Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Ratatouille (2007) - Brad Bird | Houselights #140

Transcript

Ratatouille (2007) - Brad Bird | Houselights #140 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the Nerd Polty, Welcome to Houselights, the show here on the
0:23
Nerd party that celebrates the work of directors by different categories, but this is
0:27
one of our favorite ways to do it. As you join us here in
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the House of Bird, which we're also calling the Bird House when we're feeling
0:36
cheeky about it, where we're looking at the works of Brad Bird and we
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get to look at his entire career, and this week is bringing us to
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the next animated installment in his career. Rata Tui. I am John Mills
0:52
and I am pleased as punch to be joined by the overly harsh food critic
0:58
Darren Moser and the charming chef that owns the restaurant, Tristan Riddell. Both
1:07
of you, welcome back to Houselights. I missed last week talking about The
1:11
Incredibles. I can't wait to jump into this one. And so let's get
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this party started with our first question, Darren, were you a foodie before
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this movie or were you a foodie after this movie? Oh? You know,
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I think I was a foodie before, at least animated foodie, because
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I had already seen many a studio gibli film and boy like you want to
1:38
talk about, you know, animated food and eating and deliciousness. So ratatui
1:44
just in the similar vein it stuff looks gorgeous, like I don't know,
1:49
I don't know French food. I don't They could have told me the names
1:53
for those dishes was anything, and I would have believed it. But it
1:57
looked good enough to eat, and I'm sure that was something that they had
2:00
to nail because you didn't want it to look waxy or fake or and again
2:07
we're still living in this caricature universe, so we're staying way out of the
2:12
Uncanny Valley, but the food has to be in the valley or or you
2:15
know, you know what I mean, if they has to look real.
2:19
I don't know, if you know, you're absolutely right. It's a it's
2:21
a very interesting sort of line that they're walking here. This is still Pixar
2:27
in the making sure that the animated people look like animated people, but the
2:31
environs are getting more realistic to get you to buy in and take that leap
2:36
with them into the fantastical story. And as part of that fantastical story,
2:39
Tristan, I have to ask same question to you did you care a wit
2:45
about fine cuisine before Ratatui? Were you eagerly anticipating a film about food?
2:52
I know, No, I'm not a big I love food, but I
2:57
wish I didn't love food, Like if someone told me. Actually, just
3:00
a couple of days ago, I said to my producer at work, I
3:06
was just like, you know what, if I could just turn off the
3:07
need for food, that would be fantastic, Like if we could just if
3:12
we could eat voluntarily, I'd be all for that. Like, I love
3:15
fine dining, but at the same time, I hate, ever since I
3:20
had kids, I hate trying to figure out what I need to do for
3:24
dinner or lunch. My fine dining experience begins and ends with Morton's Morton Steakhouse.
3:31
So yeah, I'm not a foodie at all. I'm not a foodie
3:35
at all, And but I do appreciate what this movie did with the food,
3:42
like because you can tell that they went with the research, that they
3:45
tried, that they paid attention. I think I read that they actually studied
3:50
under a great chef in order to get the animation just right. And you
3:55
can really tell because like in even like with some of the chefs, like
4:00
they have burn marks on their like the pink burn marks on their on their
4:04
forearms and everything like that. I really love that attention to detail and with
4:10
Pixar, I mean, detail goes is synonymous with Pixar, and so yeah,
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I really I think overall, the my favorite thing about Food and Ratsatui
4:26
is when remy first was eating cheese and strawberries and designs. That's when I
4:34
saw that I was visualized taste. Yeah, yeah, this is this movie
4:38
is going to be good. And I thought that was great because I consider
4:42
that moment a true callback to the really classic days of Disney when they would
4:46
do those abstract moments where people could imagine things and you were trying to get
4:53
a vision inside their head. Donald and Magic Land, like you're you're on
4:57
a trip, right, something like that. Very good, very good,
5:00
and forgot about that. I need to find that so good, so good.
5:05
It's like I'm gonna learn about math and it's gonna be the most fun
5:10
you've ever had. I love that movie. I can't wait for the future
5:15
reboot that includes differential calculus. But I think that, um what live action,
5:20
live action animated? Yeah, that's what they do when they live action.
5:27
But for some reason, Donald Duck is still CGI. But they're gonna
5:30
call it live action. Yet what we say live action, we mean photoreal.
5:34
He'll be a photo real Duck because that's what they do. Let's just
5:38
call it even and just say that Andy Serkis will play every role, and
5:42
we're done. Andy Serkis in MOCAP. But no, no, we shouldn't.
5:48
No, not really, it's a bad idea. Uh. Listen,
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though, Ratitui comes out at a time when Pixar is really firing on all
5:58
cylinders and it has captured. They've just had hit after hit. They go
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Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story, Two Monsters, Inc.
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Finding Nemo, the Incredibles Cars, and then Ratitui is coming out in June
6:09
of two thousand and seven, Darren, was it were you fully in the
6:15
zeitgeist of Pixar at this moment or were you was Pixar still something that was
6:19
just sort of like there and you would get to it when you got to
6:23
it, or was it was there a sort of excitement about seeing a film
6:27
coming out from Pixar. So I know exactly where I was in June of
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oh seven. So this was the last summer before I got married, and
6:33
so I was working for six months at a summer camp and my wife was
6:39
working for six months in Scotland, and so if I wanted to see a
6:43
movie, we had to go to the local theater, which was at the
6:47
Rio, and it it was out there, so you took it took like
6:53
thirty forty five minutes to get to the theater, so you had to really
6:56
want to see a movie. But yeah, no, I I you know
7:01
again, like you said, at this point in time and even still today,
7:06
to a degree, Pixar was like a guaranteed. You knew you were
7:10
going to get your money's worth. It maybe wasn't going to be your favorite
7:13
movie, but it was going to be something new, it was going to
7:16
be something fresh. I mean, at this point, Toy Story two is
7:21
the only sequel they had done, so everything was new. And it's interesting
7:27
when I was kind of paying attention when you were listing off the sequence,
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because again, brad Byrd just did The Incredibles, which was released only two
7:36
films ago, so he this is actually a pretty fast turnaround for a director
7:42
of an animated movie. Now, granted I don't think they were doing them
7:45
once a year at this point they were kind of getting close to that.
7:48
But yeah, Cars, Cars was one year before. This is right when
7:54
the pace started to poke up. Okay, so this is when the yeah,
7:59
but you know, to your point, I think that Ratatui also comes
8:05
on the heels of this is I would say, from my perspective, this
8:07
is the point where Pisar is proving that they have sort of a mightas touch
8:11
with their their concepts, because flash in the pan, they're not a oh
8:16
well, they just happened to get it right. It's like, oh no,
8:18
that's worth going to see. Monsters Inc. Is sort of a pleasant
8:22
toy story. Two is the first really like pleasant surprise where you're like,
8:24
oh, it's a sequel to an animated movie and it works really well.
8:28
And they you have Monsters Inc. And you're like, oh, okay,
8:30
yeah, and then finding Nemo sort of takes you off guard. The Incredibles.
