEY•PIXAR

Screenwriter/Director: Brad Bird Producer: Brad Lewis Voice Talent: Patton Oswalt, Brian Dennehy, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Peter O’Toole

Original Story by: Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad BirdAcademy Award®-winning director Brad Bird (“The Incredibles”) and the amazing storytellers at Pixar Animation Studios (“Cars,” “Finding Nemo”) take you into an entirely new and original world where the unthinkable combination of a rat and a 5-star gourmet restaurant come together for the ultimate fish-out-of-water tale.

In the hilarious new animated-adventure, RATATOUILLE, a rat named Remy dreams of becoming a great chef despite his family’s wishes and the obvious problem of being a rat in a decidedly rodent-phobic profession.

When fate places Remy in the city of Paris, he finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau.

Despite the apparent dangers of being an unwanted visitor in the kitchen at one of Paris’ most exclusive restaurants, Remy forms an unlikely partnership with Linguini, the garbage boy, who inadvertently discovers Remy’s amazing talents.

They strike a deal, ultimately setting into motion a hilarious and exciting chain of extraordinary events that turns the culinary world of Paris upside down.Remy finds himself torn between following his dreams or returning forever to his previous existence as a rat.

He learns the truth about friendship, family and having no choice but to be who he really is, a rat who wants to be a chef.Nearly all (maybe all) of Pixar's feature films have the number "A113" in them somewhere (most recently the train in Cars). Also, there's often the ball from Luxo Jr. in there (it can be seen in Jack-Jack Attack on the Incredibles DVD, for instance). Look for A113 in Ratatouille! (rumor has it A113 is the classroom number at the Californian college where many Pixar animators learned their trade).

Popular and critical reaction

Ratatouille has opened to near-universal acclaim. As of July 1, 2007 it is 95% 'fresh' on Rotten Tomatoes, 9.0 on the Internet Movie Database with 4,067 votes, and 95/100 on Metacritic (the sixth highest Metacritic film rating ever and highest for Pixar).

Box Office

The film debuted at $47 million in estimated weekend sales, making it number one at the box office. Compared to other Pixar movies, the opening weekend was the lowest grossing since A Bug's Life.

Production

Jan Pinkava came up with the concept and directed the film from 2000, creating the original sets and characters. Pixar management replaced him with Bird in 2005. Bird was attracted to the film because of the outlandishness of the concept and the conflict that drove it: that kitchens feared rats, yet a rat wanted to work in one.

Bird was also delighted that the film was a highly physical comedy, with the character of Linguini providing endless fun for the animators. Bird rewrote the story with Gusteau killed off and gave larger roles to Skinner and Collette, and also changed the appearance of the rats to be less human-looking.

Because Ratatouille is intended to be a romantic, lush vision of Paris, giving it an identity distinct from previous Pixar films, the crew spent a week in the city to properly understand its environment, taking a motorcycle tour and eating at five top restaurants. There are also many water-based sequences in the film, one of which is set in the sewers and ten times more complex than the blue whale scene in Finding Nemo.

One scene has Linguini wet after jumping into the Seine to fetch Remy. A Pixar employee (ShadePaint Dept Coordinator Kesten Migdal) in a chef suit jumped into a swimming pool to see which parts of the suit stuck to his body and which became translucent from water absorption.

Ratatouille (film)In an interview, John Lasseter described the movie: "It is about a rat that wants to be a fine chef in a top French restaurant in Paris. It is a wonderful story about following your passions when all the world is against you. A rat to a kitchen is death; a kitchen to a rat is death."

Disney's Ratatouille Movie TrailersClick here (Pixar website) to view the Ratatouille movie trailer video and see other clips from the original movie.

The Apple Site is also great for seeing the trailers.

Director: Brad Bird

Produced by Brad Lewis

Executive Producers: John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton

Associate Producer: Galyn Susman

Original Story: Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird

Music: Michael Giacchino

Story Supervisor: Mark Andrews

Film Editor: Darren Holmes

Supervising Technical Director: Michael Fong

Production Designer: Harley Jessup

Supervising Animators: Dylan Brown, Mark Walsh

Director of Photography/Lighting: Sharon Calahan