Ratatouille Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Disney buffs are no doubt aware of the theme park's "Living Character Initiative," where guests of Walt Disney World (and the surrounding parks, like Disney's Hollywood Studios and Epcot Center) are treated to a live-action experience with some of the more memorable Disney/Pixar animated characters. I believe the initiative began a couple years ago with the Muppet Mobile Lab, and it continues now with the character Remy from Ratatouille (who hangs around French restaurants at Epcot Center) and the newest edition -- Luxo Jr. (aka the hopping Pixar desk lamp), who visitors to Disney's Hollywood Studios can now see hanging out over at Pixar Place.

We posted videos of both Luxo Jr. and Remy after the jump, as well as the inflatable Up house stationed over at Downtown Disney. And now if you'll excuse me, Wall-E is about to start on cable and the thing looks absolutely smashing in HD. Enjoy your Sunday!

Ever wonder what it would look like if some of your favorite big-screen villains suddenly swapped movies? No? Well, we're gonna show you anyway. Our friends over at Worth1000 recently hosted another one of their funtastic photoshop contests and asked folks to send in their best villain-swapping image -- meaning it'd have to be an image from one film that somehow included the villain from another. Of course there were a lot of Dark Knight parodies (I'm guessing that movie was popular or whatever?), and so you should expect to see the Joker pop up a lot. Other favorites include Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees -- the latter of which makes an appearance in The Dark Knight, as well as Ratatouille (which you can imagine was sort of disturbing).

Check out some of our favorite images below. I'm curious, though: If you really had the power to villain swap, which villain would you choose and where would you put him (or her)?



Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to follow me on Twitter ...

I'm not entirely sure where or how /Film dug up this blog post from last summer about the lack of proper female characters taking the lead in Pixar's productions to date, but it's certainly made those of us on Twitter all... a-buzz.

Think about it: Toy Story had Bo Peep and Mrs. Potato Head serve as love interests; A Bug's Life had a princess love interest and spunky tot; Toy Story 2 can claim Jessie as a proper heroine; Monsters, Inc. is back to love interest and spunky kid; Finding Nemo does give Dory a fairly prominent and helpful presence; and The Incredibles has both Helen and Violet as prime role models. Cars and Ratatouille once again reduce the gals to objects of affection, while Wall-E falls for one admittedly assertive robot.

(In fairness, Dreamworks seems to be batting a similar average: for every Princess Fiona or Rita, there's either a Renee Zellweger or a Renee Zellweger around to muck it up.)

Pixar's next project, Up, appears for now to focus solely on one old man and one young boy. While I don't see the box office dipping in the name of all that testosterone, I still wonder if any of you are struck by this gender disparity in the studio's work, and if any sort of affirmative action is going to result in stories compromised just so they can include a Token Stand-Up Female. What say you guys and girls?

A couple of people have been griping about Wall-E director Andrew Stanton's refusal to admit that his cute little movie about a robot in love actually contains some pretty upfront green politics, but there's a far more polarizing reference in the film than its harmless pro-environment agenda. It's no major plot spoiler to reveal that, about an hour or so into the story, Fred Willard appears in a recorded message as the mysterious president of Earth's corporate government and orders the ship's captain (Jeff Garlin) to "stay the course." Wait, we've heard this one before: It was the go-to statement used by the Bush administration for about three years or so when describing its modus operandi in Iraq (the term was abandoned when staying the course started to sound like a bad idea). In Wall-E, the context is quite different -- it's an order to not do something, rather than take action -- but hard to ignore nonetheless.

Certain critics with (surprise!) conservative slants have taken issue with this. At Dirty Harry's Place, John Nolte expresses his disappointment in the first paragraph of his review: "Have we lost the wonderful studio who brought us The Incredibles and Ratatouille to Bush Derangement Syndrome?" he asks. New York Post critic Kyle Smith picked up the rant and decided to write his own, even though he hadn't seen the film yet: "This kind of crack, lame as it is, also breaks the spell of the movie by hurling you out of the theater and back into reality."

• Abby Mann (1927-2008) - Oscar-winning screenwriter of Judgment of Nuremberg. He was also nominated for writing Stanley Kramer's Ship of Fools. He also worked on Vittorio De Sica's The Condemned of Altona, wrote John Cassavetes' A Child is Waiting and Gordon Douglas' The Detective, which starred Frank Sinatra, and created the TV series Kojak. He also appears in the documentary Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust. He died of heart failure March 25, in Beverly Hills. (Variety)

• Art Aragon (1927-2008) - Professional boxer-turned-actor who appears as himself in the Bob Hope comedy Off Limits and in Kur Neumann's film-noir The Ring. He also appears in John Huston's boxing picture Fat City and in the WWII film To Hell and Back. He died of complications from a stroke March 25, in Northridge, California. (NY Times)
• Paul Arthur (c.1948-2008) - Film historian, scholar and critic who taught English and film studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. He was known for his writings on avant-garde and documentary cinemas and had made a number of short films, himself. He died of melanoma March 25, in White Plains, New York. (NY Times)

A friend of mine pointed me toward this YouTube video over on Hollywood Elsewhere which was cut together by a guy named Matt Shapiro using clips from a bunch of 2007's great dramas, all set to the wonderful tune Falling Slowly, performed by Glen Hasard and Markéta Irglová from Once. Though there's a bit too much I Am Legend in there, as well as comedy-dramas like Juno, Knocked Up and Ratatouille, I must say the video itself is pretty damn well done. I feel like every year around this time, as awards are being handed out, you get comments from people along the lines of, "Man, last year sucked in terms of movies." Well it's videos like this one that show just how great 2007 was in terms of high-quality entertainment, even if the bulk of it didn't arrive until those last few months. Check out the video up top, then let us know which films you would've liked to see get a mention. Oh, and then you can head over to iTunes and download Falling Slowly. Trust me, if you haven't heard this song yet, you're guaranteed to be swept away in its beauty. It's that f**king good.