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You're like, wow, this is a really deep film and you're like
8:35
Cars is gonna suck, and you watch it and you're like, oh,
8:39
this is actually good too. What's going on? So like, you know,
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Tricy, were you there a cooking rat Okay? I mean I don't
8:45
even know, but you got pucks, you got me? Yeah. No,
8:48
I kind of missed Ratatui like I didn't. I didn't really dig on
8:52
it until it came out to home video. I think I didn't see this
8:54
in theater like I saw the concept. I was just kind of like,
8:58
I don't know, like it felt kind of off, like I didn't.
9:03
I think after The Incredibles I kind of fell off of of Pixar until until
9:11
Wally, like I missed Cars because I was just like, ah, this
9:13
is just a state farm commercial and read it Toay. I was just like,
9:16
ah, I'm not really interested in that. And then Wally came out
9:18
and I was just like, yes, sci fi Pixar, let's do this.
9:22
Um. But I, you know, going back to it, I
9:28
was like, no, this is really good. I really like this.
9:28
And I'm a big Pat and Olswalt fan. I did not. I did
9:33
not see this in two thousand and seven. It This was one that I
9:37
absolutely missed until home video, and I always really liked to rewatch this one,
9:43
but the people in my family never really dug on it. It was
9:48
funny. I actually watched it this morning in preparation for this podcast, and
9:52
I said, hey, girls like let's let's watch this together. Let's do
9:54
a family movie time. And because I have two girls and my wife,
9:58
and we all watched it together in bed, and I remember saying like,
10:03
hey, you know, like to my oldest who's six years old, I
10:07
was like, let's watch Ratta Tui. She's like, ah, do we
10:11
have to watch Ratta twi? And then I have an eighteen month old who
10:16
likes who's in her frozen phase right now, and she kept screaming Anna Anna
10:22
when I turned on when I put on Disney Plus, and then I was
10:24
like, no, no, we're gonna watch Rattutu. And as we were
10:30
watching it, they were not into it. They were not into it whatsoever.
10:35
And it would feel really interesting to me because I wanted to talk about
10:37
it tonight because I liked this movie, but I feel like the people in
10:41
my sphere don't. And my six year old when I showed it, I
10:46
showed it to her when she was four, she did not like it at
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all. I showed it to her today and she liked it way more.
10:52
My eighteen month old could not. Did I say, eighteen month nineteen?
10:56
I don't know how a children she is. She's a second child but no
11:00
matter, it's their names, right, Tristan. She didn't really dig on
11:03
it. You couldn't pay attention to it. And and my my ildest was
11:09
just kind of like, yeah, no, it's good, you know,
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but she wasn't on fire about it. My wife doesn't like it at all
11:13
solely. Yeah, have you guys, what is your guys family? I
11:18
mean, my kids love Wally, Like they would watch Wally on like we
11:22
had to get another DVD because they burned, like they used up the first
11:28
one. They they loved Wally so much. But yeah, kind of the
11:31
same thing with Right too, Not that they didn't like it, but it
11:33
was definitely a few and far between, which is really surprising to me because
11:39
it it's like there's not a lot for like kid kids to really you know,
11:46
hook on. It's very like adult kind of issues. There's a lot
11:50
of talk going on, there's a lot of conversation, there's a lot of
11:54
DNA test result like this is my mom she died, you know, like,
12:00
am I the sun? Can I inherit? The diagram of lines of
12:03
the plot of this movie. But but the thing is is that surprising from
12:07
the director of the Incredibles, this is I agree with you. This is
12:11
a more adult sort of film, and I think that's back to house.
12:16
It's bringing it back to the Director Center podcast. Yeah, but it's like
12:20
finding you know, your purpose, finding your place in your found community and
12:26
your home community. Like I mean, heck, the end speech by Ego
12:31
about criticism and you know, being worth the paper it's written. I'm like,
12:37
that's an amazing speech, just that that really was. That's one of
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my favorite that could be my favorite part of the movie is is the Ego
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speech at the end. It's unquestionably my favorite part of the movie. Because
12:50
let's just let's just go ahead and we'll come back to some other things here.
12:54
Especially, I really want to focus on the competition this this film was
12:58
up against when it came out. But that's monologue by Ego at the end.
13:07
I will like in it, and Tristan will probably roll his eyes because
13:09
we talked about Wes Anderson recently. I will, in fact like in it
13:15
to the way that Grand Budapest Hotel catches me off guard every time that I
13:20
watch it, where I'm watching something and I'm like, this is cute,
13:22
this is quirky. I'm enjoying. What's happening. I like these characters.
13:26
This is what's going on, and that is a gut punch at the end
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the discussion that he has, not discussion, but the monologue that he has
13:35
about being a critic and what it comes from to be a critic. It's
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such a meta commentary on people in general. But the real moment that absolutely
13:45
hits me every time, and I think this is a testament to Bird as
13:48
a director, is the moment when he takes the first bite of the ratatui
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and he suddenly flashes back to childhood. Best part of the movie, and
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it was comfort food for him. I will, I will, I will
14:01
start crying in that moment every single time because talking it's just pure emotion,
14:09
and it's predicting how good picks are as a as a whole is going to
14:13
get because very soon we're going to get up. Is the same level as
14:20
like the beginning of Upright. My kid actually asked me about that moment,
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and I talked to her about how it was just like, well, you
14:28
know, food and smells and things like that can really bring us back to
14:31
our childhood and you are you that, I said. I was just like,
14:35
you're in your childhood right now. But I told her about how one
14:39
time, like when my my grandmother died, my father's mother died, I
14:45
was at her funeral, and it was we were at the church, and
14:48
she was a big part of the church community, and we had a pot
14:52
luck and someone made scollop corn, which was her signature dish, and they
14:58
made it exactly how she made it. And I sat down after her funeral
15:01
and I'm good emotional right now, and I had it and I just had
15:05
one bite and I smelled it and I I had to leave the room because
15:11
I got so emotional. And that's what I think about every single time I
15:16
watched this movie. And when we get to that part, I think about
15:20
my grandmother and her scullop corn. I am legitimately no, but I love
15:24
sharing these these sorts of moments because this is what makes a film great,
15:28
is that it takes you to places like that. Because I'll share it's not
15:31
nearly as emotional. But there was a very brief period of time where my
15:35
mom tried to work part time so that she could be more present for me
15:39
and my brother, right And what we used to do is we used to
15:43
go to the Bob's Big Boy in the little outpost town in which I lived,
15:48
and I would always get and it was I think it was Thursday mornings.
15:52
She would take me into school. I'd be going a little bit late,
15:54
and she would always get hot chocolate with whipped cream for me. So
15:58
to this day, every time I have hot chocolate, I am suddenly sitting
16:02
back in that booth at Bob's Big Boy with my mom sitting across from you.
16:06
Like I can picture what she's wearing, I can picture her coffee.
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I can picture everything about that moment in time, just like what you're talking
16:14
about with a scalloped corn and Darren, I'm sure you have there's got it.
