Fav Films – Animation – Part 2

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I really enjoyed the recent Ratatouille too, which we watched with our small group at GV in Plaza Singapura. Like Monsters Inc., I especially liked this also Pixar film largely because of its refreshing story of a mouse who dreams of being a chef. The story is a pseudo-fantasy. But once you get past the notion that rats can cook, it doesn’t subsequently break away from physical reality – i.e. the mice still can’t talk to humans, and there’s a hilarious sequence near the film’s start where the dialog between two mice are heard as squeaks by a human LOL.

There’re also lots of little nice touches: like how Remy declines to walk on all fours, how he and his owner Linguini establish their mode of communication, and how Linguini’s love interest blossoms with Collette.

bloganimated00 The last one in the list isn’t generally acknowledged to be a ‘great’ animated picture. It’s Surf’s Up; a film about a penguin who dreams of surfing. This was one of two Penguin animated pictures to get released – I haven’t seen Happy Feet yet – at about the same time-period.

I thought the documentary-styled and hand-held perspectives worked very well, and as I understand was really intended as a parody of surfing documentaries.

The characters were genuinely likable too and felt very human: Cody the penguin is brash and a little obsessed with surfing, his worshipped hero is washed-out Big Z but returns to mentor and guide him, Lani a life-guard penguin who is Cody’s potential love interest, the three baby penguins who keep getting interviewed by the documentary crew, and a hilariously-played bully current surfing champ Tank “The Shredder” Evans.

Of worthy mention also is the first two Shrek films, Kung Fu Panda (which is my #4 favorite), Ice Age (largely because of Scrat!) and The Incredibles.