Geekanerd loves Wall-E! Even me, the resident Pixar cynic. The first third of the movie is a masterpiece, a MASTER. PIECE. Between that and the credit sequence, let's give them the Oscar, why not. I spent most of yesterday evening geeking out about my favorite moments, watching clips on YouTube, pouring over the amazing BuyNLarge viral site, and crying over the mere memory of several scenes.
As a product design nerd, I love that they didn't over-anthropomorphize the "modern" robots, ie all the robots except Wall-E himself. The art designers gave them tons of personality while still making them realistically look they were built for only one service. They're not androids, but true blue mass manufactured robots.
While the Johnny 5/Short Circuit comparisons have already well chewed over, here's our attempt to trace the robo-influences of some of Wall-E's friends...
Until Auto started talking, I thought it actually might be GLaDOS. Still alive indeed, seven hundred years in the future! Red eye against white circle with a black line down the middle...it's all there, people. But as Sarah pointed out, GLaDOS' look is in turn a rif on HAL 9000, and Auto's eye is clearly a DIRECT reference to his iconic red light. Portal only came out a year ago, so there's probably no way Auto could have been influenced by GLaDOS...how about that short before the movie, though, with the magic hat? That was Portal. It just was.
More after the jump....
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the PR-T cosmetic bot was designed with a nod towards the IT-O Interrogator droid from Star Wars. Both are floating orbs with multiple arms, and given that the PR-T droid we meet in the movie is malfunctioning, their functions may not be all that different either.
Eve is harder to pin down, but the resemblance to Apple products in general is pretty clear. I think more than anything she/it reminded me of the Mac Mouse, in it's smooth, seamless white ovaltude. But the face and gun reminded me of something as well; the Robosapein toy robot from Wowee, which me and Albo saw at Digital Life last year.
Anyone else see anything in Wall-E that reminded them of another famous robot?
I wasn't much of a fan of Ratatouille, but the film critics of America certainly "ate it up" (sorry). It's currently the best reviewed film of the year as scored by Metacritic, and unless Atonement, Sweeney Todd, or There Will Be Blood contain exactly zero elements that anyone might dislike, Brad Bird's portrait of an artist as a young rodent will by numerical critical consensus be the best film of 2007. However, Ratatouille is unlikely to get an Oscar nom for Best Picture because animated films have been ghettoized into their own category since the 2001 awards. It was then that the Best Animated Feature category was introduced, which has since been treated more like Least Bad Kiddie Movie, judging by some of the nominees. While the existence of the category doesn't actually bar animated films from Best Film competition, most don't bother to campaign, nullifying their chances. But according to this NY Times Article, the folks at Pixar are making a go of it, perhaps inspired by their own odds-overcoming cartoon rat. As much as I'd like to see Pixar set a precedent for high-quality animated films competing on the level of other critically acclaimed films, I don't see it happening this time around. 2007 looks to be a pretty damn good year for American films, this being the year when the US's endless war anxiety finally rose to the surface in an eruption of downbeat, bloodymovies, setting up a crowded playing field that I doubt Ratatouille will squeeze into.
What would it take, I wonder, for an animated movie to get nominated these days? The first and last cartoon to compete for Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast; has there been another animated film released in America since then that has had the same winning combination of production value, dignity, and traditional storytelling? The Triplets of Bellville was a bit hit with critics, but it was way too weird to play as an Oscar movie (although that year the extremely weird Return of the King won, which in addition to being a mess was one of the most boring movie I've ever seen, despite featuring a scene where a man on fire jumps off a mountain). Action-comedies are persona non-grata as far as the Oscars are concerned, so The Incredibles is out too. I think the only animated movie in the last seven years that could have had a shot was Spirited Away, which was also foreign and pretty bizarre, but was easy to watch and by a famous and celebrated filmmaker. But Spirited Away has come and gone, let's look to the future. If Ratatouille can't change Americans minds about animated film, perhaps Persepolis can. With an amazing looking trailer and extremely timely subject matter (a first person recollection of Iran's Islamic Revolution), Persepolis is poised to be one of the biggest adult-oriented animated features in U.S history, and will also likely determine commercial viability of animated films adapted from comics. Given those stakes, I hope Persepolis lives up to it's hype. But as far as awards go, it'll have a hard enough time wrenching that statue out of Ratatouille's hands in the Animated Feature category, especially if the Best Pic campaign fails. Or who knows, maybe Jerry Seinfeld will do his stand-up in every Academy voter's living room and Bee Movie will take the whole thing.
Related: My schizoid review of Ratatouille with a title that makes zero sense. Geekanerd's look at Persepolis' acting talent, plus one of the early trailers.
Since the PS3 and XBox360 came out I've wondered how long it will be before video games begin using character animation sophisticated enough to make gameplay indistinguishable from say, a Pixar movie. Turns out the designers at Valve are in fact hard at work creating gorgeously rendered, chunky-yet-smooth cartoon character designs for the upcoming Team Fortress 2.
This behind-the-scenes vid is refreshingly technical and info-packed, but those who, like me, don't include the words "clamped lambertian" in their volcabularly might get lost around 2:13. Might. I'm not saying I did.
For high-res vids of these hot graphics in action, check out the game teasers, which show off a great sense of humor as well.
The best thing about Ratatouille is that it finishes strong. Sometimes a satisfying ending is all a movie needs to make the audience forget everything else and exit the theater with a great impression. But these impressions rarely last the walk home, which is when one remembers the hour-plus it took to reach that climax. Ratatouille isn't bad, but it's not all that good, and I feel like if we keep saying these B-grade Pixar movies are amazing, we're never going to get anything brilliant from the studio again.