16:18
You know, there's something out there for you too, where when you
16:21
have it you're like, oh, I'll have that dish or or even a
16:23
smell. I mean, smell is really attached to memory, like in a
16:27
way that even almost more than visual, I would say, it's very physical,
16:33
it's very real that that connection of that sense to the brain, it's
16:38
to memory. It's it's it's there well and it's you know, it becomes
16:44
one of those things as well. I think because you're you're looking at computer
16:47
animation and of course, everybody's all talking about AI and predictive stuff, and
16:49
it's like that's the thing that is that true valley that's never going to be
16:55
able to be communicated to any sort of like Silicon Chip. Is how your
17:00
memories and your recollection and all and even your freeform association, like this conversation
17:04
that we're having right now could be triggered by a single taste or smell or
17:07
flavor or someone who said that someone said that recently where they're not scared of
17:11
AI taking over because AI has never been drunk at a party. AI has
17:15
never been you know, out on a road trip, you know. But
17:21
that's why we should be afraid of AI, because then you wind up with
17:23
AM the machine that inspired Skynet that was in I have no mouth and I
17:29
must scream because those machines will hate us. But something that I think pisarre
17:32
hated at the time that this came out, and Brad Bird was probably not
17:36
too happy about, was This movie is released on June twenty ninth in two
17:41
thousand and seven, and it is going right up against the fearsome powerhouse that
17:48
is Michael Bays Transformers, which was being released onto third Oh Now Bays.
17:56
Transformers has a budget listed between one hundred and fifty and two hundred million dollars.
18:00
Ratitui's budget was one hundred and fifty million dollars. That's a lot of
18:04
money. I'm not even going to get into the idea that I think it
18:08
shows up on screen better with Ratitui than it does with Transformers, a movie
18:11
that I tried to walk out of halfway through. But Transformers wound up making
18:17
box office seven hundred nine point seven million dollars according to Wikipedia. Ratitui came
18:22
in with six hundred twenty three point seven. That's not bad, Darren.
18:26
I can't help, but wonder do you think Ratitui does just a little bit
18:30
more if it doesn't have that big rolling Optimus Prime mactruck hitting it a week
18:36
after its release. I want to say yes and no. I want to
18:41
say, obviously, on the surface of it, yeah, if you don't
18:45
have a powerhouse movie up against your movie, you're going to make more money.
18:51
But I think sometimes people often forget some people are only gonna go see
18:57
a Transformers movie and they really don't care about an animated Pixar movie, and
19:02
so you're not cannibalizing each other's sales as much as you would think. I
19:06
mean, we're about to approach you know, Barbie Oppenheimer, you know,
19:11
overlap, and everyone's talking about this like square off, and I'm like,
19:17
I could guarantee there's a there's a lot of that ven diagram that does not
19:19
overlap. But people are going to watch both movies in the same weekend.
19:25
And I can tell you that. My wife and my two oldest they're like,
19:27
oh, we're gonna go see the Barbie movie. And I look at
19:30
them and I say, have a great time because you're watching the youngest.
19:33
Well, I'm going to Oppenheimer. Then you all can work out when you
19:36
go to see barbecause no, thank you. In two thousand and seven,
19:38
I hate to admit this because you know, Michael Bay is always the punchline.
19:45
But you know, in two thousand and seven, if I had the
19:48
choice, and I did have the choice between Recititui and Transformers, I'm gonna
19:52
go see Transformers on the big screen. I'm gonna wait for Retituie on home
19:56
video. And even though the Transformers franchise is garbage, even though I made
20:03
a lot of money, I enjoyed the first one. It's a transform movie
20:07
franchise. It's a pop, have to be highbrow film. Here, I
20:12
want to say just the the one of my favorite experiences with the Transfer movie.
20:18
I felt that defend Transformers a tiny bit here, but um I watched
20:22
it with my best friend Stephen, and we were watching it at home with
20:27
riff tracks, and I almost died. I was on the floor gasping for
20:36
air. I was laughing so much. I don't I remember the joke.
20:40
It was like right after the helicopter transformed for the first time and the riff
20:44
track guys added like, hey, I did it for my first time without
20:47
looking at my own instructions, and I just I don't know why. It
20:51
just hit me, but I was wheeze it on the ground for like five
20:55
minutes. So I thank you Michael Bay for contributing to that to my life.
21:00
But I think this is we're worthwhile point out Transformers when it comes out
21:03
is a much bigger pull, especially for Gen xers like myself. Because they
21:08
announced big live action Transformers movie. I was still a few months into being
21:17
a father. For the first time, I got a shot to go to
21:19
the movie theater right around this moment for the first time since the kid had
21:25
a worn you're gonna make a choice, and I skipped Rattatui and I went
21:29
straight for Transformers, not kidding that. I walked out of it halfway through
21:33
and debated going home or not, and I said, yay, even if
21:34
I fall asleep, who cares. But when I finally did see Ratatui on
21:40
home video, my reaction was, oh, darn, I picked the wrong
21:44
movie. Didn't. Yeah, you know, he's like, I should have
21:47
seen this instead. But but it's a fair point that it doesn't. You
21:51
know, they didn't really cannibalize each other's audiences. That's a fair point.
21:55
I want I want to take over Shift Gears just a little bit. I
21:59
want to talk about this voicecast. Oh yes, please, because holy crap,
22:04
there's there's so many as you're watching this, because everybody has a French
22:10
accent except for Um Linguini, and his name is freaking Linguini. He doesn't
22:15
have a he doesn't have a French accent like we have. Pat Oswalt,
22:19
Ianholme, Brian Dennehy, Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Geane Garoffilo Will Arnette,
22:26
James Renard, John Ratzenberger, Bradburd himself. It's insane. There's so
22:32
many people that I did not recognize because they had a French accent. I
22:38
recognized it was Ian Home until like now, like, I don't even know
22:42
why it's true that at Home. I love Ianholme. I've seen Ianholme.
22:48
I've watched Ianhome movies and TV for decades, and I didn't recognize it's Ianholme.
22:53
And even even even when I know it's Ianholme, I forget and then
22:57
I watch it and then I look it up and I'm like, yeah,
23:00
that's Ian Home. Janine Garoffalo, I still don't hear as not all here
23:06
at all. And I think that speaks to and you know, Darren,
23:08
I don't know if you agree with us or not, but I would say
23:11
that speaks to the skill of a director sitting there with the voicecast and saying,
23:15
now, this is what I'm looking for, this is what I need
23:18
from you for this and getting those those good performances, because I you know,
23:22
And we'll just go ahead and table the fact that Tristan accidentally created a
23:27
new podcast that somebody who can pick up now with Ian Home Movies. So
23:32
yeah, there you go, everybody else our gift to you, it can
23:33
be a spell show. I think. Yeah, obviously the voicecast is amazing.
23:37
I think there's in the characters themselves. You know. I was reading
23:44
about, you know, the behind the scenes of this, and it looks
23:45
like, you know, John Pinkava had to look that up, who had
23:52
the original idea and concept for this film and eventually stepped away. He's never
23:57
really directed anything and he and hasn't even sense but he did like Jerry's Game
24:03
and things like that, so it looks like they were kind of like maybe
24:06
going to slot him in for directing, but he just wasn't ready for that.
