Shaun is a 29-year-old slacker with a mounting pile of problems. Hes got a dead end job, his roommate is sick of Shauns best friend Ed constantly hanging around, and his girlfriend Liz is sick of his lack of motivation.

Oh, and pretty much everyone in his town has turned into a zombie overnight.

So goes Shaun of the Dead, the 2004 British film that contained the tagline, A romantic comedy. With zombies.

Shaun of the Dead combines several genres. Calling it a romantic comedy may be overstating it a bit; the plot is your typical slacker is called to action due to circumstance story but with atypical circumstances.

The first act of the film (a solid 30 minutes) introduces us to Shauns world. During the day, Shaun hawks electronic goods out of a department store. At night, Shaun is torn between spending time with his girlfriend Liz and their tag-along buddies (Liz wants Shaun to hang out with her two flat mates, while Shaun cant resist bringing his obnoxious best friend Ed with him wherever he goes). The troupe usually end up hanging out at the Winchester, Shauns pub of choice (and the object of Lizs hate). On par with films of this nature, Shaun manages to bungle his Lizs last chance offer, which causes her to finally dump him. And, end scene.

The next day, Shauns world changes, and I dont mean just because hes single. For some unknown reason, the majority of people in Shauns town have turned into zombies overnight. Once Shaun and Ed figure this out, they decide to set in motion a plan rescue Liz, her roommates, and Shauns mother (and kill his stepfather in the process, who the two suspect is already on his way to becoming a zombie), and hole up in the safest place in town the Winchester.

Shaun of the Dead is a lot of things. Sure, its a relationship film, but its also both a zombie flick and a zombie parody all rolled into one. I was never quite sure whether or not the film was taking the zombie angle seriously or not. One moment you have our two heroes flinging vinyl LPs at zombies trying to fend them off, and the next will involve a quite graphic scene of zombies having lunch.

Shaun of the Dead also contains literally tons of references to other zombie and horror films, but they are done in such a way that knowing or understanding these references makes no difference in how the film is understood or enjoyed. When Ed yells, were coming to get you, Barbara! to Shauns mom, those who recognize the line from the original Night of the Living Dead will get an extra chuckle, while those who missed the reference wont feel like theyre missing a thing.

A final caveat; Shaun of the Dead is very funny, very graphic, and also very British. There were more than a couple of times I missed jokes and dialogue because of the actors thick accents. The film is still very enjoyable, but be prepared to rewatch a few scenes and/or turn on subtitles if you want to catch every last one liner from the film.

Shaun of the Dead is a tribute to the zombie genre. Its enjoyable, unpredictable, and packed from end to end with humor, pain, despair and hope. Highly recommended to both fans of horror movies who like to laugh, and fans of romantic comedies who dont mind watching people being torn limb from limb and eaten occasionally.

MCs know them as the backbone of their industry. You and I know them as DJs. Our parents refer to them as “the guys who make that ‘wiki-wiki’ sound by scratching records back and forth.” Now simply known as “turntablists”, these men (and women) behind the wheels of steel are the focus of the 2001 documentary titled, simply, Scratch.

DJs have come full circle from the 1970’s, when the documentary begins. In the beginning, DJs provided the beats that kept parties going “on and on ’til the break of dawn,” so to speak. Back then, MCs were just the guys who would introduce the DJs, occasionally shouting things like, “throw your hands in the air, and wave ’em like you just don’t care” over the DJs beats. Over time, MCs began talking more and more and eventually evolved into rappers, at which point fans began focusing on them instead. DJs were pushed to the back, and were eventually replaced by drum machines, samplers and computers. Despite all of this, the art of DJing has never completely gone away. Kept alive through urban competitions and clubs across America, turntablists such as Mix Master Mike (Beastie Boys) and DJ Q-Bert have become stars in their own right, once again brinigng DJs to the front of the stage.