A breakdown of the flick's goods and bads after the jump...
A Symphony of Flavor:
Good villains. Ian Holm and Peter O'Toole voice two very different antagonists, both of whom are wonderful to watch. These men are obviously great actors, and they rise to the challenges of voice acting perfectly - just the right amount of hyper-stylization needed to give the animators plenty to work with.
Rats. Rats are cool. I was concerned about the character design (because of their long snouts, you often can't see the rat's mouths when they talk), but giving them a semi-realistic feel pays off during "The Birds" type scenes when hoards of rats scare the hell out of people.
Physical comedy. This is a movie set in France, so of course there's going to be some serious clowning going on. One of director Brad Bird's trademarks is comedy revolving around people struggling against their bodies - remember our first glimpse of The Incredibles?
Another example of this type of gag is a memorable scene from The Iron Giant that involves a small rodent down a man's pants...Brad Bird liked this joke so much it's also in Ratatouille. Which is okay, because it's still funny.
Stale Crackers:
In the first half-hour, there's a lot of expositionary voice-over by the leading rat character, Remy. This setup info is put across with zero charm or enjoyability, and not even much character development! We understand that Remy has "good taste", and wants to be a chef, and yet he has no personality. Bland, bland, bland. We only begin to like Remy once we see him through the eyes of the human protagonist - a small, squeaking rat who communicates through hilariously expressive gestures. When Remy speaks, the magic is gone. Which brings me to an important tangent:
WHEN are animation producers/directors going to wise-up to the fact that grown men's voices do not work well for young, cute cartoon characters? Why does Remy, who's naivete and desire for independence from his father is central to the movie, have the voice of a 35 year old man!? This is a cute cartoon character we're talking about, have we grown so cynical in this culture that we can't bare to give a cute cartoon character a reasonably endearing voice?! Disclaimer: Patton Oswald is not a bad voice actor - he does fine work in Kim Possible. I wonder if he tried to develop a voice for Remy, and it was vetoed? Maybe Pixar didn't want to repeat Zack Braff's (sp? I can't be bothered) disastrous attempt at creating a "kid" voice for Chicken Little...people, some free advice, CAST A KID!
Casserole:
Janeane Garafalo does a very sexy French accent.
Some great "rats-eye-view" chase scenes.
The movie features a neat visual device where flavors are literally illustrated through lavish bursts of abstract animation - this is very cool, but only happens twice and never has anything to do with moving the story forward. This is one of several ideas that are introduced and then seem to be abandoned...was this radically re-edited at some point?
The "great ending" I mentioned is the sort of thing that will need to be watched several times on DVD...very excited for that.
OBLIGATORY STAR RATING: 3 stars, just like the restaurant in the movie.
Watching Ratatouille is like eating at a so-so restaurant that serves a great dessert. You leave feeling happy, but it's not an experience you'd highly recommend. Except for the dessert. My metaphor came apart.
UPDATE: The 6/15/07 screening has come and gone, but you can still use the links below to try and find other advanced screenings near you...or you can read Geekanerd's REVIEWon the movie, which opens nationwide on 6/29/07.
Original Post follows:
Time for Pixar to redeem itself! Doing a complete cultural 180 from their last movie about a talking NASCAR, their latest "stab" at getting back the ol' magic is a cartoon about haute french cuisine! Fake it till you make it, lads!
Truth be told, I don't have very high hopes from the trailers, but Pixar has a history of horrible trailers for not so horrible movies. So we'll see. I do like rats.
The movie comes out for real on the 25th, but there are 800 advanced screeningsaround the country on Saturday, June 15th. Oh shizz, that's tomorrow! If you're based in NYC like the Geekanerd Crew, you can buy tickets on Fandango at the following address: http://www.fandango.com/ratatouille_98260/movietimes?date=6/16/2007
As of this writing, tickets are available for all four NYC screenings! C'mon animation nerds, turn off the lightbox and get it together!
If you're part of that mass of people I've heard about who DON'T live in New York, you can search your zip code on Fandango or Moviephone for showtimes near you (I find Moviephone to have an easier search engine, but Fandango has some screenings Moviephone doesn't).
Get your hands on the first piece of Will Wright's new masterpiece, and make some creatures that'll put Jim Henson to shame. Well, not really. But you can dream.
Until Auto started talking, I thought it actually might be GLaDOS. Still alive indeed, seven hundred years in the future! Red eye against white circle with a black line down the middle...it's all there, people. But as Sarah pointed out, GLaDOS' look is in turn a rif on HAL 9000, and Auto's eye is clearly a DIRECT reference to his iconic red light. Portal only came out a year ago, so there's probably no way Auto could have been influenced by GLaDOS...how about that short before the movie, though, with the magic hat? That was Portal. It just was.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the PR-T cosmetic bot was designed with a nod towards the IT-O Interrogator droid from Star Wars. Both are floating orbs with multiple arms, and given that the PR-T droid we meet in the movie is malfunctioning, their functions may not be all that different either.
Eve is harder to pin down, but the resemblance to Apple products in general is pretty clear. I think more than anything she/it reminded me of the Mac Mouse, in it's smooth, seamless white ovaltude. But the face and gun reminded me of something as well; the Robosapein toy robot from Wowee, which me and Albo saw at Digital Life last year.
