C’est RatnifiqueRatatouille a visual feast garnished with rodent goodness
by Phillip Valys
No stranger to silk-smooth animation, director Brad Bird (Iron Giant, The Incredibles) concocts a plat du jour of visual treats in his latest banquet, Ratatouille.
From a rodent’s perspective, we are whisked down a sewer pipe, twisted around the mounds of Brie resting atop pantry shelves, and ricocheted from a soup ladle to the windowsill above- yet this all leaves a surprisingly mild taste; that is, until the plot delivers a signature savory kick.
Remy (comedian Patton Oswalt) is a shrewd food-connoisseur rat with an overdeveloped sense of smell; his sniffer can actually detect the very ingredients used to concoct the gourmet foods he pilfers nightly from a five-star French restaurant. After the (human) chef whom Remy idolizes croaks, his ghost follows Remy around, doling out his sagely advice by the spoonful: “anyone can cook.”
As a filthy rodent, he is public enemy numí_ro un to Parisians; however, that doesn’t stop Remy from following his mentor’s counsel and sprinkling a few spices into a watered-down soup seconds before it’s handed to restaurant patrons.
Ratatouille certainly dishes out sleek if unpretentious animation and a star-studded supporting cast (including Peter O’ Toole as a cadaverous cuisine critic and a foghorn-voiced Brad Garrett as Gusteau, the aforementioned chef ghost). But the real blend of ingredients lies with a sharp cheddar dialogue dashed with the kid-friendly notion that underdogs triumph and merit always beats mediocrity.
It is an aromatic blend of visuals, color and sometimes a tad too much rosemary, but this animated comedy delivers just the right flavor.
Ratatouille Trailer
Beastie Boys, The Mix-Up (Capitol)
By Anthony A. Choman
The Beastie Boys are back and this time they’re fighting for their right to experiment.The new Beastie Boys album, The Mix-Up, is about as far from Brooklyn, NY, as you can get. This album is a radical departure from the group’s groundbreaking debut album, Licensed to Ill (1986). There are a dozen tracks on the album, none of which have any fresh rhyming or singing of any kind. Surprisingly, it works. The boys put away their turntables, microphones, and drum machines in favor of more traditional rock instruments – Adam Yauch (guitar), Adam Horovitz (bass) and Mike Diamond (drums), and Mark Nishita (keyboards). Critics and fans alike have called this album “ambient,” deeming its new soundscapes only fit for “background noise at rooftop parties and backyard barbecues of summer.” Despite the latter possibly being true no one has ever questioned the Beastie Boys for trying new sounds before, so why start now? The Mix-Up will prove detractors and critics wrong…if you they don’t know it’s the Beastie Boys.
Mix It Up With These Tracks:”Freaky Hijiki” “14th St. Break” “Suco De Tangerina””The Rat Cage””The Kangaroo Rat”
“The Rat Cage” Music Video
Falling Man by Don DeLilloReview By Anthony A. Choman
Falling Man is the fourteenth work from American novelist, Don DeLillo. It is a novel that uses both reality and surreal-ity to describe life in a postmodern, post-9/11 world.
The first page of Falling Man begans rather ominously-subdued…”It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night.”
Unlike other texts written about 9/11 and its subsequent events Falling Man uses little to no real characters other than the inanimate goings on of New York and its physical nuances along with brief glimpses into real-life 9/11 protagonist, Mohamed Atta. Throughout the text DeLillo gives the reader glimpses of life of both a pre and post 9/11 – even into the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Another interesting facet of the text is that even amidst the pomp and toils of tragedy Mr. DeLillo details a character that re-enacts fatal falls from morbid heights (a.k.a. in NY as a performance artist). Much like the book’s title this character is in fact methodically-random and with or without substance, depending on how you perceive his fall(s).
Falling Man is an account of life in Manhattan and the everyday trappings of it – loss and lust, deceit and danger, fear and forgiving, ignorance and idealism, volition and vengeance – after 9/11. The human-horror of the Manhattanites on which the text is centered are former World Trade Center survivor, Keith Neudecker (39 year-old lawyer, husband, father, lover, victim), his wife Lianne (a freelance book editor), and their son Justin (10-12 years old). Various other minor characters, including Lianne’s mother and a few of Keith’s fallen friends, filter in and out of novel just enough to give it an added taste of the real, followed by an all too surreal aftertaste.
Don DeLillo has penned fourteen novels in all (White Noise, Libra, Underworld), and three plays (The Day Room, Valparaiso, Love-Lies-Bleeding). An American novelist, Mr. DeLillo is known for unpretentiously creating masterful, textual-paintings of man against the ever changing backgrounds of Americana. Other than accolades Don DeLillo, along with Joan Didion, is also credited with inspiring and giving birth to the literary brat pack (Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Mark Lindquist, and Jay McInerney). Mr. DeLillo has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Jerusalem Prize, and the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Don DeLillo once wrote an essay commenting on 9/11 in which he construed the tragic events as “human beauty in the crush of meshed steel.” There need not be any further description of Falling Man, for the novel is just that. As of press time, Falling Man currently sits atop the #34 spot on the New York Times Bestseller list.
