27 June 2007

Greatest Movie Of ALL TIME?

That would be Ratatouille (still unsure of the Basil content).

Of the 24 early reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, 100% positive, most glowing. Brad Bird has a track record of putting together great animated films that work as films and not just kiddie babysitting devices. The user ratings at that site are nearly as positive.

Incredibles is the best (and most libertarian) of the PIXAR films, so far.

Iron Giant was a well regarded animated work that somehow didn't find an audience when first released.

Ratatouille by all accounts is the equal or better of those two previous works.

Definitely be seeing this before this weekend is up, still not sure if a story about a rat that still looks rat-like will be an easy sell in the marketplace.

There are still folks out there who think all animated features are just kids stuff, especially all computer animated films. While that's primarily the case from Hollywood (definitely not the case in Japan), kids stuff isn't always crap. PIXAR has yet to produce crap, no other studio can make that claim. Not every PIXAR pic has been a classic, but none of their films have been a waste of time, either. That's a pretty impressive track record for a studio, a testament to their emphasis on story first. They don't sell their pictures on cuteness, or whichever voice actors they hire, they sell their stories based on the stories, and, thus far all their pictures have worked at the story level.

Can't say the same for the Michael Bays (but I'll still see Transformers against my better judgement), or even the Peter Jacksons and Curtis Hansons of the world.

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