The usual disclaimer: I don’t know how to critically review a movie. Thus, this post shall be plain and brief.

Ratatouille is a marvelous achievement. Again and again, Pixar exceeds expectations. Ok, maybe “Cars” just met expectations last year. But heading into the film last night, I was thinking, “It’s a Pixar movie, so it will be good, but isn’t the whole story of the young rebellious creature getting separated from his family/home (Nemo, that car) getting old? The great news is that there is nothing at all stale about the story. It’s very clever. And, of course, the animation is tremendous. I’m sure that has a little bit to do with the fact that a guy I went to elementary through high school with, Sudeep Rangaswamy, is still working on these things. (Ok, so that’s a little Google nugget-dropping to see if anyone from years ago stumbles upon this blog in a drunken search some night for Sudeep. Sorry, I don’t keep in touch with Sudeep, but you’ve found me!)

So…Ratatouille…very highly recommended, and if you don’t believe me, it has a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which I imagine makes it one of the top ten or so films ever reviewed on their site.