Ratatouille by our Guest Reviewer

If you were at Chez Panisse last night wondering how to get a bottle of Perrier or at the Laundry savoring your dinner of small plates I am sorry but you missed the food event of the year. Saturday night found me at the Northgate Theater (a location perhaps not previously known to foodies) in Marin for the Sneak Preview of Pixar's Ratatouille. The story of Remy, a sleek blue rat with the soul of a gourmet combined with the talent of a Bernard Loiseau, and his partnership with a scullery worker by the name of Linguine. Linguine is a young man with a need to express his soul and heart through food. But, alas, he has not the ability or talent.
From the first frames of Remy's family of scurrying rats to the flood that leads Remy to the sewers of Paris to the last credits, Remy is a rat not a Mickey Mouse. Still I liked him, he is nothing if not French. His French shrug is a wonderful answer to Linguine's question 'can you cook?' It says perhaps a little 'not much'. Then more 'well you know I am not bad, in fact even superb'. Then the last reading of this most Gallic of movements "together we will form a partnership that will set the Paris food scene alight." All that in a shoulder shrug from a rat.
This movie is loaded with emotion and movement. The color and look of the actors (characters), of course the food, the muted color and textures of Paris in the early morning, afternoon and night are beyond anything I have seen on a screen up to now. The food looks as though it has been prepared by Philippe or Traci. Rich onion soup, ripe red grapes, smelly Fougeru and Tourr'ee de l'Aubler cheeses, Sauce Ravigote that you can taste, and bread up until last night I had found only in Paris.
For any foodie who has been exposed to a food critic the scene near the end where Remy prepares his specialty for Paris food critic Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole), who is known across Paris as the "Grim Eater", is worth the price of admission. I have a hard time remembering any actor responding to food with such expression. Well maybe Nicky Henson in the Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones. For those of you who may have missed that 1976 film the scene of Tom seducing Nellie while eating a chicken leg should not to be missed.
Forget what you thought you knew about rats, the Paris sewers or French chefs. If you are seriously into food (if you read this site you must be) you will want to see this film. For those of you at the Laundry or CP last night it's not too late. The film opens around the Bay Area on June 29th.
Click here to see the trailer.

Comments

[E]

Loved it! Only wish I could erase the visions of all the rats in the kitchen at once! haha

[PRISCILLA]

WHAT A WONDERFUL MOVIE, I SAW IT SATURDAY NIGHT. BEST ANIMATED ONE I'VE SEEN YET. I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS MOVIE, I AM GOING TO SEE IT AGAIN. ALOHA FROM HAWAII!