Ratatouille

I saw this film on June 15th, 2007 in Indianapolis. I am one of the judges for the Heartland Film Festival’s Truly Moving Picture Award. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.” Heartland gave that award to this film.

Pixar has an incredible streak of commercial and artistic animation successes. This is their 8th in a row, and their riskiest. Toys and cars and bugs and fish and monsters and superheroes are easier to make endearing than a RAT. But, PIXAR pulls it off.

This is a story of a French rat, Remy, who dreams to be more. Instead of eating garbage like his family and friends, he aspires to create great food like his hero Gusteau. Gusteau is a famous chef and cooking writer and television cooking star and restaurant owner. Gusteau’s motto is “Anyone Can Cook.” The bad news is Gusteau dies, but the good news is he comes back as a ghost or a figment of the rat’s imagination to aid our rat in his dreams.

The rat arrives at Gusteau’s restaurant and uses the body of a lowly garbage boy to follow the rat’s instructions and to create great food. The rat even moves in with the garbage boy.

The animation is stunningly good. PIXAR has made the animation more detailed and more nuanced for every one of their succeeding films and this tradition continues. You learn about cooking and your mouth waters throughout the film. The Ratatouille, a French vegetable stew, can be tasted and smelled in the theater. By the way, the “Rat” in Ratatouille has nothing to do with a “rat.”

Remy is inspiring. Here is a character that will not settle on his expected life, but strives for greatness and to add to the world. And he will not give up or be discouraged. The ugly(?) rat becomes beautiful.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

What is Storytelling

George Lucas quoted in a Wall Street Journal interview on 6-18-2007:

"There are two forms of entertaining. Circus is random. And voyeuristic. It's basically what you see on YouTube now. I call it feeding Christians to the lions. The movie term is throwing puppies on a freeway. It's very easy. You sit there and watch and see what happens. You don't have to write anything, you don't have to do anything, you just sort of watch it happen, and it's interesting.

Then you get to art. Art is where a person contrives the situation and tells a story, and hopefully that story reveals the truth behind the facts. Storytelling is trying to come up with an idea that is insightful in terms of giving you a different insight into how things work, or is amusing."

A Heartland Truly Moving Picture is always art.

Why Inspirational Truly Moving Pictures matter

From the Wall Street Journal - 6-12-2007 - "A Cultural Conversation with Micheal Flaherty ... His Movie Company [Walden Media] is Far From Hollywood in Many Ways"

And I am quoting...
"But as a young adult [Micheal Flaherty] , he found himself working on Massachusetts education reform during the week and tutoring disadvantaged kids in Boston on Saturday mornings. When he could ask the children what they did the previous evening, it was always the same thing - watching TV or movies. But when Titanic came out in 1997, Mr. Flaherty recalls, they started telling him about going to museums to see exhibits about the famous sinking. they even took books out of the library on ship-building. 'I saw a big idea here.' "

Becoming Jane

I saw this film on March 28th, 2007 in Indianapolis. I am one of the judges for the Heartland Film Festival’s Truly Moving Picture Award. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.” Heartland gave that award to this film.

The “Jane” is Jane Austen and this is a fictional depiction of her young adult life before her novel writing career. I suppose half of the tale is based on fact such as she rejected a marriage proposal, and half the tale is made up to create engaging story-telling. But that’s not important.

The essence of the story is the mores of proper English society around 1800. Woman had their place. And that place was to give oneself to an arranged marriage and become a dutiful wife and mother. It was even more important to be in these roles if you were a daughter of a minister of modest means who had lots of children to care for. Jane was one of those children.

But Jane has spunk and smarts and a stubbornness to live her own life as she sees fit. Anne Hathaway plays young Jane convincingly and Anne’s good looks are played down as much as possible. It’s Jane’s inner self that makes her attractive and not her exterior appearance.

And she is so attractive that she has three suitors; the rich and dull one, the poor and roguish one, and a secret and nefarious one. This circumstance allows us to see England from the various social strata, which is fun and informative.

Jane, 200 years ahead of her time, shows beauty and grace and charm and spirit, and will not buckle to her day’s lot in life. We should all have such courage “… to follow our bliss” knowing we have but one life to live.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.