Scratch is told through a series of interviews. Aforementioned Mix Master Mike and DJ Q-Bert are the two biggest current stars to appear in the film, but old school rap fans will recognize names like Afrika Bambaataa, DJ Krush and Grand Mixer DXT (the DJ from Herbie Hancock’s classic song, “Rockit”).

The documentary covers several facets of turntablism, from competitions to searching record stores for albums with the perfect “break beat”. Break beats, short instrumental sections that appear within songs, are the turntablist’s life blood. These short passages are then looped manually by mixing two records together with two record players and a mixer in a process called beat mixing. It’s fascinating to watch, and appears multiple times throughout the film.

The documentary unfolds logically and covers the highlights without treading in boring details. Those searching for more depth will find it on disc 2, which includes DJ lessons from both DJ Z-Trip and DJ Q-Bert, and music selections that you can listen to (or even theoretically use). As an overweight, white, middle aged, self-proclaimed metal head, I found Scratch both entertaining and informative. Regardless of whether you appreciate turntablists or even this style of music, their appreciation of music, hip hop culture and sheer talent is undeniable.

If you’re a fan of both horror movies and comedies like I am, no doubt you’re already familiar with the Scary Movie franchise. If you’re familiar with the Scary Movie franchise, you may already be familiar with the turmoil surrounding the third movie. Basically, the Wayans brothers dropped out, the script got passed around and rewritten — and rewritten, and rewritten, and finally ended up with David Zucker (Airplane) at the helm.

This is probably the first time I’ve ever written this in a movie review, but at times I felt like Scary Movie 3 might have actually had too much of a plot. This time around, the horror-parody franchise primarily mixes 8 Mile, Signs, The Ring, and The Matrix. Straying from the Wayans’ formula of pinning lots of skits together, Zucker’s style shows through by trying to make an actual movie with visual jokes just kind of piled everywhere.

Anna Faris is back as Cindy. This time around Cindy is a reporter who watches the video tape from the Ring. She meets up with a farmer named George (Signs) who really wants to be a rapper (8 Mile). If you’ve seen The Ring and Signs, you can probably imagine most of the jokes. Tin foil hat? Covered. Creepy video tape? Covered at least two or three times. Crop cirlces? Check. News footage of aliens walking around in the background? Check.

As with all movie parodies, some jokes worked, but unfortunately in Scary Movie 3 a lot don’t. Some of the Ring and Signs’ jokes were pretty funny, but the 8 Mile stuff seemed WAY too long to me. The Matrix jokes seemed somewhat dated and particularly forced. The architect scene (with a cameo by George Carlin) was pretty good, but the “visiting the Oracle” joke would have been more timely in Scary Movie 1. That being said, I can say that I did laugh outloud at least three times that I can remember.

Scary Movie 3 is probably my least favorite of the trilogy. It feels patched together and heavily edited — a fact that shows itself in two obvious ways. One, at least two scenes I saw in the trailer are missing from the film, and two, the film emerged with a PG-13 rating.

Fans of the other two Scary Movie films will laugh a few times. Those who don’t will get another chance next year — Scary Movie 4 is already set to be released in 2004.

Road to Victory tells the story of Elliot, a college football star who, after one too many blows to the head, can no longer maintain an erection. Elliot’s embarassment and frustration is compounded when Anna, a fellow student who also happens to be a stripper, falls in love with him. If you didn’t feel like a loser before reading this, let me reiterate the fact that there are guys out there who can’t get it up out there dating strippers, while you’re sitting at home reading this on the Internet. Go you.

Throughout the film’s 100 minute running time we follow Elliot through his journey. Most of the film is split between two major plot tracks: Elliot’s doctor visits (in which he visits a series of sexual dysfunction doctors, all of whom apparently hate him), and Elliot’s relationship with Anna (which essentially consists of her multiple attempts to have sex with him, and his inability to deliver). When Elliot and Anna aren’t in bed together they’re competing for the title of “who can be meaner to the other one.” At different points in the film I was rooting for each one to leave the other. The backdrop to all of this fighting is Elliot’s desire to finish his college football season and get drafted into the NFL.

