Jason watches "Ratatouille" and then mourns the loss of Joel Siegel

And it's excellent. A lot has been said about how animation in America is just for kid's, while in other countries they use it to tell intelligent stories. Well, Pixar in general and Brad Bird ("The Incredible" and "The Iron Giant") in particular put the lie to that argument by making intelligent animated movies for children. The problem with American animation isn't that it's mostly for kids--it's that it's mostly dumb. And then they try to make up for it by throwing some dirty double-entendres in for the adults. Well, here's a novel idea--make an intelligent movie with a story that appeals to both kids and adults. "Ratatouille" has done that better than any American movie I've seen. Thank you so much.

As an aside (and a really inappropriate one, given that I didn't think it was that bad in this movie), can we call a moratorium on getting big name actors to do cartoon voices? There are tons of more talented voice actors who are much cheaper and do a better job. And didn't anyone go to "Ratatouille" because of Patton Oswalt? Really? An exception can be made for John Ratzenberger because he's Pixar's good luck charm (and by now, probably better known for that than for "Cheers") and for Peter O'toole because he was great as Anton Ego. Oh, and an exception for Mark Hammill (who wasn't in this movie) because he's a really well established voice actor now and is being hired for his genuine talent rather than for being Luke Skywalker.


Okay, I didn't actually say much about the movie other than it's excellent. Well, there are plenty of reviews out there for you to find. But there's one too few today. Rest in peace, Joel Siegel. I don't really read the critics much anymore, I'll click over to Rottentomatoes.com to get a sense of the overall consensus, maybe. But Joel Siegel, for what it was worth, was one of the good guys, and one of the guys I'd read or listen to just for his way with words, not even caring if he liked or hated the movie in question.

Actually, that reminds me of one thing I wanted to mention about "Ratatouille". As I said, Peter O'toole voices Anton Ego, the most famous and cruelest food critic. There's a monologue--all Peter O'toole--which is all about criticism and how it's easy to criticize and hard to actually create. It's basically telling any critic who would dream of writing a negative review of this movie, "Oh yeah, what the hell have you ever done that's so great?" Well, in Mr. Siegel's case, quite a lot.