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The ads for the ravishing new Disney/Pixar feature "Ratatouille" spell out the titular dish phonetically (as rat-a-too-ee), a tactic not necessary in last summer's marketing and promotion of "Cars." This provides a clue as to why writer-director Brad Bird's story, about a sweet aesthete of a rat who dreams of becoming a chef, may not be in for "Cars"-type action at the box office.

Well, there's no justice in the world. "Ratatouille" may be rated G, but its sense of humor is more sly, more sophisticated and more interesting than most PG-13 or R-rated comedies at the moment. The film may be animated, and largely taken up with rats, but its pulse is gratifyingly human. And you have never seen a computer-animated feature with this sort of visual panache and detail.

The film is also unexpectedly moving in the way it unites all its major characters in their passion for food and the warm feelings that come with it. Bird and his sterling collaborators have created something wholly new here. It's the haute cuisine of contemporary animation. Plus it's crazy about Paris, the way films such as "Funny Face" were crazy about Paris, and rarely have you glimpsed more supple and detailed images of a great city and its eccentric inhabitants.

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As we say "Hello" in all new ways and from all new places with every leap forward in telephone technology, so do we say goodbye.

Don't get too smug, friend. Is there a tiny antenna on your cell phone? Because those are all but gone, too.

With everything we gain, we lose a little more. Who can forget:

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* At Carmike 10 at Tanglewood Mall, Valley View Grande and Salem Valley 8. Rated PG-13 for language and violence. Two hours, 10 minutes.

"Live Free or Die Hard" is the action movie at full-tilt over-drive. After a hiatus of 12 years, Bruce Willis returns as indestructible New York cop John McClane in this fourth episode of the highly popular franchise.

In the intervening years, McClane has taken some lumps in his personal life: He's divorced, estranged from his grown daughter and tired of his job.

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And "Burn Notice" is one very nicely chilled and jaunty encounter with stylish hot weather escapism, neatly wrapped in the sly, witty action tales of blacklisted spy guy Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan, "Touching Evil").

It seems Mike has riled someone really important high up the government espionage food chain.

Shortly after "Burn Notice" announces its hang-loose, prime-time presence at 10 p.m. Thursday on USA, Weston gets the word that he's been fired from his international gig in covert intelligence.

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We have come to take excellence for granted from Pixar, but none of the studio’s films has exuded visual glory with the joy of “Ratatouille.”It is without doubt the most beautiful movie ever made about a rat.The rat, Remy (voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt), lives in France and has been cursed with his country’s love of fine food. This is a curse, because a rat should be content eating easy-to-find garbage, not hard-to-come-by gourmet meals.Fate drops Remy outside the door...

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