Animation Hall of Fame

Okay, honest to God, I planned on watching a nom yesterday, but both my copy of Tokyo Godfathers and Night on the Whatever Road screwed with me. By the time I decided on Last Unicorn, it was late and I fell asleep.

Anyways, I got the weekend free. Should be able to get at least 2-3 noms done there....

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On Saturday I will definitively watch the next movie, maybe even 2, I don't like being 8th (Yes, I act as this was a race, because I clearly don't want to grow up ) Saturday is one of my exams so I will try to get 6th by passing Topsy and Rauld

I`ve seen madagascar 2 and wall-e,i just havent managed to do the write ups yet

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My room mate tried to talk me into watching the dubbed version of Cagliostro. He's a big fan of David Hayter (who does Lupin's voice in the 2000 Animaze dub), but I watched the original Japanese version instead. My biggest complaint about the film was that I really didn't like Yasuo Yamada as Lupin, so I'm wondering now if I should've watched that dub instead.

I did however like the animation. It was stiff in a few points, but that was too be expected considering when the film was made. I was expecting the film to be slightly more grounded in reality (though still cartoonish), but the action sequences in particular were more ridiculous than I anticipated. It was more of a pleasant surprise than not. I thought it enhanced the comedy for the first half of the film, but honestly I was growing a bit tired of it during the final act.

That may partly be because I felt like the story dragged on a little longer than necessary, but I was still with it for most of the runtime, and I thought the ending really helped the film go out on a high note. I'm not sure how much older Lupin was supposed to be compared to Clarisse, but the gap was large enough that I rather appreciated the romantic plotline not ending in the typical manner.

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I'll be watching my nom tomorrow sometime if I'm not too tired from work. After that I'll be done I guess (not sure if that's a happy feeling or a sad one).

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Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?

Treasure Planet

Really glad this was nominated since it is one of eight Disney Animated Classics i hadn't seen. It's actually really weird that i'd never seen this i was half expecting it all to come rushing back to me because it was released when i was 9 and at that point all of the Disney dvds ended up in my familys collection either because me or one of my younger siblings wanted it. So yeah this was a weird oversight. I liked this fine but i know i would've liked it alot more at that age; particularly because of the adventure.

I really liked the animation which i didn't expect to; don't know some scenes just seemed pretty inspired, i loved the movement in all of the action scenes. I also liked the story, the sense of adventure especially. After thinking about it i think i have more bad than good to say about this even though i think it was more good than bad. So ignore the focusing of the negatives here, i just think i have more to say about that.

Love David Hyde Pierce, the moment i heard his voice a big smile went on my face and he made me laugh quite a lot. "Sarah, i don't know how you do it. Managing this place while raising a felon.. eh... felu.. ah, fellow like Jim" Got to wonder if reading his lines killed him a little inside since he is a proper, big word spouting, intellectual, more or less; noone i can think of has been type-cast as much as Pierce. Whatever anyway i love Niles so much that i'm fine with him slightly altering that role constantly. I think his jokes worked most in the film but then there was the horrible farting jokes from him near the start as well as the farting jokes from when the ship first took off. Think those are things that are eye-rolling as an adult that are inevitably going to be included in a childrens film like this, which is the main thing that makes Disney so inconsistent as an adult. For every great scene or joke there's usually something that makes you cringe. It's so frustrating but understandable, since i know as a kid i'd probably laugh at things like that but as an adult if i don't have a strong nostalgic connection to a particular film i'll probably avoid ever re-watching them because of stuff like that.

I wasn't crazy about Jims character. He was a bit too much rebel teenager which isn't necessarily a bad thing, when it is Disney that is attempting it usually is though. Disney needs to make everything child appropriate and they actually have to adhere to these standards more than most, since it is well documented that they are heavily watchdogged; mostly stemming from the 70s/80s when the filmmakers had more freedom and turned up with a few isolated incidents of obvious adult jokes or say the naked woman in that one shot during The Rescuers. Because of this when they attempt anything the slightest bit edgy it comes across really cheesy to me at least when i'm an adult; like the "bad boy" during those dumb anti-drug videos you were shown in school. He had more to him than that but i have to say watching him was painful at times.

Thanks for nominating this, MM, it wouldn't have felt right if you didn't nominate something Disney, i had some problems with it but thought it was mostly solid. It has made me curious about your own review for it and has made me want to read all the Disney reviewss in your thread that i haven't yet since i usually enjoy them. As i said i mostly focused on the negatives because i reallly didn't have much to say about the parts i liked, other than i liked them which would've been boring. Good film.

Just re-watches of Castle of Cagliostro and Waltz With Bashir left for me. Going to make a start on the 40s HOF first though.

When I first saw this film in theatres, I liked the first act, but kind of hated everything that came afterwards. This time I was much more amused by the events on the ship, though the parts with the malfunctioning robots were still a little too silly for me, and the cautionary tale of the obese humans who are unaware of their own surroundings was a still a little too heavy handed (though thankfully not eye roll inducing like when I saw it the first time).

The things I liked about the film before were still there. I like how the film is able to communicate emotions without needing to rely on dialogue, and the moments between Wall-e and EVE were still touching. The visual design of the various robots, the rubbish piles on Earth, and everything that happened out in space were really well done. I appreciated them all a lot more this time around as well. My favourite thing though, was the use of live actors to contrast how humanity has changed (devolved?) over time.

Also M-O was consistently entertaining, and despite being a comic relief side character, has a nice little character arc. If anything, the film was really successful at showing the changes Wall-e inspired in the other robots and the humans around him.