Taking all things into consideration and especially the fact that this is an independent movie, Road to Victory isn’t a bad film. It’s biggest hurdle will be finding an audience interested both in college football and sexual dysfunction. Like space adventures about abortion or monster movies focusing on divorce, the two topics are such opposites that it may be hard for people who care about one topic to stay interested in the other. It would be like if Reese’s skipped peanut butter and decided to mix chocolate with cheese.

The acting in Road to Victory is on par with other independent movies; it’s not stellar, but it’s good enough to carry the film’s plot forward. On the other hand, the special effects in Road to Victory are simply superb. The DVD’s included special effects reel shows how off the shelf digital editing programs were used to convert day scenes to night, add filled stands to the background of football scenes, and add other visual effects throughout the film. For a low budget film, the effects are spectacular.

If at any point I sounded like I was dumping on Road to Victory, I’m not — it’s a decent film with an original idea and good technical execution. I don’t know that the topic at hand has enough mass appeal to skyrocket Road to Victory into the public’s eye, but with a solid film such as this under Mike Reilly’s belt I expect to see big things from he and his crew in the future.

Ringu 0: Bâsudei is a prequel to the popular Ringu series of Japanese films, which later became The Ring series here in the US. The Japanese film Ringu was remade as The Ring. The first Japanese sequel (Rasen) was a box office failure. Later, Ringu 2 (in Japan) and The Ring 2 (in US), apparently unrelated, were both released. Bâsudei translates to “birthday”, and as a prequel, Ringu 0 tells the pre-“well” story of Sadako (Samara, in the US), before things went really bad. The Ring 3 is slated to be released in 2007 and is rumored to be a remake of Ringu 0. Confused? Not as much as I was, after watching this movie.

In Ringu 0, Sadako Yamamura isn’t the creepy ghost killer we know from the later Ring films but instead a shy, introverted teen desperate to blend in with her peers. In the beginning of the film we learn that Sadako’s elementary school classmates all drowned on a school outing to the sea. Later, all the attendees at a press conference Sadako attends keel over after being near her. Sadako then joins a college acting troupe and sure enough, before long her fellow actors begin dropping like flies. The end of the film becomes a race against the clock with the troupe trying to stop Sadako before she stops them the hard way.

Save for character differences, the plot of Ringu 0is remarkably similar to Stephen King’s Carrie. Both stories feature young women with telekinetic powers that they don’t have much control over and flare up when they get really pissed off. The only difference is in the final ten minutes of Ringu 0, where the evil Sadako harnesses her power and proceeds to do bad, bad things with it.

If you’re not used to it, Japanese horror is difficult to get into. The plot of Ringu 0 lumbers along painfully slow, and the director goes to great lengths to villify anyone who gets whacked before they go so it’s tough to feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t make it to the finish line. I’d call Ringu 0 “interesting” over “good” or “entertaining.” There’s nothing in it about “the tape” at all, and in trying to explain what makes Sadako tick they drive viewers away from the creepiness the original films had. In fact, other than a couple of shots near the end of the film, it’s tough to even classify the prequel as a horror film. Again, excluding the end, it’s not particularly scary nor violent. It’s as if the writers said, “huh, I wonder what it would be like if Sadako was human and went to college.” After watching Ringu 0, now I know.

Ringu 0: Bâsudei is a prequel to the popular Ringu series of Japanese films, which later became The Ring series here in the US. The Japanese film Ringu was remade as The Ring. The first Japanese sequel (Rasen) was a box office failure. Later, Ringu 2 (in Japan) and The Ring 2 (in US), apparently unrelated, were both released. Bâsudei translates to “birthday”, and as a prequel, Ringu 0 tells the pre-“well” story of Sadako (Samara, in the US), before things went really bad. The Ring 3 is slated to be released in 2007 and is rumored to be a remake of Ringu 0. Confused? Not as much as I was, after watching this movie.

