RootsRain

Emily and I went to the theater last night to see Ratatouille. It won’t actually be out in theaters until June 29, but I got some free tickets from work to see an advance screening. So Emily and I packed a PB&J dinner and drove out to the Perimeter on our “free date night.” It was like being little kids… we drove in a green Bug, ate PB&J, stood in line with about 150 “other” kiddos, and watched a kids’ movie.

Well, maybe it’s not entirely a kids’ movie. Pixar doesn’t make movies for a single demographic unless that demographic is “people who enjoy good, clean, 3D-animated movies.”

Ratatouille starts off with a hilarious little film short (“Lifted”) starring a sleeping bumpkin and two globular aliens. It was quite funny, especially when the bumpkin got stuck in the window. Enough said. I don’t want to spoil anything.

Ratatouille actually opened a bit slow. Well, besides the opening scene of crashing out of the window with a shotgun blast close behind… I mean the plot took a little while to get moving because there was a lot of character and circumstance introduction at the beginning. But things pick up once Remy (the rat main character) gets to Paris and I spent a lot of time just staring stupidly at the screen with a look of delight and wonder on my face. A lot of the movie wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny. But the whole thing was a feast to watch. I was struck again with how amazingly well Pixar can animate; with how well they nail those water effects, the lighting, the physics of tossed shrimp sautéeing in a pan.

They also did a good job of coming up with a synesthetic way of depicting what different foods taste like by fading the background to black and animating abstract shapes and colors in response to what the character was eating—somewhat like the visual sounds from the original Fantasia.

There were a few plot devices that seemed a bit stretched… the recurring ghost-imagination-hallucination-conscience-whatever of the departed Gusteau, the hair-brained (sorry… I had to say that) device where Remy could control Linguini (the hapless garbage boy at Gusteau’s Restaurant) via yanking on his hair like heavy equipment controls (although that did lead to a lot of hilarious moments, like Linguini constantly holding ingredients to his head so that Remy could smell them to test for freshness—Remy was inside Linguini’s hat). But generally the plot devices weren’t distracting.

The film really seems to pick up about half way through and the audience was laughing pretty much non-stop after that. Capers were coming so fast, yet perfectly-timed, at the end that it was reminiscent of some of the best scenes from Toy Story 2 (the elevator scene, the drive in the pickup truck).

Ratatouille is, like all other Pixar films, high on moral tone. In this film, the “morals” were: stealing is always wrong, revenge is unsatisfying and makes everything worse, friendship requires sacrifices, giving or making is better than taking, really good and beautiful things can break down even the most rigid barriers, and that people should learn to appreciate goodness even from unexpected places. There were actually a few points in the movie where I was thinking “this is awfully overt morality… way to go!” In other places, I was thinking “I wonder if Brad Bird’s a Christian because some of this sounds distinctly metaphorical for something biblical…”—like when Linguini tries to explain how Remy has been the genius chef controlling his movements and that everything good they see in Linguini is actually Remy controlling him; or when he tells the other cooks that just because the truth sounds insane, doesn’t mean it’s any less the truth.

To sum up, Emily and I really enjoyed Ratatouille and, if I had to rank it in Pixar’s canon, I’d have to place it somewhere maybe below Monsters, Inc. but definitely above Cars or Bug’s Life. It’s probably right about the level of The Incredibles, which makes sense because Brad Bird directed that one, too. It does have a few weak seams where the plot devices show through, but overall it’s a funny, well-crafted movie with a good story.

★★★★

I apologize that this will be a slightly odd post. I had to change the oil in my VW Beetle for the first time this week and I couldn’t find anything on the internet about how to do it (where’s that darn filter anyway? how many quarts does it hold? what kind of oil does it take?). I can’t exactly consult the owner’s manual provided to me by Volkswagen, because all it says is “Don’t even think about changing the oil by yourself, you cheapo. Take it to a VW dealer so we can charge you $50.” Comparative Advantage aside, I still hate paying someone good money for something I can do myself. Plus, I get a resounding feeling of accomplishment that never tingles through me while sitting in Jiffy Lube’s lobby.

So this is my individualist attempt to schtick it to der Mann (this is Volkswagen after all). Below are my step-by-step instructions on how to change the oil in a 2007 VW Bug (keep in mind that I am not a mechanic and I in no way make a claim that this method of oil changing will meet manufacturer’s guidelines, warranty requirements, or any other damaging stuff you might want to sue me over… so there):

Jack the car up, of course, making sure the parking brake’s on. Open the hood and remove the oil cap.

With your trusty oil pan and a good set of channel locks, you’ll want to loosen the drain plug and let all the oil drain into the pan. Once it’s finished draining, screw the drain plug back in and tighten it with the channel locks.

Then you’ll need to remove the central rock and mud shield underneath the engine. It only has four screws in it and is very easy to remove. You’ll need a torx driver, though. (Note: Volkswagen apparently changed the design under the engine in mid 2007. There are now “six 12 point caps screws and two 16mm bolts” holding the rock & mud shield in place. HT: Gregg)

You should see the oil filter right away. There are some cables slightly covering it, but it’s still pretty obvious. Position your oil drain pan beneath it and unscrew the drain cap. Nothing drained when I unscrewed it but yours might be different.

Now comes the gooey part. Unscrew the filter housing with an oil wrench (or, if you have enormously strong hands, you could use them instead). Be careful when you pop it from its housing because it will dump oil everywhere.

Grab a screwdriver and push its tip into the red plug in the center of the filter housing. Push the red drain tip back and then to the side and the oil should drain out of the housing. (HT: Gregg) Once everything’s drained, take an oil wrench and unscrew and remove the filter housing.

Set the housing upright on the ground and pull the old filter off. Then be sure to remove the old rubber O-ring from the housing. There’s a little tab that sticks up from it so you can grab it with your hand. Seat the new O-ring in (comes with your new filter) with your fingers and put the new filter into the housing (be sure to push hard enough that it clicks… that pushes the red drain tip back into position).

Add some oil to the oil filter. (I’m not sure what good this does, but the practice has been recommended to me by a mechanic.) Make sure the oil you’re using is 5W-40 full synthetic (although VW does say that 5W-30 full synthetic can be used in a pinch). Expensive stuff but required by the warranty, I believe.

Now put all that stuff back together. I hand-tightened the filter housing (I’ve got strong hands), screwed the drain cap back in place, put the rock shield back on, then added 5½ quarts of 5W-40 full synthetic oil, replaced the cap and closed the hood. No problem.

Oh. And don’t forget to remove the jack.