Ratatouille ~ A Fine Show of Excellnce

Remy: "What is that?"

Emile: "I don't really know."

Remy: "You don't know... and you're eating it?"

Emile: "You know, once you muscle your way past the gag reflex, all kinds of possibilities open up."

Remy. "This is what I'm talking about..."


Earlier this morning I opened up the newspaper and examined the Oscar nominees for the year. To my surprise and great delight, Pixar's most recent release Ratatouille was nominated for five (yes, FIVE!) Oscars, including "Best Animated Feature Film of the Year". I love Ratatouille, just as I love all of Pixar's films, and I must say that seeing this happen is quite a thrill, and definite proof of the superiority of Pixar's films to other films in the computer animation genre. The only other similar film to be nominated for an Oscar was Sony Picture's Surf's Up, and that motion picture was only nominated for one award: "Best Animated Feature". Quite frankly, I'm not even sure how it could possibly beat out Ratatouille. Maybe the Academy wouldn't allow the latter to be a shoe-in and needed another animated film to give it a little competition.

At any rate, all this award excitement has made me think about Pixar's work as I often have in the past. Out of all the motion picture companies that produce computer-animated films, Pixar is the only one that consistently releases films that are high quality and put an emphasis on story. Every other film attempts to get by on some combination of crude humor, overly quirky characters, or superstar voice talent. Apparently the team behind these films think that those things are the only film elements that will catch the movie-goer's eye. They seem to be afraid to put any sort of heart or quality theme into their work. Yet every single one of these films fail to thoroughly please, and at best only come across as "decent".

Not only does Pixar soar in the astounding quality of their films, but they also have yet to present anything less than a major hit.

Okay, so maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just biased because I really like Pixar. So recently I did a little research, just for personal gratification. I looked up all of Pixar's films on Yahoo's movie site as well as rottentomatoes.com and noted the critics' average ratings for each one. With the exception of Cars (for some reason) each film ranked in the "A" range on Yahoo and the "90-100%" range on Rotten Tomatoes. Afterwards, I carried out the same procedure for other popular CG films, such as Shrek and Ice Age. None could compare, remaining in the "B" and "80-90%" ranges at the highest. Even Shrek, one of the most popular and successful animated films of recent history, could only garner an 89% from Rotten Tomatoes. Pixar and their storytelling are objectively superior. Facts don't lie.

Mind you, though, I only compared the ratings of critics, a fairly limited field, and failed to note the ratings of the general public. Even so, the critics are usually the most sensitive (and, in my opinion, overly so) to the quality of films these days, likely because their occupation demands that they view so many. They often label motion pictures of all kinds as "average" or "poor", and occasionally "decent". It is a rare event in deed in which the critics unanimously declare "Excellent!" as they have so often done with each and every one of Pixar's feature films.

And when the critics do pronounce a film as "Excellent!" the opinion of the general public usually does not depart too far from it...

Good luck, Pixar! Ratatouille is a most excellent film, and I sincerely hope and believe it will win all five of its nominated Oscars.

Au revoir
T.H. Excellence