Tonight's Movie: Ratatouille (2007)

RATATOUILLE was actually last night's movie, enjoyed as part of our Thanksgiving entertainment along with the USC-Arizona State football game.

As I wrote last year, one of our family traditions is to watch a new DVD -- often from Disney -- on Thanksgiving. The rest of the family had seen RATATOUILLE when it first came out, but this was my first viewing, and I enjoyed it very much. It was a fun melding of two of my interests, Disney and cooking. The animation was most impressive.

The actors voicing the characters in RATATOUILLE include Brad Garrett, Brian Dennehy, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, and, of course, Pixar regular John Ratzenberger. Peter O'Toole is perfect as a Very Scary Food Critic. Animator Lou Romano voices Linguini; Romano also portrayed characters in THE INCREDIBLES and CARS.

By coincidence, we just watched a DINNER: IMPOSSIBLE episode in which Chef Robert Irvine cooked a meal for 600 Pixar employees. One of Chef Robert's assistants that day was RATATOUILLE producer Brad Lewis. It was good fun. If you're a fan of the film, keep your eyes open for a rerun of this TV show.

RATATOUILLE runs 111 minutes. It's available on DVD. Like the CARS DVD last year, there are only a handful of extras -- why do I have the feeling Disney will be "double-dipping" with 2-Disc Platinum editions a few years from now?!