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Yeah, i think this has to go down as one of the most WTF, things in an otherwise excellent movie. Like you i've came to enjoy it a bit more but i still don't understand how anyone thought this was a good idea. There's some pretty subtle while probably not very original commentary on enviromental problems, then bam OBESE HUMANS. It's one of the most jarring tonal shifts in a movie i've ever seen, and WALL-E is one of my favourite movies.

I didn't say this in the review post because it's not exactly relevant, but I'm kind of glad I didn't rewatch WALL·E with my room mate. He kind of hates that movie, and I think his negativity really would've brought the film down for me. He did pop his head in to say that he kind of regretted not giving it a second chance, because apparently it "sounded whimsical", whatever that means.

He sounds insufferable. Get him to post here!

He frequently peers over my shoulder while I'm on here, so I wonder if he does secretly browse the forum at work or something.

He is probably Suspect. I've lightened up on the whole Canada existing thing, but i'm still not convinced there's more than ten of you.

Maybe it's Suspect with another, what is it, a fourth user profile? Or is it fifth? Sixth? I don't know anymore, I'm so confused

I watched both the subtitled and the dubbed versions of The Castle of Cagliostro.

I watched the subtitled version first (I'm not sure why), but some of the subtitles disappeared from the screen so fast that it made it hard to read at times. (I'm not a fan of subtitles, but that's not usually the problem. This just seemed to be a poor version of the subtitles for some reason.) I found myself either pausing to read some of the subtitles, or in most cases, rewinding to read what I just missed. I was able to follow the movie, but it was annoying, so I didn't feel that the movie was getting a fair chance.

So the next day, I watched the dubbed version, and while the story was the same, it almost felt like a different movie. It was much better being able to just sit back, relax, and enjoy the movie.

The movie kind of felt like a James Bond wannabe, or maybe even a James Bond for kids, except that in this case, the James Bond character is a thief. Lupin seems to have the detective skills of Bond, and the ability to get out of seemingly deadly situations just like Bond, and I think he was supposed to have the charisma of Bond, and he was supposed to be the guy who always gets the girl, but he seemed to be lacking in those areas.

It felt like we were supposed to want him to end up with Clarisse, but I was glad that he didn't. They had no chemistry together. He didn't have much chemistry with Fujiko either, but at least it would have made more sense for them to end up together because their personalities were at least similar.

Overall, the story was good, but not great. It was a fun adventure, but it just felt like it was lacking something, (probably a likable character). I enjoyed this movie, but it just didn't have anything that made it feel "special".

On a side note, did Lupin remind anyone else of Curious George?

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

The Secret of Nimh

First of all, I want to thank Camo for warning me about the spider. As soon as I saw that scene coming up, I prepared myself for it, and when I saw a little bit of his leg, I immediately turned away for about 10-15 seconds until I knew he was gone.

My first thought after watching this movie was that I was surprised that it was considered a "kids/family movie". I knew the story was supposed to be dark, but there were some parts of the movie that just felt like they could be too scary for some kids. The cat, Dragon, the rat attacking Mrs. Brisby when she went to see Nicodemus, her house sinking into the mud with her kids still inside, and even the tractor being a danger before the house is moved. These scenes just felt like the the type of scenes that gave me nightmares when I was a kid.

Fortunately as an adult, they just make the movie feel more like a thriller. Plus the animation of dark scenes with bright colors shining through made these scenes even more exciting. I especially liked the swordfight between Jenner and Justin. I also liked the idea of the amulet having magical powers, but it just seemed a bit far-fetched that the kids would have survived in the house when it sank into the mud, given the amount of time that it was buried in the mud. I thought that scene was stretched out a little bit to long to be believable.

Dom DeLuise as Jeremy was fun as comic relief, but he felt kind of out-of-place in the story. Maybe if he was a little bit less "goofy", he might have worked a bit more for me.

But overall, this was a very good movie. It's a great story with very nice animation.

Told you. All these fools saying they didn't even know there was a spider, and c'mon it was only on screen for 10 seconds. Well it was actually 21 seconds, i counted it! And it was an evil spider which means it was a big scary tarantula that made me feel uneasy even though i'm fine with spiders in films usually. No problem, gbg, i'll continue warning you about things you don't like seeing and ignore these fascists

Good review

And I appreciate every one of these warnings. Thank You.

The Last Unicorn

This is a tough movie to review because it's kind of all over the place for me. It has good points and bad points, but very little that really stands out to make it "special".

I thought the animation was kind of simple. It was pretty, but nothing special. It constantly made me remember that I was watching a kids movie. The title song was okay, but for the most part, the songs were nice, but forgettable. (And I usually love musicals, even when they're animated movies.)

Most of the voice acting was pretty good, but the standouts for me were Mia Farrow as the Unicorn, Alan Arkin as Schmendrick, and Christopher Lee as King Haggard. Surprisingly, my least favorites were Jeff Bridges as Prince Lír and Robert Klein as The Butterfly, two actors who I usually like. René Auberjonois also deserves praise as the Skull. He had a small part, but he was great.

The story itself was only okay, but what I liked best about it was the way the characters grew from the beginning to the end of the story. I liked how the unicorn learned about mortality, love and regret, and the way Schmendrick's magic got better as the story progressed.

I think this movie felt the most like a kids movie because even the characters that were supposed to be scary didn't really make me feel scared at all. Maybe it would have been different if I had seen this movie when I was a kid, but as an adult, it lacked the sense of danger where it was supposed to be dangerous. It's a good movie, but overall, I think it's just a bit too simplistic.

I finished watching all the movies, and if I counted correctly, I only have two more write-ups to do, Waltz with Bashir and Wall-E (my nom).