24:11
But how I'm sorry, but like, how terrible is that? Because
24:17
you know, it's just I feel so bad for him because he was let
24:21
go because there wasn't enough leadership for this animated movie. Like he's an animator
24:26
and he works his way up, he finally gets to direct his own movie,
24:30
and then he's then like Lasseter himself says that there's not enough leadership for
24:36
this film and then bring in Brad Bird. That's you can't you can't shower
24:41
that kind of stink off. Yeah, yeah, but you're right, You're
24:45
absolutely right. And the butt that I give to that is that the one
24:48
of my favorite films of all time. Poster hanging behind me on the wall
24:52
here Tombstone. The original director of that was basically like go for the same
24:56
reason because Kurt Russell was the producer and the production was like a mess one
25:00
week in and he said, I, we can't do this. The guy
25:06
had shepherded, written, did all the research like he this was his baby,
25:11
this was a big man. He couldn't pull it off. By the
25:15
producer's eyes, and the producers like goodbye and brings in Cosmetos because Cosmetos was
25:21
an order taker. The producer just told him what shot to get sort of
25:23
thing. Yeah, I mean I and I get what you're saying. Triested
25:26
like that. It's a it's a raw deal. But at the other end,
25:32
if you're not the guy to pull it off, you know, then
25:37
it's Pixar Like there, it's one hundred fifty million dollar budget that they can't
25:40
just like here's Pixar's first flop, Like they're not going to take that chance.
25:44
But what I was going to say, though, is that it does
25:47
look like that his core design of the characters, their shapes and there that
25:53
carried over heavily from his area of expertise at the beginning. So I would
26:00
say that that's as great as contribution is. You have the visual look and
26:04
then paired with these amazing voices and these voice actings, because that's a it's
26:11
a big group in the kitchen. There's a big cast going on, but
26:15
every single person is so distinct and so flavorful that but yeah, no,
26:23
but the voice cast. Yeah, it's always fun when a person transcends who
26:30
they are as an actor and you just hear a character, because it doesn't
26:33
happen all the time. It's true. And you know, with the lead
26:38
Remy with Patton Oswalt. One thing I love about Patton Oswalt being Remy is
26:44
that the reason why he got this role is because Brad Bird saw one of
26:48
his stand up specials where he was talking about how when he was a kid,
26:53
you know, he idolized musicians and actors and everything like that, but
26:56
once he got a little bit older, he started idolizing chefs, and he
27:00
had a bit about how he loved crazy chefs who you know, it's just
27:07
like it's like, you know, like this dish, you know, like
27:11
it was like had flowers brought in from from you know, from Sweden,
27:15
you know, like flown in by helicopter every single Thursday. You know,
27:19
like it has nothing to do with it with with the food itself, but
27:22
like that's how crazy the chefs are. Once Bradbird heard that bit, he
27:27
was like, yes, that that's that's remy. But see tell that hyper
27:33
fixation with cooking exactly. See that. What's really um intriguing about that too
27:41
is that obviously everything is modeled on the fact that we have this fixation on
27:45
Gusteau, who is you know, the legendary chef and everything. And I
27:48
think you know with what Ursa was just talking about with Patton Oswald saying Darren,
27:53
like, do you think this offers a valuable commentary about how there are
27:57
these superstar chefs? I mean, I think I'm immediately thinking of Salt Bay
28:00
and of course everybody knows Julia Child and stuff like that, Ward and Ramsey.
28:06
You know. Oh well, I mean in my house, grow not
28:10
growing up. After I've married. My wife is huge into Food Network,
28:14
so we it's like all those shows. We watched Dinner Possible all the time.
28:18
You know, it's like, oh, what it's gonna happen. Oh,
28:21
like, how do these people get restaurants? He's gonna just walk in
28:22
and say like, ah, take half this off your menu and do this.
28:26
And it's like, but yeah, it's it's interesting how I mean,
28:33
obviously it doesn't happen at the same time, but it feels like the super
28:38
focus on chefs is very similar to kind of what happened to directors, because
28:45
I mean, it used to be you didn't know who directors were. You
28:48
know, they it was the studio and the studio head directors, but that
28:51
the director name didn't mean anything except we're very very rare, like megatier people.
28:57
And then really with Berg and that kind of crop of them, people
29:03
started to go like, oh, I'm going to go to this movie because
29:06
it's a Spielberg film, not because it's a universal picture or whatever. And
29:10
it shifted from the producing production company to the director. And yeah, so
29:17
it's like, is it it felt is it a similar thing with chefs,
29:21
where it's like, it's not the restaurant, it's the name of the chef
29:23
behind it. You know that's creating this amazing thing, which is still the
29:29
same pieces of food that we it's just they put it together in a magical
29:33
way, but I don't know it has that same kind of vibe to me.
29:37
Yeah, you know. And it's interesting because with Ratatui, I think
29:41
that it does a really great job of communicating that sense of celebrity chef and
29:45
it's something I've never personally been able to really plug into it. And I've
29:51
been told flat out intended as an insult, oh well, you're just not
29:55
a foodie, And I'll completely cop to that because for me, does it
30:02
taste good? Like is it biting back? No, there's my baseline for
30:04
like whether I think it's you know, you know, you know, I
30:08
have sliding scales too, like McDonald's is down at the bottom of the scale.
30:11
I eat that if I have absolutely no choice, or Grimace shakes her
30:15
out because hey hey, hey, hey, hey hey hey. But I
30:22
think that this film does a good job of communicating the idea of the celebrity
30:26
chef without wallowing in it, and at the same time showing that it's not
30:32
really a glamorous industry by showing the tyrannical chef that is bossing everybody around and
30:37
being a terrible person and really communicating how it's not I mean trysa let me
30:45
put this this way. Would you agree with the idea that this is in
30:51
some way a subtle commentary on workplaces and possibly even filmmaking in the sense that
30:59
the person who is the head of the kitchen determines whether you have a happy
31:03
work environment and you want to stay there. And so this is really the
31:07
story of an awful boss who gets I mean, we've seen this story before.
31:12
It's an awful boss story. The new kid comes in, he finds
31:17
out the work environment sucks, and his real threat to the boss is people
31:22
like working with the new guy and they hate the boss, and so that
31:26
in a sense, one of the plotlines is the boss trying to undo the
31:30
new talent just to show who reigns supreme. I didn't get that at all.
