Caught the early screening of Ratatouille with a group of friends and my younger cousins tonight, and a good time was had by all.  Brad Bird's directorial touch is all over this one, and the story, voice-acting and animation are all superb.  The story, in particular, is pretty great; it's just as much about Linguini as it about Rémy, and together, they handle their idealistic coming-of-age plights with equal virtuoso.  The culinary world of Paris is captured beautifully, and for those wondering, yes, the dish ratatouille *does* come into play. :)

Giacchino's score deserves mention, too.  It's got sort of a French-romanticism/salsa-esque thing going on; the instrumentation is far more eclectic and a little more laid back on the orchestral bombast than most of Giacchino's other works, making for a stylistically refreshing listen.  It'll be a painful one and a half more weeks before I can pick up the soundtrack CD.

And as for the requisite pre-show short, "Lifted"..... think Close Encounters laced with incompetence. ;p  Not quite as edgy or clever as One Man Band, but the usual impeccable comedic visual timing still ensures a very funny watch.

I'll catch Fantastic Four the next time around (the lines were out the door for FF tonight, by the way), but so far, Ratatouille ranks second place after Pirates 3 as the best movie I've seen this year.  It sure beats the crap out of Shrek 3, and by stark contrast, it reaffirms the fact that Pixar is still the freaken best at what they do.

Fantastic Four 2 was awesome. Well, it was awesome because of the mysterious nature of the Silver Surfer.
HIS story is very much sequel material. I'm actually glad I walked in the theater ignorant of any details about the Silver Surfer. Sometimes ignorance pays off.

I'm looking forward to seeing Ratatouille. I've seen some extended clips and Giacchino's score is top-notch.

I'm only familiar with his work for Alias, but the music must be gold.

Picked up the soundtrack earlier this week, and it's a fine release indeed.  Clocking in at a little over 62 minutes, it's pretty well-proportioned in length and features all of the really good cues from the film.  Best of all, it features the entire nine minute end credits, a treat for folks who know how well Giacchino handles his ending suites.

Also went to see the film again today.  It's just pure animation magic..... It's close - so very close - to becoming my favorite Pixar film of all time.  Right now, my personal ranking is looking like so:

1) Monsters, Inc.
2) Ratatouille
3) The Incredibles
4) Cars
5) Toy Story
6) Toy Story 2
7) Finding Nemo
8) A Bug's Life

Hmmm... I've only seen one of those; I think it was Toy Story 2.  Can't say Pixar's material has really drawn me in so far.  That said, I might go see Ratatouille since the plot of this once sounds a lot more interesting to me than the company's past titles.

The score is cute, definitely has that Giacchino sound (heard clearly even over the French pastiche). I'm still trying to get to the movie. Been really busy.

It's weird because this is how I felt initially before seeing these movies themselves... I really didn't take an initiative to see them, I kind of wrote them of as "kids fair" and people literally had to force me to watch them. I did find them enjoyable, not enough to buy the DVD but enough to change my point of view.

The only thing that grates me is everything has to be CG anymore, I can't remember the last traditional animated picture they put out.

Yeah, there's certainly more of his patented jazz stylings and commanding orchestral presence than what I noticed from my first viewing.  But the whimsical choice of instrumentation and comedy-heavy sound truly makes this stand out from any of Giacchino's works to date.  It's fantastic.

The salsa-infused "Collette Shows Him Le Ropes" and its opening variation in "End Creditouilles" are just so much fun, as is the peppy western whistling/harmonica/slide guitarin' ensemble that makes up "Remy Drives A Linguini."  And how can you not fall in love with lovely Camille's "Le Festin"? ^_^

The score actually brings to mind the Romancing SaGa arranged album "La Romance."  I'll need to give that golden oldie another listen as well.

^

I think that I need to hear the score in context. It's a pretty long album and as well-composed as it is, a lot of it tends to blend together for me (then again, I had a similar problem with his other Pixar effort). It's certainly more coherent than most animated-film scores are.

Just listened to it yesterday, and I really like it (though the theme doesn't seem as memorable as The Incredibles, granted). One thing that really struck me was how different and....acoustic, I guess, it was.

-Joshua

I FINALLY got around to seeing this (Yeah, I know. Took my time ) and I loved it. Both film and score are top-notch. It's absolutely astonishing what they can do with computers these days.