It was a damn fine year for movies, 2007. It's hard enough picking 10 top flicks from the crop after a just-decent year, so the task was especially tricky this time around. (At least at Moviefone we're able to pick the 50 best.) That's why I'm thankful for the unwritten critics' rule that Top 10 lists can start with a tie, so long as there's common thematic bond between them. Here are my 11 10 favorite movies of the 007.

10. Tie: Dan in Real Life / Grace is Gone (Widower Special)
What can I say, I'm a sucker for widowers. Some critics found the loving family in Steve Carell's poignant dramedy Dan unrealistic. I feel sorry for some critics. Plot contrivances aside, it succeeds both in capturing the dynamics of a large clan and telling a helluva love story. In a career-best performance in Grace, John Cusack is a flag-waving father of two whose wife is killed in Iraq. This tear-jerking drama might be misconstrued as a political statement, but finally it's a heartrending tale of human loss.

9. Hot Fuzz
Yes, this hilarious send-up of (tribute to?) Bruckheimer schlock tops Shaun of the Dead, the brilliant debut from Brits Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. Whereas Shaun's first hour is pure bliss, it loses some steam in the third act. Fuzz gets better as it speeds along, offering up surprises and side-splitters in equal measure. Really, who would've thought anyone would ever pay homage to Bad Boys II?

8. No End in Sight
As you can surmise from the title, this ain't exactly a sunshiney look at the Iraq War. But it's the most thorough, eye-opening detailing of the mega-blunders made the Bush Administration in planning and executing the war to date (so THAT'S where the insurgency came from!), with nary a Michael Moore stunt in sight. Prepared to be educated, maddened.

7. Ratatouille
Like I've been saying it for a while now: The machines at Pixar appear to be challenging themselves more and more with each release: "What DON'T audiences think they'll fall in love with? How about a rat who cooks? Better yet, a French rat!" And of course, after 111 minutes of Pixar magic, most of us left with a newfound respect for rodents. (Reminds me of '91 when I saw Beauty and the Beast; haven't been afraid of beasts since.)

6. Superbad
Forget Knocked Up. Forget Walk Hard. This deliciously raunchy buddy comedy/love story will stand the test of time and prevail as the most influential Apatow movie of '07, defining a generation like Dazed and Confused and Fast Times at Ridgemont High did before it. Here's hoping Christopher Mintz-Passe (a.k.a. McLovin) will ever be able to convincingly play another character, though I wouldn't mind more McLovin.

Best Animated Feature Film

Nominees:

Bee Movie

Ratatouille

The Simpsons Movie

Predicted Winner: Ratatouille

Cinematical writers predict a winning awards season for this Pixar film, written and directed by Brad Bird, about a rat in the world of Parisian haute cuisine.

Now it's your turn to vote ...

The Golden Globes and the Oscars may be in trouble due to telecasts, strikes, and all of that turmoil, but the other award presentations are trucking on as planned. Variety reports that the Visual Effects Society has picked their nominees for their 6th awards ceremony. Thinking back on the year...who would you pick? The Academy, they picked a pretty solid 13-film shortlist that they have to somehow whittle down into 3 picks -- a list that includes the likes of Rataouille, Beowulf, and Spider-Man 3. This society is pretty in-line with that.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End unsurprisingly leads the pack with six nominations, and they're closely followed by Transformers and I Am Legend -- both of which follow with 5 nominations each. You just can't refuse a screen full of Johnny Depps. Continuing on, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, on the other hand, has to hold court with Spider-Man 3 with three nods each -- and according to Variety, both of them have fallen off the Academy list. Of course, as with the Oscars, animated films are also present with Ratatouille neck and neck in nominations with Surf's Up (both have 4 each).

Who will come away with the big, special prizes? I imagine the leading three will probably have a pretty successful sweep when the awards are held on February 10 in Hollywood. In the meantime, you can check out the full list of nominees for film after the jump.

Just a few more shopping days left until Christmas, and I'm just about done. We always get a couple DVDs for the kids stockings. When the sugar high from all the cookies and candy has worn off, there's nothing better than a new DVD (or two) to settle the kids down and give the grown-ups a little much-needed quiet time (or time to watch those movies Santa left in our own Christmas stockings ...). If you're looking for a few things to round out your own shopping, here are seven sure-to-please DVDs for kids of various ages:

High School Musical/High School Musical 2 -- If you have a tween girl in your house, all things High School Musical are likely at or near the top of your list. Disney knocked the ball out of the park with the resounding success of this musical for kids last year, and followed it up with High School Musical 2 (I liked the first one better, but my kids like them both). While the High School Musical films may not be that well-reviewed critically, these DVDs (trust me on this) top the Christmas lists of tweens and teens everywhere. Just be prepared to watch them over and over again, until the song "We're All in This Together" is permanently embedded in your brain and you want to claw your eyes out find yourself singing it in the shower while you practice your cool dance moves. Psst ... I hear Erik Davis knows all the lyrics and dance steps by heart, and he doesn't even have kids.