31:37
Okay, I don't know if that's because I've had good work experiences,
31:41
but I didn't really get that because like in the end, you know,
31:47
when he says he says like, oh, you know, when Lanquini says
31:48
like, oh you know, I've had a rat you know, conduct me
31:52
this entire time, they'll leave him instead of golett. So I don't feel
31:59
like that really as the metaphor there um not to shift gears. I don't
32:06
like Linguini. Does anybody else feel that way? Like I feel like if
32:09
Linguini was maybe a different voice, actor or a different characterization. It's it's
32:15
kind of like the what I call the Dawson's Creek syndrome, where James Vanderbeek's
32:20
character of Dawson's of Dawson, he played a creek. It was a real
32:24
stretch, you know, of Dawson's Creek. Dawson is the worst character of
32:30
the ensemble. And with how many mother like Ted he's the protagonist, but
32:35
he's the worst character of the ensemble. Linguini is the worst character of the
32:40
ensemble. Am I alone in this what's going on? Yeah? I mean
32:45
in a way he isn't well. I mean, Remy is the protagonist,
32:52
so so for Linguini, a lot of the story is just happening to him,
32:59
which is always making not as interesting a character. I mean, this
33:04
movie is also like if you don't if you aren't sold on the premise,
33:10
it's not happening like this premise is nuts. It's it's absolutely it's said for
33:16
a photo realish like in the real world. And stirred that line to like
33:23
they go back and forth because they like, you know, it's absurd that
33:28
a rat can understand English and can read English and can you know, puppet
33:31
a person. But then at the same time, at the end, the
33:36
whole chicken, whole chicken, the whole kitchen crew is just like, this
33:42
is absurd. I'm not going to be a part of a kitchen that where
33:45
a rat is running it. And then they walk out like that's a very
33:49
very real thing of a very unreal premise. Yes, I agree, they
33:54
walk a line. I obviously him showing it's the rat, it has been
34:00
controlling him the whole time, is specifically to give him the final hurdle to
34:05
overcome and have that final conflict in everything, and it's I consider it very
34:09
much in the Disney tradition to have these anthropomorphic animals that's true, can communicate
34:15
with humans or communicates, you know, Jacques and Cinderella like helping something like
34:21
that, helping her sell the dress and cook the breakfast. So I don't
34:25
know, but I think if anything, it speaks to because you said it,
34:30
Darren, like you know, Remy's the protagonist. I think where Linguini
34:35
gets where it gets a little muddled with him. Is it creates protagonist confusion,
34:40
I guess, because Remy gets his own storyline and then Linguini gets his
34:45
own storyline, and it's about getting the girl, and it's about being successful,
34:49
and it's about so in a sense, it's it's trying to tell two
34:52
main stories at the same time and to be like Tenant where they just name
34:57
him protagonists then we know, right but exactly, then we know your real
35:00
confusion. But but but that's the thing, is like we're we're juggling between
35:06
these two and there's this this definite hurdle where the real protagonist can't communicate with
35:13
anybody, but other rats end this one guy, so that the two worlds,
35:19
if you will, never really mesh. There's this, you know,
35:22
the big awkward, funny kitchen scene at the end, but that is really
35:25
I think the moment where you know, the general Lease sort of like jumps
35:30
over the gorge and you're like, oh, okay, well we're in the
35:32
absurd part of the the truly absurd part of the quality is doing the cooking.
35:38
Okay, this is the top of one when when I'm when I'm just
35:43
kind of sitting here and going just three grown men talking about rat to ty,
35:50
yes, but as part of that ending, I think it's also very
35:52
clever when when Remy wants everybody to wash their hands and he gets the idea
35:57
and he's like, ah, but them in the dishwasher and they and everything.
36:01
Such a great visual gag because as I was watching this for some reason,
36:07
when they were all like because the rats, when they're when I see
36:10
rimy, I'm just like, oh, it's cute. But then when they're
36:14
they show the whole family together and the whole pack together, You're just like,
36:21
like they're touching the food. They touched the cucumber. Oh my god,
36:24
Like I just I started getting more of an ick factor this. I'm
36:28
just I'm just gonna go ahead and say, don't ever ever look in the
36:31
kitchen of a place you love to eat, because you're rolling the dice at
36:36
that point. There's a place near me where I work where and this is
36:39
going to sound weird, but because the business did not fold when everything shut
36:45
down, has made me reticent to go back because that place was awful and
36:52
I was making a devil's handshake to go eat there beforehand, and I'm like,
36:55
I can't even go. I can't even walk in the place anymore,
36:59
because I'm just like, I know in the back of my brain that if
37:04
I were to go in that kitchen, I'm going to go sign up for
37:07
every single communicable disease test that I can get. But they made a really
37:12
they make really good lunches there, so it's it's a really difficult thing.
37:15
I'm just I'm just saying, like, you know, what did you guys
37:17
think of that? Like, do you think that they did a good job
37:22
of skirting that line of disgusting and cute? You know with rats? Uh,
37:28
you're preparing the food and not being grossed out, because I feel like
37:31
they try to do I think I read somewhere that they try to do some
37:35
food tie ins with rats and Tui, but no food distributor wanted to be
37:39
associated with rats. Yeah, I would to be associated with Imagine, how
37:44
did you like, Darren, How did you feel while watching this? Did
37:45
you ever get picked out? Or was it enough of a disconnect? It's
37:50
all animated, so I didn't really ever feel like it's literally, you know,
37:55
rats cooking like it because even for the vast majority where it's remy cookie,
38:00
he's not touching anything. He's like under a hat like he's he's far
38:07
removed. I mean, yeah, there's parts where he's like showing her how
38:10
to make it and he's literally scooping the stuff and stuff like that. But
38:15
it I know, I never had an ick factor. Like I said,
38:19
I if there's other movies out there, I'd have to think about it for
38:22
a moment. But you know what I mean, whether it's like they got
38:24
that kind of premise where they got to hook you in the beginning, and
38:29
if you're on board, even if it's ridiculous, you'll just be like,
38:32
Okay, that's just what happens, you know, Like like robot Jocks,
38:37
it's like the resources are limited, so let's focus on giant robots fighting instead
38:42
of war. Like that's preposterous. But if you can get sold on it,
38:45
you can have a lot of fun. And same thing with Ratitui.
38:50
So it's I think it was so funny. We were joking so much about
38:53
the remake with like the Photoreal Live. I think that would creep people out.
38:58
If you had a photoreal for this, it would not work at all.
39:01
I thought about that actually as I was watching today, I was like,
39:06
is this one that Disney's gonna screw up, like they're gonna screw the
39:09
story over it, but make a billion dollars, you know, Like,
39:14
is this one that they're gonna make photo realism? And I was just like,
39:15
I don't think they can. I do not care they can. No,
39:20
I don't think they can for another twenty years. But then then they
39:23
like the photoreal like the real the good Cinderella, I mean, um,
39:30
what was it? Well, the blue dress, the blue dress. Of
39:32
course they all have blue dress, Uh, sleeping beauty. What are you
39:36
talking about talking about Kenneth Bran Cinderellas. That's what I meant, Kenneth Brannis,
39:40
Um Cinderella. I think they also had like photorealish mice. They're very
39:46
minor. They weren't in it a ton, But I'm just picturing like this
39:51
little you know, rat with like a black eye, like no emotion is
39:55
being translated through this in the movie screen. I think I think that was
40:02
trash. What are we talking about? Don't derail this because it's a good
40:07
movie. And I think that with Ratatui, I think that the reason I
40:12
go along with the Rats thing is because they invest so much into making Remi
40:16
cute and yeah, and even his brother a Meal, which I didn't get
40:22
the gag of his name until near the end when I was watching it the
40:25
first time. A Meal, I was like, oh, a meal,
40:30
got it? Like it suddenly made sense to me, like near the end
40:34
of the movie, and it was and it's all it's when um, it's
40:38
when Ego was giving his his his monologue, you know the voiceover at the
40:44
end when he does that. The first time I was watching him where he's
40:47
like, you know the way he says it is he says, you know,
40:51
a life could be changed by a meal, Laura can be and like
40:53
it just blows past like a meal. I mean, a meal, got
40:58
it? Um. But I think that they invest enough time with Remy and
41:04
a Meal and the dad to make it work where I never get grossed out
41:10
by what's going on because it's so absurd to begin with, Like it's it's
41:15
such an embrace of just an absolutely crazy topic that they don't I'm glad they
41:21
don't make any effort to make Remy and escape like secret of Nim style from
41:27
some you know, genetic experimentation place of that would be. Yeah, that's
41:31
what's gonna that's what they're gonna have These rats. We're all in like some
41:37
sort of science e lab thing with radiation, and it'll come out and they'll
41:40
tie into the MCU probably and all of those sorts of things. But I
41:44
didn't realize that. I didn't see light Year. But the voice of a
41:47
Meal also did the voice of Socks the little cat in light Years, and
41:52
the voice of those Queeney was also the voice of the teacher in Incredibles.
