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I suppose the most of you have already seen Ratatouille. I've just seen it in DVD and I have to say you should all watch it. It is the most impressive film I've seen in months...

Die Hard 4.0 has better explosions and the chick is hot.

Nicer fur in Ratatouille.

rattus norvegicus - now a family pet. Those bastards, I just invested my life savings in the rat poison business.

i really dig the fischingeresque sequences in ratatouille, although die hard 4.0 wasn't bad either.. :D

Ratatouille is yummy. I wanted to prepare some today. Try dried tomatoes in oil instead of those ark sweet peppers.

i guess we can all agree on the fact that we're all pixar addicts, naturally. i am. from the very beginnings. but, to be honest, after hanging through the current inflation of CG animation films (good and bad, they mostly look the same anyway) the one animated movie that really did hit me this year was Persepolis. it's classic cell animation, all black and white ... but it unfolds an unlikely power, so captivating, tragic and yet incredibly entertaining like no animated feature has done in years. yes, you should all watch Ratatouille. but if you're in for a true surprise of what animation can do, go and watch Persepolis. i mean it.

monroe - err, cell-shading? The illusion of handdrawn 2d is overwhelming...

A friend of mine tried to cook a ratatouille following the recipe of the movie. He told me that the result was very, very good.

Personally I still haven't seen the movie but I'm planning to do this on the short term.

hornet: i meant cel animation, sorry. i was refering to the traditional compositing procedure of handdrawn frame-by-frame animation (each character or animated element is put on separate transparent cels). so no cell-shading for anyone :) . although Persepolis has its share of heavy motion-graphic-esque fx sequences.

Pixar are ok, but give me Sylvain Chomet any day. Proper animation :)

You should all watch tekkonkinkreet. Didn't like Ratatouille much to be honest...

The CG has some good points. Unfortunately, it's very much the modern Disney type of movie. There's a contrived conflict for the story to be built around. In the end, everyone's been a self-centered asshole. If everyone working on the movie has done their job right, then we've hopefully been manipulated into being happy that the home team is victorious. But it's really hit and miss.

Well, I'm not the biggest Disney fan and I thought this was an awesome movie. I actually went to see it a second time in a dubbed version just to look at it. The script is as big cheese says but man, if you think about it almost all the movies are like that, especially kids' movies.

Tekkon Kinkreet and Paprika are AWESOME. Vieually groundbreaking and breathtaking. I put them in a different category though. Those are the best-looking films I have seen from Japan. Ratattouile was the best looking CG movie I've seen from the USA.

I thought "Ratatouille" was quite entertaining (and nicely rendered), but I liked "The Incredibles" more as a whole. Also, I bought the "Pixar Short Films Collection" (Play.com - Region 1) last week, and that release is _awesome_! Even includes a nice documentary on the roots of Pixar -- quite demoscenish attitudes, I must say.

I recommend: Fiat Lux

Oh absolutely! You guys have proper taste at animation. Especially Monroe and psonice and Trace. But I wanna go watch Ratatouille anyway.

In ten years or so, when you can edit/render feature films like this in 4k resolution in realtime on a 500$ notebook, things start to get interesting. :)

Oh, and the arty/weirdo crowd (you know who you are) might want to check out we are the strange.


Some of those are rather mediocre, but shorts like Juxo Jr, Geri's Game and Jack-Jack Attack are awesome works of the pre-motion-capture-everything era. (afaik Pixar still doesn't use any motion capturing)

Right next to Paprika and Tekkon Kinkreet, don't forget about Mind Game, utterly mindblowing!!!!!!

tomaes: motion capturing (in animated features) is for sissies! any serious animator shakes his/her head in disbelief about how, again, the lack of artistic talent is covered up with technical tricks. the sheer idea of "wanting a (cartoon) character to move more realistically" is a sad incomprehension of a whole genre.

Yes and no. A "puppeteer" approach is probably working better for cartoonish movies like ratatouille. Motion capturing for non-cartoonish (e.g. biowulf, the upcoming avatar etc.) movies is kind of mandatory though.

Tomaes: Also "One Man Band" and "Lifted" are premium examples of storytelling and comedic timing (as well as rendering-skills :)

Monroe: Actually, I believe some Pixar folks were in the press (or muttered behind the scenes :) regarding the possible Oscar nomination for "Beowolf", since it is hugely based on performance capturing (both body motion and facial capturing) and that this does not qualify as animation. While "Beowolf" is indeed well-rendered, I will have to agree with them.

gloom: In the coming years we will see a truckload of performance/motion-captured 3d-stereo-ed movies. Beowulf (stop spelling it wreng ;)), Tintin (Spielberg+Jackson), Avatar (the new James Cameron flick), and some more. It will be interesting to see the ramifications regarding certain academy award categories (constume design/sets/make-up/cinematography) in the long run. And interesting: Will these kind of movies (once they've bridged the uncanny valley for good) kill "conventional" moviemaking or not at all. :)

Tomaes: Yeah, it will be interesting to see how the Academy Award categories adapt and evolve with the rise of technology. I don't think that "conventional" filmmaking will die -- it's a hell of a lot cheaper to hire a couple of actors for five weeks rather than a post-production team of 200 specialists for two years. :)