"Willard Meets Like Water for Chocolate"
That's film critic Kyle Smith's funny description of the Disney/Pixar smersh hit, Ratatouille, which I didn't care for too much, though it did make me want to eat more vegetables.
Smith liked the film alot and teases out an Ayn Rand connection, which makes sense given the involvement of Incredibles auteur Brad Bird:
If there is an Ayn Rand School for Tots like the one Maggie once escaped from on "The Simpsons " (for which Brad Bird used to work), its mandatory texts must be "The Incredibles" and this movie. Anton Ego, a critic who looks like he runs a funeral parlor for all the dreams he's murdered, is an Addams Family version of Ellsworth Toohey from Rand's "The Fountainhead;" when Linguini kisses his colleague Colette, she is so blown away that she drops her can of Mace, which seems like a parody of the famous date rape encounter in "The Fountainhead;" Colette calls false modesty just another way to lie (Rand, in "Atlas Shrugged": "This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another, the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness"); and there is a lone-wolf twist to the Disney lost-child formula. Remy, like Rand's heroes, is driven by his own creation urge, regardless of community approval. He won't go back to his family; they must come to him.
Hat Tip: Emmanuelle Richard, journaliste.
The Onion A/V Club, an always-interestin' review section, interviews Bird a few years back here.