41:59
Now, well, there go not. I think that another and everybody hates
42:05
how I I obsess over the music in a film, but I really have
42:09
to give it to And everybody has a different way of pronouncing Michael Giacchino's last
42:15
name, Giacchino, Giacchino, Cappuccino, who knows. I've never heard anybody
42:22
pronounce it, not even him, so I always just always say Giacchino.
42:25
So I think that one of the things that Picks are finally starts figuring out
42:32
after a certain point is that they don't need to stay married to Randy Newman
42:37
for all of their music. And I really think that Giacchino works on The
42:43
Incredibles because that's a superhero movie and he's able to bring that bombast to it.
42:47
But I think he creates something very special with Ratatui. And I watch
42:52
the credits to this film not because I'm waiting for any stinger at the end,
42:58
and not just because I love the animation it's going on during the credits,
43:00
but I'm actually just enjoying the music so much that I just leave the
43:05
credits running. The music is great in this movie, Okay, because that
43:07
was gonna be my question. You know, it really is, like John,
43:10
like you know how, I don't really like to comment on music too
43:15
terribly much on the movies that we talk about unless it's very obvious. But
43:19
this music wasn't overly obvious, but at the same time really catchy. And
43:25
I really enjoy the music of this one. I actually we watched this in
43:30
the morning and throughout the afternoon. I was I was humming it throughout the
43:35
throughout the day, And I mean that that's the sign of a of a
43:37
good film, of a good score, when it kind of stays with you.
43:42
You can recreate it and you can actually think about it. So I
43:46
have been and this is gonna seem kind of odd, but with Raditui,
43:51
of course, there's a ride at Disney World. I've been on it a
43:53
few times, Tristan, I know that you haven't, Darren, have you
43:58
been on the Ratitui ride at all? No? I mean I know that
44:02
how it's a track list system and how it moves and seven uses projection,
44:07
But I've seen clips of it, but I've never written it, okay,
44:12
because basically I'm not saying it'd be like a flex like, oh well,
44:15
I've ridden the ride. But what I think is so interesting about this film
44:21
as well is that the design in it, like they theme of course,
44:27
though the Q line and everything like that, this isn't one of those Pixar
44:30
movies where you really, I would argue, people don't refer to Ratitui in
44:36
terms of the design of the house like you know in Up or the design
44:40
of Woody and buzz Lightyear for toy Story and stuff like that. But I
44:44
think this really has an incredible design element about it, that is that authentic
44:52
image we have in our brains of what a Paris neighborhood is like in a
44:54
Paris kitchen and all of those sorts of things. But you know, Tristan,
45:00
do you do you think the aesthetic is particularly successful with this? Does
45:05
it stick with you? Would you like I was saying that there are a
45:08
lot of Pixar movies out there that people go to. Why do you think
45:12
this one gets overlooked for its art direction or do you think it does?
45:16
You know, I can't comment on if I think it gets overlooked or not,
45:21
but I can say that it does feel realistic. I mean, I've
45:27
never been to Paris. My wife has been to Paris many times, and
45:30
she she comments on how it does definitely gives that kind of feel. And
45:36
looking into the behind the scenes of this movie, apparently the director and some
45:39
of the producers spent a week in Paris kind of just just walking around the
45:44
city. They're like, you know, pure just go out to Paris,
45:47
Well, we could take pictures now, just go take the to take the
45:52
up plane. It's so it's so true because like as I was ringing this,
45:55
so it's just like, oh, you know, like the perils of
45:59
research where they go and they said that they ated like the top five restaurants
46:04
in all of Paris and they stayed there for a week. And I'm like,
46:07
oh my gosh, like the pain of having to go on a work
46:10
trip, but they're taking pictures every every course. People are like, oh,
46:14
sorry, you Kendall where Pixar. Where Pixar. I think while I
46:17
didn't get a sense of the entire city, it definitely felt like a different
46:22
kind of place, and I really appreciated what it was, what it was
46:30
trying to say, and the kind of the vibe that it was that it
46:32
was giving in the in the film. Well, I mean I'm actually talking
46:37
even beyond that, like just in terms of the way that the sets are
46:42
quote unquote built right, you still have to put planning in for even a
46:45
completely animated set like this one, or sets like these, all the way
46:52
down to the fact that Ego's office from overhead looks like a coffin and the
46:55
back of his typewriter looks like a skull, and those sorts of things.
47:00
I just think that there are love marks in this Darren, you know,
47:02
do these love marks work for you? Do you think that this is a
47:06
film that deserves more esteem for the way that they you know, quote unquote
47:10
decorated this. I mean they decorated the sets. They have credits specifically for
47:15
people who were art directors and sectic orders. Yeah, I'd say they should
47:19
get a lot of credit also for the fact that you have to build,
47:22
especially the kitchen, you have to build it to work at a human eye
47:28
level and the floor eye level, so it can't be like, oh,
47:34
we're at in Remy's point of view and I have no idea where I am.
47:37
You know, it has to work on both ways. So that's that's
47:40
a challenge. I think, uh, you know, having the tiled floor
47:45
with the checkerboard pattern, you know, helps kind of not feel like everything's
47:50
all wishywashy, and so I think, yeah, they do. And in
47:53
that sequence when he's first in the kitchen and he's nobody realizes he's there and
47:58
he's jumping around gets I mean, we have a little bit of Indiana Jones
48:02
Fridge disbelief where he's put in the oven but jumps out at the exact right
48:08
moment and survive. I'm like, okay, okay, okay, send the
48:13
disbelief, keep watching. But no, I think it's a beautiful set.
48:17
It works. It works really from three levels. It works from the ground,
48:21
it works from human level, and from the very beginning, when Ramy
48:24
and ghost of Gusteau are looking down through the skylight and you see the whole
48:29
thing laid out just like the book so it's I think they do a great
48:34
I mean, Pisar always does good jobs with their locations. They always they
48:38
always work, and you you mentioned this, but they did such a great
48:44
job of translating the people's perspective and the rats perspective like it was. It
48:52
was seamless going back and forth. And I just wanted to applaud Pixar for
48:57
their ability because most of the time, you have one perspective in a Pixar
49:01
film. You have, you know, the toys perspective, you have the
49:05
monster's perspective, you have cars perspective, everything like that. But in this
49:08
movie, you have multiple perspectives. You have the you have the humans,
49:14
you have the rats, and you go back and forth. And it wasn't
49:17
until I think we get to inside out where you get different kind of perspectives.
