WEEKLY DISCUSSION: Your favorite animated film

What is your favorite and why?

For me, it has to be Princess Mononoke. I remember seeing it for the first time on a premium cable channel at like 5 in the morning before school and just being blown away. Everything about it was just perfect. The art, the creatures, the amount of emphasis put on women, GIANT TALKING WOLVES. It really broke me into anime (that wasn't DBZ or Gundam). I still watch it often to this day.

 

Oh man. This is a crazy complicated question.

When I was a kid, Aladdin would have taken the cake, no doubt. I'm sure I've seen that movie 100+ times.

For me, there are too many possible contenders from Pixar alone, not to mention the classic Disney films, Studio Ghibli, Dreamworks, and the rest. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline, The Iron Giant, The Jungle Book, Watership Down . . . literally my first memory is of watching Lady and the Tramp in the hospital when I was three and my sister was born.

Okay, for right now I'm going to say Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky. But I reserve the right to change my opinion whenever I want.

 

The Pixar classics, and the Toy Story series in particular, are really the only contenders for for me. I think there was a period of time in my childhood when I would literally watch Toy Story on VHS every single day. And to have Toy Story 3 come out the summer I graduated from high school just sealed it even more that those movies would always be deeply meaningful to me.

My big gap in this category is Miyazaki. I've seen bits and pieces of a lot of his movies and I know I've seen all of Spirited Away at least once, but it was usually with groups of people or while I was working on something else. I definitely want to give his classics a focused viewing soon because of how much people love them.

 

Don Hertzfeld's animated short films are masterpieces. They're beautiful and so profoundly moving, they can be hard to watch in how deeply they can cut. Specifically It's Such a Beautiful Day. World of Tomorrow used digital animation as opposed to Beautiful Day's I think completely practical effects, and both are just stellar examples of each.

The Lego Movie is near flawless. The animation is fucking gorgeous, it's hilarious, subversive, a wonderful Batman deconstruction, and just pitch perfect mainstream cinematic storytelling.

The Congress isn't fully animated but I got to see it as part of the Chicago Independent Film Festival a couple years ago and it's really gorgeously animated and a really interesting delve into celebrity and commercial art, and our societal devotion to both.

Akira is certainly something. I love that film's aesthetic and the deeper psychological and political thematics being explored, I thought about it for a long time after seeing it.

I have a soft spot for Fantastic Mr. Fox, I love it's humor and the voice performances are wonderful.

The animation in the Triplets of Belleville is really unique and lends itself to the storytelling more interestingly than a lot of stuff I've seen, using the art to play up the thematic manifestations of what the characters and action mean to the story.

Honorable mentions go to the usual Disney/Pixar/Ghibli stuff. Up, Toy Story, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Wreck-It Ralph, Beauty and the Beast, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and How to Train Your Dragon are really great.

 

When it comes to animation, I'm still a sucker for classic Disney stuff. I know it's cliche, but the imagery in films like Bambi, Snow White, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio still holds up and is legendary stuff. Same goes for the pure quality of Pixar.

Then there's the nostalgic part of me, who still adores Don Bluth's films for their complexity and mature themes of which I was far too young to comprehend as a 5 year old.

I don't typically watch a whole lot of animated material from other sources, tbh. Perhaps I need a "must watch" list. I know there are quite a number of films regarded as classics that I need to see.

 

The Lion King is my favorite movie of all time. The story itself is basically Hamlet (which is my favorite Shakespeare), so it has a solid backing but makes it fun. And then the soundtrack is unbelievable -- Circle of Life and Can You Feel the Love Tonight especially. Never get tired of watching it.

 

Too many. Bolding the ones that mean a lot. I mean, they all do. You know what I mean.

Disney: The Lion King, Tangled, Lilo and Stitch, Big Hero 6, Mulan
Pixar: Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Up
Dreamworks: Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, HTTYD 2

I haven't seen some of the more recent ones, though (Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, Zootopia). I haven't seen Kung Fu Panda, but I heard those are good. Have no interest in Despicable Me/Minions.

I like what Frozen stands for, that you don't need to rely on the prince to save you, but man, fuck Frozen, Mulan is so much more badass, and hell, even Nani is more badass. And Rapunzel is the cutest.

Hayao Miyazaki: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away
Hideaki Anno: everything Evangelion
Mamoru Hosoda: Wolf Children, Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, everything Digimon
Makoto Shinkai: 5 Centimeters Per Second, The Place Promised in Our Early Days
Satoshi Kon: Millenium Actress, everything else.
Madoka Movie 3
Steins;Gate Movie
Grave of the Fireflies

Wolf Children and Millenium Actress especially. I'm a mess by the end of them.

I actually haven't seen the more recent Shinkai, either. And now that I think of it, those are the only two Miyazaki I've seen from beginning to end. I'm terrible.

The significance of Akira is not lost on me, but I have no emotional attachment to it. Though, I guess it is, as you sort of described, more of a film you think about than one you feel.

 

does Who Framed Roger Rabbit count

 

Oh I forgot Inside Out. That's my favorite Pixar film. Summer Wars comes to mind now as well, though I haven't seen it since like 2009 or 2010

 

Summer Wars was basically the exact same plot as Digimon the Movie. The Girl Who Lept Through Time was excellent though.

Paprika is up there for me.

All Dog's Go to Heaven makes me cry every time.

 

And I love them both haha

 

Titan AE

Great voice actors. Cool space visuals. Fun story. Engaging chase scenes. And music by Lit.

 

A Goofy Movie. I will know just about every word until I die. I've wanted to form a band that does punk covers of the soundtrack called Max & the Goofs for about ten years.

 

Monster's Inc. or The Emperor's New Groove.

I could rattle off so many more...

 

Anastasia is probably my absolute favourite.

 

Yes. Fuck Frozen.

 

Top Favorites:
Disney's Robin Hood
The Fantastic Mr Fox
My Neighbor Totoro (The Fox release, not the Disney release)
Rango
Toy Story 3

 

Vitriol for Frozen is strange to me. Is it just because it made $1 billion and is a pop culture phenomenon and massively marketed?

 

Probably not doing myself any favors here, but I really enjoyed Frozen quite a bit. Saw it more than once in theaters, and one of those times was completely by myself. Not my favorite animated film—maybe not top ten—but still a really solid one.

 

Frozen is good. I don't understand why someone would take a hardlined stance against it.

 

I heard the first song from the film and shut it off. I knew right away it wasn't for me.

 

No Elsa on screen no care. Also, I didn't like any of the songs.

 

Sure. Completely fair. A little different than "fuck Frozen" though

 

I liked Frozen because it was cool to see Elsa struggle with anxiety and guilt very relatable content

 

Frozen was basically a story wrapped around two surefire hit songs and so the plot was so lazy and terrible...especially the trolls. Also, I have complaints about both male leads.