In Ringu 0, Sadako Yamamura isn’t the creepy ghost killer we know from the later Ring films but instead a shy, introverted teen desperate to blend in with her peers. In the beginning of the film we learn that Sadako’s elementary school classmates all drowned on a school outing to the sea. Later, all the attendees at a press conference Sadako attends keel over after being near her. Sadako then joins a college acting troupe and sure enough, before long her fellow actors begin dropping like flies. The end of the film becomes a race against the clock with the troupe trying to stop Sadako before she stops them the hard way.

Save for character differences, the plot of Ringu 0is remarkably similar to Stephen King’s Carrie. Both stories feature young women with telekinetic powers that they don’t have much control over and flare up when they get really pissed off. The only difference is in the final ten minutes of Ringu 0, where the evil Sadako harnesses her power and proceeds to do bad, bad things with it.

If you’re not used to it, Japanese horror is difficult to get into. The plot of Ringu 0 lumbers along painfully slow, and the director goes to great lengths to villify anyone who gets whacked before they go so it’s tough to feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t make it to the finish line. I’d call Ringu 0 “interesting” over “good” or “entertaining.” There’s nothing in it about “the tape” at all, and in trying to explain what makes Sadako tick they drive viewers away from the creepiness the original films had. In fact, other than a couple of shots near the end of the film, it’s tough to even classify the prequel as a horror film. Again, excluding the end, it’s not particularly scary nor violent. It’s as if the writers said, “huh, I wonder what it would be like if Sadako was human and went to college.” After watching Ringu 0, now I know.

Spoilers abound. Beware.

2002’s The Ring was a genuinely creepy film. In the original film (and by that I mean the American version; I’ve yet to see the Japanese film Ringu on which The Ring is based), Rachel (Naomi Watts) and her young son Aidan (David Dorfman) stumble over a videotape which unleashes the really creepy ghost of Samara (Daveigh Chase) to come and kill you. The only way to avoid having your soul sucked out by this creepy cocktail-sized creature is to pass the tape on to someone else within seven days. If someone else views the tape within one week, you’re off the hook, and that person becomes the Samara’s target. Rachel unknowingly unleashes the evil Samara upon the world (after her son accidentally watches the tape), and at the end the two of them manage to pass the tape on and spare themselves from soul-suckage.

That brings us to The Ring Two. Rachel and Aidan have relocated to escape the horror of the ring, but unfortunately their past catches up with them pretty quickly. It turns out that copies of the tape are now circulating on the black market. Watching the tape and getting as close as you can to the seven-day mark before passing the tape off to a friend and narrowly preventing Samara from showing up to eat your face has become a popular pastime amongst teens (at least they’re no longer trying to hurt themselves by imitating Jackass stunts). This would have made an interesting movie; unfortunately, this side plot is abandoned about ten minutes into the film.

After a local teen gets to meet Samara up close and personal, Rachel knows what’s up. She uses her journalistic skills to drive to the crime scene, sneak into the ambulance, view the body, have her first encounter with Samara, go to the police station, try and interview the witness (a shell-shocked girlfriend), and then go back to the crime scene to break into the house and steal the tape. She then drives off into the woods, dowses the tape with gasoline and ignites it.

Of course that doesn’t stop Samara – otherwise it would have been a short film (and we would all have been the better for it, trust me). As it turns out, Samara doesn’t need people to view the tape any longer to waltz in and out of the real world. Images of the tape begin appearing on televisions (usually around little Aidan) which allow her to slide into the real world.. Her new goal is no longer to “make people suffer”; it’s to become a real little girl (like Pinocchio, but meaner). Her plan to do this involves moving into Aidan’s body.

Thrown into the middle of all of this is Rachel’s co-worker Max Rourke (Simon Baker), who thinks he can somehow help Rachel and Aidan out. After being convinced of Samara’s existence by looking at some digital pictures on Aidan’s camera (Max has never heard of Photoshop apparently) Max decides the best way he can help the two of them is to bring the possessed kid to his house. When Max prematurely made his exit from the film, I felt a little jealous that he didn’t have to stick around through the whole film like the rest of us.