49:22
But size wise, it really it really it's the same world, but
49:28
yet you feel it from a smaller scale and it really works. I am.
49:35
The one thing I want to ask is, this is a really weird
49:39
thing that my father sort of put in my brain many many years ago when
49:45
he was watching a BBC series about Hercule Plao where I went in and he
49:52
was watching it and all the actors were British, so they were all speaking
49:59
with their their natural British accents, but all the road signs were in French,
50:05
and they were all, you know, driving around in France and stuff
50:07
like that. I remember saying to my dad, it's like, why don't
50:09
they have French accents? And my dad said, French people don't think they
50:15
have accents. They don't have a French accent. That's just how you talk.
50:20
So why would somebody who's being you know, basically speaking, you know,
50:25
to them. They're all speaking French to each other, why would they
50:29
have a French accent the way an American and hears it sort of thing.
50:34
So I want to ask, does that help or hurt the film at all?
50:39
That again, Linguini and Remy no accent. Everybody else except Peter O'Toole
50:47
has a British accent because he You don't tell Peter o'tool to do anything except
50:51
what he else to do, because he's Peter friggin o'tool, and he'll punch
50:54
you in the face if you if you tell him to do something. Just
50:58
kidding. He was a lovely man and a great drinker from what I understand,
51:01
So does you know, Darren, does that help or hurt in any
51:04
way for you? Now? I think again it works as so far as
51:08
I never felt like the accents were too much where I couldn't understand what they
51:13
were saying. Again, heck ian Home disappeared into the role. I you
51:19
know he and he's got a pretty thick accent in this movie. But it
51:22
works. I don't hear ian Home, I hear Skinner, and I don't
51:30
think the Dad. I don't think any of the rats have an accent,
51:34
like any of them like Le doesn't the Dad, which I guess the dad's
51:37
name is like like Django because again, thank you Wikipedia, I never know
51:45
the names of these characters, and all of a sudden, like we were
51:47
talking last week about all these last names in The Incredibles that I had no
51:52
idea, but they're listed there. And it's like, he's not Jago,
51:55
he's Dad because he just calls him Dad the entire time. That's his name.
52:00
It should have just been Dad. But no, I think I think
52:04
it works out fine. I think even Gusto, you know, I would
52:07
say Gusto is kind of the most character caricature ish because he's kind of playing
52:15
this like caricature of a French cook and all of that, but it's the
52:23
only other thing that was really I feel like it's hard to translate to American
52:29
audiences. And maybe this is kind of a little bit backtracking on when we
52:31
were talking about being a foodie. I don't get the whole star thing,
52:36
like I think of like Michelin star ratings or things like that, but I
52:39
don't get like what does it mean to be a three star or four star
52:44
or five star rest? You know, food rest And I don't get that.
52:47
I have no equivalent to that in my life and if I did,
52:51
I would be bankrupt. So I just that part. I got it for
52:54
plot purposes, like, but I didn't. I didn't really get it on
52:59
a vista level. All I know is more stars means more money. And
53:02
but you know the accents is it does it pull you out at all?
53:07
Or you just along for the ride? And it's a movie about a rat
53:10
that controls a guy by pulling his hair? And why even bother thinking about
53:14
it? No, it's never really bothered me, Like this is the eternal
53:17
question of you know, like do you have a movie that takes place in
53:22
France and do they have French accents or do you have American accents? Because
53:28
you know they don't have They don't think they have accents like the French accents,
53:31
and then you zoom in on one of their mouths and when you pull
53:34
back out, they have English accents. I think that's the thing is that,
53:37
Like, I feel like you can go either way, and I'm fine
53:39
either way. Like if you look at one of my favorite movies of all
53:42
time, Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, you have Rooney Marrow who plays Elizabeth
53:46
Salander, she has a Swedish accent yep, Daniel Craig who just is Daniel
53:52
Craig. Yes, And honestly, I'm fine with that because my theater director
53:58
when I was in school told me, if you can't do the accent,
54:01
don't do it. Just play your straight accent because people will forgive your accent
54:07
more than a bad fake one. So I am totally fine with mixing accents.
54:13
Like if I think what it was like, there was two submarine movies
54:17
that came out at the same time. There was K ninety five or whatever
54:21
the hell it was called with Harrison Ford The Widowmaker Thank You, where they
54:24
had some really bad Russian accents, but they were all accents. And then
54:29
you had Ed Harris and David Comany Submarine movie that came out around the same
54:34
time, and they all had American accents even though they were playing either Russian.
54:39
I think they were playing Russians. But you know, David Comany defended
54:44
it on Late Night where he's just like, like we they wouldn't be speaking
54:49
English. You know, if this, if this was the documentary have Hunt
54:52
for About October, where Sean Connery is Russian, but he's like a Scottish
54:58
rescient. And he also played at five hundred year old Egyptian via Spain.
55:02
So you know, hey, one p one ping for surely. So we've
55:09
gone through a tour of Ratatui's kitchen, and speaking of stars, of course
55:14
it is time in this show for us to assign a star rating. I
55:21
think that probably what we should do is we're gonna we're gonna layer this dish
55:27
and I We're gonna start off with Darren with a solid bass because I have
55:30
a feeling where we're coming at With Darren. We're gonna go with We're gonna
55:34
take a risk in the middle with Tristan, and then I'll go ahead and
55:37
give you, you know, the topping on that light sauce a glaze on
55:40
top, if you will. So Darren start us off what is our basse?
55:45
But we're starting what is with all the food puns at the very end
55:47
of the podcast. Well, I think it's unavoidable. That's true. That's
55:51
true. Also, Tristan Phantom in twenty thirteen is the Ed Harris Dave Dukovney
55:55
submarine movie. Thank you. Um, so I didn't have it quite at
56:00
the at the ready as I did, can't. I mean the Widowmaker.
56:02
I don't know why I remember that one, but I do. Um yeah,
56:07
Datui, it's I want to say. Actually, I'm sorry. I'm
56:12
sorry to interrupt, but so I was way off. So Widowmaker came out
56:15
in two thousand and two. When did Phantom come out twenty thirteen? Wow,
56:20
Yeah, that's not even well you were saying, like Submarvie at Harris
56:23
movie. I'm like, you mean the Abyss because that's the only one I'm
56:27
thinking of. Well, I would say that probably you saw them available for
56:34
rent at the same I'm looking at the cover of this movie and this does
56:37
not look like it. Yeah, although it was talking about the Submarine K
56:43
one two nine, so that's probably where you were at Tider interrupt please contents.
