Just saw Ratatouille...

...and boy, was it good. God, how I love Brad Bird. I still prefer The Incredibles, I think, but this was a worthy successor.

Barring some sort of huge groundswell of support for The Simpsons Movie, this would seem to have the Best Animated Feature oscar locked up. It's also seriously in play for original screenplay, original score, sound, and sound editing (the categories of choice for Pixar flicks). Michael Giaccino's score, in particular, is lovely, perhaps even topping his previous Incredibles work with Bird (for which he was snubbed), so I hope he gets a nod this time around. And the screenplay is definitely at the level of the previous Pixar screenplays that were nominated. I could see this getting 5 nominations easily, though I think best pic is out of reach unless the box office really takes off.

The reviews, in any case, have been spectacular, and rightfully so. I don't wanna play critic with this film and provide a full review (if you've seen it, you'll get what I mean), but I'll just say that if you cross the brilliant animation of Pixar with the critical cred of Sideways, this is what you get... which is quite fitting, since the film is all about finding new and unique combinations of familiar parts. This new and flavorful concoction somehow made the tale of a rat taking over a posh Paris restaurant inexplicably moving, so much so that I was practically in tears at film's end. And that, needless to say, is quite a feat.