Apparently the reason for all of this ties back to the original movie. In it, Rachel entered Samara’s alternate reality and enabled her to escape by freeing her from the well in which her mother drowned her. Turns out, she never shut the lid. Of course Rachel the journalist can’t put the pieces of the puzzle together, so she’s forced to go interview the evil Samara’s birth mother Evelyn (Sissy Spacek, no stranger to creepy film moms herself) who is resting comfortably in the cuckoo house. Evelyn gives Rachel the lovely advice of “listening to the voices in her head and killing her son to set him free” So then it’s a race back to the house, where Rachel must decide whether or not to kill her son, to face Samara one last time, and to enter the alternate television reality and fix the can of worms she opened in the original film.

Why am I telling you all of this? To save you the rental fee. The original Ring had tension, it had suspense, it had atmosphere and it had terror. Sure it wasn’t the best horror film of all time but at least it was something. The entire idea of the Ring videotape being passed around gets quickly shoved aside for a dopey detective story that the viewer has no chance of solving. Literally dozens of clues and hints are dropped and abandoned as quickly as they arrived. We see flashes of a suitcase that, although discovered, doesn’t mean anything. We hear people whistling a tune that never met each other and I guess is supposed to explain to the audience that there’s a connection between people, but whatever it was went right over my head.

The stupidest part of the entire movie is the (poorly done CGI) deer attack, which occurs shortly after little Aidan begins seeing Samara again. Not only can the little undead bitch scamper in and out of television sets, eat people’s souls and even possess little boys, she can ALSO control DEER! Is there anything this little lady can’t do folks? So what’s the significance of deer in the film? Got me! As Rachel goes back to investigate Samara’s home, she finds deer skulls in the basement. AH so now it makes sense! Oh, wait, no it doesn’t! What’s the connection, why are there deer heads in the basement and what does it have to do with the entire frickin’ story? Has Bambi gone mad? Have Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen gone berserk? WE’LL NEVER KNOW! ARGH!

The Ring Two starts off on the right foot, but quickly shifts into a bad Murder, She Wrote episode and ends up as a Poltergeist parody. If you haven’t seen the first Ring movie, definitely rent that one instead. And if you have already seen that one and you’re thinking about renting this one, rent the first one again and just pretend it’s the sequel. The Ring Two feels like a direct-to-video release or maybe even a made-for-television movie. Samara deserved better.

Maybe you’ve seen a bad horror film and thought, “I could do that.” Well, chances are, no matter how bad film was, you couldn’t. I mean, even the cheapest of films cost $30k for film stock, cameras, sound equipment, etc. And that’s assuming you get all your friends and staff to work for free.

Redneck Zombies, however, IS a film you could make. The two masterminds (?) behind this film saw a couple of horror films, and decided they would make a horror film. No camera? Screw it, they filmed it on video tape. Lloyd Kaufman says during the introduction that as far as he knows, this is the only film to be released that was filmed entirely on video tape. No special effects? Screw it, a little makeup from the local convenient store. For zombie makeup, the cast used honey, cornflakes, and meat from the local grocery store’s meat department.

The plot starts out like many zombie films. The government has lost a barrel of toxic material. A soldier sent to retreive the barrel looses it off the back of his jeep, and before he can recover it, a big fat redneck steals it from him. Damn rednecks. This is where it stops being like many other zombie films.

On the way home, three other Rednecks steal the barrel, thinking it’s a whiskey still. One they get it home, the barrel falls, cracks open, and leaks into their moonshine. The Rednecks drink the toxic juice, and the transformation is on. The zombies wander onto a group of teenagers out camping in the woods, and the rest is history. The first girl they run into gets her scalp eaten – and she’s one of the lucky ones.