56:46
All right, it's all right, and I'm always I always take a
56:49
pause for submarine movies. We'll call it the ping moment. But yeah,
56:53
So honestly, I feel like my rating of Raditui has gone down as we've
57:02
talked, because again it's in comparing it with other Brad Bird movies, because
57:12
again we've feel we talked a little bit about Brad and I think he does
57:15
an amazing job considering he took over this one. This is not a I
57:22
had a passion project about French cooking. Because we were talking about The Incredibles
57:28
and how he had just come from Warner Brothers and all of that last week,
57:31
and we and I made the comment of Okay, if he had not
57:35
gone to Pixar, he would have made The Incredibles in two D animation for
57:38
Warner But like he had to make that movie, it was gnawn at him
57:44
to burth that into the world. This movie again, it's oh, you
57:49
did really well with your budget. You know, we're gonna bring you in
57:52
and you're gonna take over directing and he's gonna Obviously he's a good director.
57:57
He's gonna make it his own a bit. But so again, but yeah,
58:01
it's I don't know. It's hard to say because it is a good
58:09
movie, but I also feel like I very rarely watch it. It is,
58:15
I'm rarely in the mood for it. I'm my kids don't really watch
58:20
it that much, which would probably be one of the main reasons to actually
58:23
catch it again. So even with not a lot of things not in its
58:30
favor, I'm I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give it a three.
58:34
We're gonna give it a middle of the range. Wow, you know,
58:37
he and I think he's going to go up from here. But it's it's
58:45
a and maybe just maybe it's just story. Maybe it's just the story didn't
58:49
really because again on the technical level, on a voice acting level, all
58:53
these things hidden out of the park. But it's a rat controlling of Frenchman
59:00
cooking like it. Maybe today I'm not buying into that premise as much as
59:04
I did yesterday. All Right, Tristan, let's I love I love how
59:10
it was boiled down. It's just a rat controlling of Frenchman. That's what
59:14
it is. It's you know. Hey, yes, let's not get into
59:17
social commentary, Darren, come on now, so Tristan, Uh you know,
59:22
wow? That that was That was a thinner base than I expected to
59:24
start with, Uh what what are you gonna layer this? The middle of
59:29
this dish with man, I really didn't think that I was going to rate
59:35
this higher than Darren, but I think I might. Um, because I'm
59:39
right with you, Darren, there's something about this movie. I did start
59:44
of the four and then I kind of wavered down, like, if ever
59:47
were I was to give a three point five, it would probably be this.
59:50
But alas I'm not. I'm not going to break my one rule.
59:53
Yeah, because this. You know, last week we talked about my top
59:58
ten of Pixar films. This is on the eleven, you know, and
1:00:01
Pixar has made a lot of films and like to be on the eleven,
1:00:05
that's pretty high. And but there's something about this film that just doesn't work.
1:00:12
And I think you, Darren, I think you're absolutely right. I
1:00:15
think it's the story. Because the voice acting is a five, the technical
1:00:17
details is a five, the attention to detail is a five, the animation
1:00:22
is a five. But the story is just a little lack luster, and
1:00:30
I'm given this a three point five. And even though this is the three
1:00:36
point five, it's still a good movie. Like this is one of the
1:00:37
highest rated Pixar films, if not the highest rated Pixar film on Metacritic.
1:00:44
You know, it had nominated and won several Academy Awards, made a lot
1:00:49
of money, people love it, it's It's on a lot of high lists.
1:00:52
So this made a huge splash when it first came out. But I
1:00:57
don't think it has the staying power as something like a toy story. And
1:01:04
even though I like this film, my kids didn't. My wife doesn't.
1:01:08
My kids are kind of indifferent to it, like you know, like my
1:01:12
eldest was just like, yeah, it's good, but wasn't on fire about
1:01:15
it. I think that's where I'm at. I'm just like, yeah,
1:01:16
it's good, but yeah, So I give it a three point five.
1:01:21
I think that this is a surprisingly sour dish so far, so I'm gonna
1:01:24
see if I can sweeten it up a little bit here. I would say
1:01:29
that the one thing we didn't really go after during our discussion was run time.
1:01:32
You would say, I'm provising, Yeah, I would say that that
1:01:37
is The one thing that kind of undoes it is it's run time. I
1:01:44
think that it's probably about fifteen minutes too long. If this were delivered more
1:01:49
quickly, then I think it's a five I do. I think. I
1:01:52
think it's just And like I said, the emotional moment with Eo at the
1:01:55
end with the favorite dish makes me cry when I see it because I think
1:01:59
it's so beautifully done. I think there are elements of this that are absolutely
1:02:04
wonderful. I think it does suffer from a little protagonist confusion. I think
1:02:07
that there are definitely moments that can be trimmed. In a sense. The
1:02:15
family Remy's family is necessary only because you need the rats staffing the Kisen kitchen
1:02:22
at the end. And I think as a result, if you had found
1:02:27
a way to stick this landing without the rats cooking at the end, then
1:02:32
you wind up with a leaner movie because Remy's just gone away from home,
1:02:37
and then you can have one moment with his dad where he reconciles at the
1:02:40
end and everything I made it after all, Dad, what have you?
1:02:44
Movie goes a lot faster, some of these things are glossed over, and
1:02:47
you wind up with a five star film as it is just a little too
1:02:51
long, but I wind up giving it a four. But it's a solid
1:02:57
four. I mean, this is you know, one of those ones where
1:03:00
it's like, oh, well, you know, it didn't barely make it.
1:03:01
I'm not being generous. If anything, If I have this playing in
1:03:07
the background, I'm sort of like floating in and out of the room,
1:03:09
not just doing a dedicated watch. I probably would have thrown a five at
1:03:14
it, because if you just catch it in those chunks, it flows a
1:03:17
lot better. It's just a little bit overstuffed. You know. What's the
1:03:23
solution to it. I don't specifically know. You know, maybe it is
1:03:27
the rat that the family thing I'm talking about, maybe it's the love story
1:03:30
is unnecessary, what have you. But something could have been jettisoned in favor
1:03:36
of a tighter run time, and I think that's that's the only thing working
1:03:39
against it. One thing I do want to chime in about before we close
1:03:45
up shop is, you know, because one thing that we've bragged about Bradbird
1:03:51
is his appreciation of animators, how he's such a great leader, and the
1:03:57
fact that he was brought in to replace someone who was take it out because
1:04:03
of their lack of leadership, which I do not think is the former director's
1:04:10
fault, because like, who's not going to say, Who's going to decline
1:04:15
the offer to direct a movie when you're an animator yourself. You know,
1:04:21
he was given the opportunity and he said yes, but he bit off more
1:04:27
than he could chew. And who do they go to? They go to
1:04:29
Bradbird because he's a great leader and he respects his animators, and he can
1:04:34
lead a room, he can lead a team. And I think that's one
1:04:39
common theme throughout all these episodes and all these movies of Bradbird is that what
1:04:44
we've heard about behind the scenes is how great of a leader Bird is.
1:04:47
And I just really wanted to nail that home before we enter this episode,
1:04:53
is that out of all the directors we talked about, this seems like someone
1:04:57
who really appreciates his people and knows how to lead. Indeed, I think
1:05:00
that is an important point to make in speaking of leadership. Brad Byrd graduates
1:05:08
to the truly, truly big leagues with his next film that will be visiting
1:05:15
next time on House Lights, Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol Colin the movie I
1:05:21
saw Because the Dark Night Rises prologue was being shown in front of it.
1:05:28
Next time on house Lights, Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.