xiaoli7377

"Ratatouille" is the best Pixar movie ever made. The story, the humor, and the score are all terrific. I love Payton Oswald as Remy. Peter O'Toole as Anton Ego, the food critic, is also a great performance. The Paris atmosphere mixed in with the irony of a rat being a world class chef is excellent. I find it similar to "The Menu", it's just a great movie that kind of flips the idea of general criticism on its head and suggests that most people who nitpick and critique every little thing miss out on a lot of enjoyment of some of the simpler things in life. Also the idea that not everybody, but anybody with enough drive and talent, can achieve greatness. Great animated movie that's not dumbed down or just to throw on something for the kids.

It's got probably the strangest ending of any movie I've ever seen. "2001: A Space Odyssey" is what most science fiction films attempt to emulate. Every single frame of this movie is beautiful to look at, a testament to Kubrick's keen sense of camera framing and shot composition. The use of classical music, such as the iconic theme "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Strauss.

I personally really liked the inclusion of brands like IBM and Pan Am in the movie, retro futurism is something that I enjoy quite a bit. Brands that were big in the 1960s, but Pan Am is defunct today.

Themes of god and humankind, exploration of the unknown, a rampant artificial intelligence; this movie has everything in it and it does not miss a single beat. One of the greatest films ever made and one that I absolutely recommend as a must-watch.

I thought "The Usual Suspects" had a plot twist that was way too obvious to anybody who's ever seen an episode of "Scooby-Doo." I also thought the dialogue was pretty crappy, it either had way too much vulgar swearing for no reason at all other than to sound "cool" like a twelve year old boy, or it was way too convoluted with characters referencing events and other characters that are never shown on screen. It's really baffling to me that this movie won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. I also thought that Benicio Del Toro did a pretty poor job with his performance. Most of the other actors fall somewhere in the "decent" category.

Kevin Spacey does a great job though, definitely the highlight performance. The score for the film is also excellent, as is the cinematography. It's honestly a really pretty movie stylistically. Unfortunately it's the substance of the movie that I take issue with, it relies too heavily on its final ten minute "zinger" of a plot twist. The plot twist itself is executed quite well but it doesn't take away from the fact that anyone with a pair of eyes could see it coming from a mile away.

As to how this movie ranks among the top fifty of all time on this site, that's something I'll never understand. I don't really recommend it, I think there are far better crime mystery movies out there, such as "Se7en" (which also came out in 1995 and which also stars Kevin Spacey in a similar role).