The Rednecks leave their toxic juice out in the woods, and people keep walking by and drinking from them. Now I don’t know when the last time you were in the woods was, but if I was out in the woods and ran across some bottle of liquid just sitting out there, chances are pretty good that I’m not gonna just chug it. The rednecks also are apparently the only supplier of moonshine to the town, and pretty soon every man, woman, and child (yes, lots of children) are drinking the tainted stuff.

The hitchhikers, while trying to leave the woods, soon find Teresa (or, the bottom half of her) and realize the severity of the situation. Like all consciencious teenagers in horror films, they decide to bury Theresa (or, the bottom half of her) and waste valuable time in ESCAPING FROM THE DAMN WOODS WHILE THE SUN IS UP! Oops!

The group of teenagers eventually figure out that common hair spray melts the zombies. This is a little known fact. I have watched every episode of both Mr. Wizard’s World and Beakman’s World, as well as countless other zombie flicks, and I never knew this. This guy finds it out though. Note to self – while trying to kill a zombie, let go of their head.

More army people show up, more zombies appear, more hitchhikers get killed. In yet another plot switch from the “doesn’t anyone think about these things?” department, the campers decide they’d be safer down in a dark mineshaft. Don’t ask.

The rest of the flick is an excuse for some decent home-made special effects. Remember by “decent” I mean “funny or interesting”, not believable. There’s eye-popping, torso-splitting, and all other kinds of fun.

Again, what it all boils down to is, why are you watching these films. Plot? Skip it. Acting? Skip it. Cheesy gore, sillyness, and the privledge of bragging to your friends that you’ve seen Redneck Zombies and they haven’t? Definitely pick it up. Troma has succeeded again in releasing one of the most horrible films imaginable. If nothing else, this film might inspire you to make your own film. If while watching it, you comment, “*I* could make something better than this!” well, you’re probably right.

The brief “get you up to speed” paragraph: Silence of the Lambs was the second story of a trilogy of stories featuring Hannibal Lecter. Hannibal was the third, but the first, and often considered best story of the trilogy, was Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon. Red Dragon was first filmed and released in 1986 as Manhunter. Harris was rumored to be so upset at the film adaptation of his story, he vowed to never convert another one of his novels to film. Fortunately for us, he caved a few years later, Silence of the Lambs was filmed, and the rest is history.

Red Dragon had a few things going for it right off the bat — for starters, this time around they had Anthony Hopkins on board. Secondly, since Red Dragon is a prequil, there’s no need for either Jodie Foster or Julianne Moore to return since Red Dragon takes place before Hannibal ever met Clarice.

Edward Norton plays Will Graham, an FBI agent that solves FBI crimes by two methods. One, he has an uncanny ability to put himself in the mindset of the killer, and two, when all else fails, he hits up his friend Dr. Hannibal Lecter for guidance. The film opens with Graham discussing a psychological profile of a serial killer with Dr. Lecter. Graham puts two and two together, and thanks to a few quick coincidences and a little bit of luck, deducts that Hannibal is actually the killer he is looking for. Unfortunately, he discovers this ten seconds too late, which is enough time for Hannibal to palm a knife and plunge it into Graham’s chest. Graham retaliates with a stabbing of his own, and when Lecter returns for more, Graham returns the favor by emptying his clip into the cannibal’s chest. Both leave with some nasty wounds, Graham retires from the agency and moves to Florida, Lecter is found guilty and sentenced to the locked down cell we’ve seen in the other two movies. Welcome to the first ten minutes of the film.

Enter two new characters. One is Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel), and FBI agent working on a new serial killer case, several years later. The other is Francis Dolarhyde, AKA the Red Dragon (named after an 18th century painting), played by Ralph Feinnes. During the day, Dolarhyde is a mild mannered guy with a harelip and a striking physique. By night, he’s the Red Dragon, a serial killer the local papers have dubbed as “The Tooth Fairy” due to a nasty bite left on the victims. The Red Dragon has this nasty habit of sneaking into people’s homes at night while they’re asleep and doing nasty things to them (I’ll leave “what” as a surprise).

