Ratatouille (Disney)
Sometimes I feel like all this writing about movies — coming up with reasons to dismiss movies I dislike, articulating elements I think could have been handled better and enumerating the problems in script, casting and execution — has turned me into a curmudgeonly freak who’s incapable of enjoying a great Hollywood entertainment on its own terms. And then I see something like Ratatouille, which plasters a dumb smile on my face for the majority of two hours and runs over and over in my head for weeks and months. Look, critics don’t really enjoy sitting through dross, even if it means they get to exercise their fickle fingers for a few minutes by typing a clever slag on the new popular blockbuster or critics’ (the wrong critics) darling and slapping a C-, or a D, or even an F at the bottom of the review. Those reviews can be fun to read. But they’d destroy the soul if there weren’t reviews of movies like Ratatouille to go along with them. A-freaking-plus, man.
Buy it from Amazon.com: Ratatouille
or Ratatouille [Blu-ray]
Sicko (Weinstein Co.)
Of all Michael Moore’s qualities, the most underrated may be his skill
as a storyteller. For better and worse, his strategy has always
involved forcing his political arguments to fit a strong narrative
structure. In those terms, Sicko, his documentary about the American
health-care system, is a doozy. This film’s stories are heartbreaking;
many of its characters are already dead — victims, Moore argues, of
for-profit HMOs that seek to deny as many insurance claims as possible.
He gathers anecdotal evidence about universal, government-paid health
care in Canada, France, the U.K., and even Cuba — where he’s able to
secure no-questions-asked care for a group of ailing 9/11 rescue
workers. Moore once again skirts anything resembling real debate,
failing to engage with dissenting views on more than a superficial
level, but his questions are effectively pointed. If universal health
care is the boondoggle its opponents claim, why is Moore able to find
so many happy testimonials from non-U.S. citizens? And what are the
moral implications of a system that refuses care to people who are
desperately in need? Impressively, Moore maintains a sense of humor,
keeping Sicko from becoming pointlessly shrill or completely maudlin
— instead, it’s absorbing, occasionally infuriating, and thoroughly
entertaining.
