That Movie Book – Week Thirty Three

I know last week didn’t happen, but I felt a bit burnt out after Miyazaki Week and watched trash to compensate for it. This week I was back in business, though, and promised to watch at least one of the five suggestions. This week’s theme was “All Critics Are Wankers”

I ended up watching Ratatouille. A rat that loves to cook teams up with a guy who works in a kitchen who is a terrible cook, and together they make wonderful food and in turn help restore the reputation of the restaurant they work at.

This felt a bit too cutesy for me when it first came out, but I have heard a lot of positive things about it over the years so I figured I would give it a chance. It was pretty standard, story-wise; Remy the rat doesn’t fit in with his family, but can’t do what he wants to do (cook) without being persecuted. Linguine also doesn’t really fit in with his ‘family’ at the restaurant, but when the two of them work together they make something amazing. Or something like that. It wasn’t the most exciting or touching story that Pixar have done, but it did look pretty. The lights and atmosphere of Paris were gorgeous, and the food in the kitchens looked amazing. They obviously put a lot of effort into the details of the food, which makes sense seeing it’s a major aspect of the story, and it definitely makes a difference.

The main issue I had about this movie was the accents. For a film based in France, specifically in Paris, it really annoyed me that so many of the main characters were voiced by Americans. All the rats, Linguine, and most of the kitchen staff had American accents. Gusteau, Mustafa (the head waiter) and Colette were all voiced by Americans bunging on a clichéd French Accent. There were a few British voices in there, but that is still pretty pathetic for a film set in France. Why didn’t they get more French actors in to work on it? It’s not like there are no actors in France. It just felt really lazy and distracting, and while it didn’t ruin the film it did frustrate me a lot and if they had put a bit more effort into it I probably would have enjoyed it more.

 

After that I tried to watch All About Eve. A young lady meets her idol, an actress in the theatre. She works for the actress, studies everything about her, then becomes an actress herself and ends up overshining the original actress.

I wanted to enjoy this, I really did. The story sounded interesting, the actors were well known enough, it should have been easy enough to watch. I just really don’t like old films. This is from the 50’s and I got so sick of the breathy voice all the ladies had and while the story had potential it just felt Super Boring. I got about 50 minutes into it before deciding to give up. I feel a bit bad saying this, but if anyone decides to do a modern remake of it I would probably really enjoy it. I just couldn’t get interested in this version of it.

Also having never seen Bette Davis before, I was basing my opinion of her off half listened lyrics of Bette Davis Eyes. Now I’m not sure if having Bette Davis eyes is supposed to be a compliment like I thought it was, she has pretty sad looking eyes. Maybe I should actually listen to the song properly for once.

 

The other suggestions this week were Almost Famous, Inglourious Basterds (I’d already seen both of these), and Hamlet 2. Hamlet 2 sounds ridiculous, so I think it’s going on the list of movies to watch under my own steam at some point in the future. So this week wasn’t the most successful of weeks, but I’m happy enough that I watched something. Next Week is all about Wes Anderson, so that might be interesting!