Ratatouille Movie Mistakes

I've watched Ratatouille several times now and have noticed a couple of mistakes.

The Disappearing jar
The first is when Linguini lets Remy out of the jar. Remy runs off and Linguini stands up. Remy looks back and the jar is at Linguini's feet. Then as Linguini turns to his bicycle the jar has vanished.

Jumping Physics
This one is more subtle. In the big chase scene as Skinner and Remy are jumping from boat to boat on the Seine. When Skinner does the screaming jump from the No Smoking Boat to the boat with the couple in love, we see most of his jump from the point of view of a camera on the deck on the Love Boat and he approaches it in a straight line toward the camera.
The mistake is that Skinner flight is directly toward the Love Boat in a straight line. The two boats are in motion relative to one another. Skinner would be moving at the speed of the boat he left and not the speed of the boat he is jumping onto. So from the Love Boat point of view he would be moving in a curve that would have had to start behind the man for him to end up grabbing the tablecloth.
Admittedly that might not have been as dramatic as what was put on screen but physics errors in movies are slightly bothersome to me.
This was something we ended up spending a lot of time on in my high school physics class. Several students couldn't figure out that the path of a falling object that was moving sideways was a curve. They kept saying it was a straight line. It turned out to be an optical illusion. The first experiment we tried was to have the teacher walk along and drop his keys. The optical illusion was that the keys were falling down beside his leg which looks like a straight line. Legs are straight and therefore the keys are falling in a straight line. After arguing about it a while I devised a plan to make it more obvious. I have the teacher stop and have the keys slide off his hand, then it was very obvious that the keys were traveling in a curve.

Ratatouile DVD Review

We really enjoyed this movie when it first came out.

Our daughter loved it so much we watched the podcasts most evening before bed. So, of course, we had to get it as soon as it came out. It is still a great movie. It has lots of replay value, way more then Dora the Explorer.

The best part about it is that it had heart. Colette is annoyed about being handed Linguini when she stood up for him in the first place. He was so eager to please her, well it was obvious that he was smitten by her, that it soften her toward him as she continued to teach Linguini and Remy. She was really hurt when she thought Linguini had used her teachings to blow past her. Not the case but that is how it looked.

Colette had been used before by some other rising chef, and she had loved him too. We see that and it is heart rending as she expresses that. She is in that kitchen because she has something to prove. She beat that other guy, she is in the finest resturaunt in the world and he is in some lesser
place, but it still hurts her.

These characters have real pain in their backgrounds. The look on everyone's face as Colette challenges Skinner to keep Linguini because, "Anyone can cook" is priceless, Skinner and Colette were the only ones to come to cooking the conventional way. Each of the others had met Gusteau somewhere and had been taken under his ample wing.

Horst is a key character, whatever his management style it alllows the chefs to work smoothly even with iron-fisted Skinner in charge. Horst is actually doing most of the work as Skinner dreams up his next batch of frozen entrees. It is his decision to leave at the big revelation that let everyone else leave, but he is almost in tears, he doesn't want to leave but he cannot stay and that tears at his soul.

This is a great movie because they don't have to tell you all the backstory of everything, but you can create it yourself easily.

I am wondering where Disney/Pixar will go after Wall-E and Toy Story 3. I am pretty sure they want to move animation out of the action-comedy genre. I hope they make a drama that is still rated G but is not really for kids. I would never expect them to make a "My Dinner with Andre" but they do need to tell people that just because it is animated doesn't mean it is kids stuff.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I saw this film with my wife as a date which we haven't had in a long time and we gave it a solid 3 of 5 stars.

The opening scene with Harry, Dudley and his gang was well done and quite intense. In general he stayed as close to the book as he could, using quite a bit of the dialog, but given the nature of book 5, very introspective which is hard to put on screen, there was a lot to skip over as well.

The wizards battle at the end was extraordinary, the rest of the movies have something to live up to now.

My biggest problem was that the music was too bland, it didn't support the movie as much as it could have. I was also disappointed in the lackluster attention to detail. There were many things I was expecting to be in place that just weren't there, particularly in the second act which lacked emotional intensity.

Daniel has improved tremendously as an actor as have the others, if not as much, though it maybe because they didn't have as much to do. I really enjoyed Luna, she really got into that character and tended to steal the scene. I hope to see more of her.

Ratatouille Review

Ratatouille is the best film I've seen in a long time. While the images were great on their own that isn't good enough by itself to make a great film. The story has heart and soul. It is not a summer blockbuster type film and that is just fine. It is a story that is very moral. Yes, the good guys lie and cheat and steal trying to do the best for themselves, but it is only after they confess and make amends that their true abilities come forth. 

Reme just wants to have food that tastes good but his abilities were about more then being just a food sniffer or even a chef. Linguine just wanted to keep his job. They weren't losers, just not in the right place doing the right things for them. 

After Reme gets separated from his family as they try to escape from a shotgun wielding little old lady riding a cookbook he ends up in the sewers of Paris, though he doesn't know it yet. We see a wonderful set of vignettes introducing us to Paris before the big reveal at the top.

It is the astonishing attention to detail that is most brilliant thing about Pixar. We come into a world that feels like it existed before the movie starts and will continue beyond the end, but not as an obvious sequel bait or happily ever after, just life continuing on.

That was one of the most disappointing parts of the Star Wars prequels it was lots of fun but had no depth like this or The Lord of the Rings.

The food was brilliant, they took cooking lessons and it showed. We were so hungry afterwards but chose to do something better then the standard fast food burger joint. They really understand foodies; food is more then fuel and it was amazing how well they were able to translate that to the big screen. The climatic shot captured it completely, it was beautiful. 

Not everyone is a foodie, that is okay, though we have a friend who grow up in a family where they called a three course meal, meat, potatoes and a vegetable. Usually it was just a single food item like hamburger or potato. 

It has heart and the characters are deep and complex, far more so then is usual. The character development time is well spent, it is not an action feature and don't even try confusing it with one. Though the big chase scene with Skinner chasing Reme across Paris was great, that bit with the tablecloth was choice.

I loved the characters, Colette was great a tough, no-holes barred up-and-comer, with real heart.

The pivotal character was Alton "The Grim Reaper" Ego, food critic. He just comes on scene at the very end but even then he steals it completely. It is amazing what the power of love can do. 

I highly recommend this film and plan on buying it later.