Crawford asks Graham to come out of retirement and help on “just one last case”. Eventually, Graham realizes what Crawford wants, and it’s for him to seek Hannibal’s assistance on the case. But unlike Hannibal’s relationship with Clarice, his interaction with Graham is a bit darker (they did try and kill each other, after all).

Much of the rest of the movie plays out similar to Silence of the Lambs. The game is afoot, and Graham must track down the Red Dragon before he kills again, with or without Hannibal’s help.

The Red Dragon is much more similar in style to Silence of the Lambs than last year’s Hannibal. The gore level lies somewhere between Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. The psychological thrills, the twists and turns, and the sheer horror of a mad man on the loose from Silence of the Lambs has all made it into Red Dragon. Hannibal the Cannibal is a much more effective support character than a lead one as we found out in 2001’s Hannibal, and although much of his screen time here is spent locked up, his acting style is allowed to run free.

The supporting cast is outstanding as well. Alongside Hopkins, Norton, Fiennes and Keitel, we meet Emily Watson (Reba McClane) as Francis Dolarhyde’s love interest, Molly Graham (Mary-Louise Parker) as Will’s concerned wife, and Freddy Lounds (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as a sleezy tabloid reporter, getting a little too close to the action as he tries to scoop the story.

Red Dragon holds its own alongside Silence of the Lambs. That being said, the only reason I don’t think it’s “better” is because it wasn’t “first”. Red Dragon shares so much with its predecessor that its hard not to be successful. That being said, there are enough surprises to keep you guessing, and enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat.

A must see for all fans of the series, or anyone else just looking for a cheap thrill. Not recommended for kids, as this flick is just plain creepy.

Typically in the opening paragraph of a review I would tell you a bit of background about the film about to be reviewed in this case, Pixars latest computer animated film, Ratatouille. The truth of the matter is, I saw Ratatouille with my kid because the 7pm showing of Transformers was sold out, and the 8pm show would have not only put the boy up over an hour past his bedtime, but surely would have led to nightmares about his clock radio trying to kill him. And so, with that in mind, I present to you a review of Pixars latest computer animated film, Ratatouille!

Ratatouille stars Remy, a rat who wants more than the typical life he seems destined to lead. Remys not interested in eating compost, stealing, or walking on all fours. In fact, what Remy is really interested in is cooking. His dream comes true, when he is separated from the rest of his pack and ends up living underneath Gusteaus, a fancy restaurant located in Paris. After discovering that Remy can cook, he is befriended by Linguini, the restaurants garbage boy. After working out a system that allows Remy to physically guide Linguini, the two of them tackle the world of fine dining by storm.

Standing in Linguinis way is Skinner, Gusteaus head chef. Skinner is determined to get to the bottom of Linguinis mysterious kitchen skills, and suspects (forgive me) theres a rat in the kitchen. More suspicion is aroused as Skinner begins to suspect Linguini is there to take over the restaurant.

Before discussing the plot, let me say that Pixar has once again raised the bar for computer animated films. The animation quality, particularly of the backgrounds and the way the characters interact with them, is phenomenal. While neither the humans nor the rats are portrayed in a realistic manner, the way in which they operate within the given environment is amazing.

The plot flows pretty well, overall. Its not particularly deep, but then again consider the audience. Gone are the dozens of in-jokes and adult references for the older audience as found in the Shrek movies. This makes following the storyline a little more forward for junior and a little more boring for dad. There are multiple characters (particularly the kitchen staff) whose names are only mentioned in passing, making it difficult to refer to by name; still, each one is rendered so differently that its never confusing. The bad guys appear scary, the good guys look friendly, and so on.

The story itself gets a little sappy and the ideals presented are oversimplified, but again thats what kids movies are all about. My only real complaint about the film was, upon leaving, my son told me he wants a pet rat for his birthday. Rat-a-noway.