Animation Hall of Fame

I hadn't seen this film since I was a kid, but as I was watching it, a lot of the story, visuals, and unfortunately even the songs started to come back to me. It's sad to say that All Dogs Go to Heaven didn't hold up so well after nearly 2 decades, but that's not to say that I thought it was bad. It was just nowhere near as charming as I wanted it to be. I did still like the characters' histories, the plot, and the overall feel of the movie, though it was certainly an uneven journey.

The tone of the film is really odd, because you have a lot of darker, more mature elements mixed in with scenes that are obviously tailored for very young children. It just doesn't blend together well at all. For example, you have a criminal casino owner who murders his partner out of greed, but there's also a sappy song about teaching kids to share. It makes me wonder who exactly the target audience for this was. Then again, oddly dark children's films seem to have been a trend in the 80s.

Other than the cringe-worthy songs and the occasionally strange changes in tone, there wasn't anything I actually disliked about the film. I didn't once check the time or feel like the film was dragging its heels. It was pretty enjoyable from start to finish, it just lacked any real impact for me. I do get why I liked it so much before though, and I certainly appreciated the nostalgia trip watching this film entailed.

Attachments

 

I wonder if the dialogue you described as being literary was lifted directly from the book, and if the lines you thought were unnecessary were things added or changed in the screenplay.

And here I was, not even knowing that it was a book adaptation. It would make sense that way. It's not just one dialogue, though, there are quite a few, as well as examples of the contrary. Overall it makes the film very irregular and disjointed in this aspect.

The same person who wrote the book wrote the screenplay though, so my hypothesis may not prove to be very accurate haha.

Night on the Galactic Railroad

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

For the first half hour or so, I was kind of bored with this movie, but it picked up a bit once Giovanni got on the train. However, at that point, it went from kind of boring to kind of confusing. He seemed to be riding a train, but I wasn't really sure where he was going, why his friend Campanella seemed to just appear out of nowhere, who those other people/cats getting on and off the train were, and why any of them were there.

At first, I thought it was just going to be some kind of space adventure, and the train was just the means to get to each stop, but that made less and less sense as the story moved on. Then I thought it might be a dream, but it didn't feel like a dream sequence. Then, when the three people from the ship came on board, I thought maybe they were from the Titanic, and this was basically a "death train". That seemed to be the explanation that made the most sense, especially when Campanella left the train, without letting Giovanni go with him.

But then when Giovanni woke up in the field, I went back to thinking it was just a dream sequence, until he found out what happened to Campanella.

This movie was like a strange Twilight Zone episode. It held my interest, but it confused me more than entertained me.

And with all of that going on, the thing that seemed to bother me the most was that with the train being practically empty, every new passenger seemed to want to sit right next to the strangers who were already on the train. With all of those empty seats, they couldn't find someplace else to sit?

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

All Dogs Go To Heaven

I hadn't seen this movie before, but I've had the DVD sitting on my shelf for a few years, so I was glad to see it nominated in this HoF.

This was a cute movie, but it wasn't great. I liked the story, but I never really connected to any of the characters enough to care what happened to them, except maybe the little girl Anne-Marie. I don't think problem was the voice cast, because they all seemed to do a great job, but I just didn't find any of the dogs likable, and the villains weren't threatening enough to be scary. The story just seemed to progress without much emotion.

However I loved the scene when Charlie was reading the story "Robin Hood" to Anne-Marie, but the book he was reading was actually "War and Peace", and it was upside-down.

I usually love musicals, but the worst part of this movie was the songs. There were no memorable songs, and no great singers. And they definitely should have had someone else sing the songs sung by Burt Reynolds. He might think he can sing, but he can't.

Sadly, this was the last movie for Judith Barsi, the little girl who voiced Anne-Marie. She was murdered by her own father before this movie was released. The song in the end credits, "Love Survives", was dedicated to her.

The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)


Being the second film in a series of five (so far), based on an anime series with four/five seasons (depending on how you count) which in turn was based on a manga series, you'd think it'd be hard to get a grasp on the characters. And that's true, the movie starts off without so much as an introduction, it's immedieatly heist time and within two minutes we have a shoot-out. A minute more and we're told the money's worthless, counterfiet. From there we get a destination and the movie proper begins.

But we still have precious little info on our characters. Lupin's a thief, a good-hearted thief with humor and the power to bend the laws of physics when the movie calls for it. That's about it as far as background goes, not even a first name. I could point out that this is pretty much what we gave Guap so much grief over, but I don't want to drag up that discussion again, and, in the case of this movie, it's not necessary to know everything to understand the movie. We get that Lupin and Jigen are partners, the opening told us that. What Goemon and Fujiko has to do with them is harder to understand, but we get that they've crossed paths before. It's more or less a stand-alone feature, marred for me by the fact that I don't know much about the title character. It would be nice to know that he's the grandson of an famous gentleman thief, hunted around the world by a Tokyo PD Detective (here it's Interpol for some reason) and that Fujiko's an ex-lover prone to double-cross him. But to follow the story of the film, it's gravy rather than meat and potatoes.

Anyway, as it starts, so it goes on. I'll wager this will be the most action-packed of the noms in this HoF, and as such is very entertaining. A more or less total reversal from Galactic Railroad, it's allmost non-stop action and humour throughout. The flamboyant final showdown with the Count was one of my favourite action scenes, along with what happens to him in the end (yes, I'm a sadist, get over it ). The main story of the inprisoned princess and fake money was totally in service of the comedy and action, but it was servicable. Actually, it was kinda dark as far as kidnapped princesses go, especially with the underground cavern of death and the armoured claw-ninjas. That made the story stand out a little, something I appreciated. The dialouge ain't half bad, the comedy's on point and the animation's...highly animated. It funny, well made, and a strong start for Miyazaki. I liked it. Good on you, Raul!

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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?

I guess that means I'm halfway done. I'll hunt down Tokyo Godfathers next, and then it's just the movies I already own left. So far I've really enjoyed the noms and I second Raul's comment on the diverse choices of noms, really great that it didn't turn out to be just disney or just miyazaki or just any one thing. Love the mix.

i didnt know that!

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I knew that she had died before the film was released, but did not know it was because her father killed her. Apparently he also killed her mother, then later set the bodies on fire, and shot himself in the head. Really messed up.

Excellent write up Clazor and glad you liked Cagliostro!

I think I'm going to go with Night of the Galactic Railroad next. Probably won't be until Monday or Tuesday.

Ive never heard of her before.
but wow,thats really awful.just crazy

Yeah, tragic as F***.

I'm either going to watch that or Tokyo Godfathers next. Or maybe Castle of Cagliostro. One of those three.

Yeah, i knew about that kid.. just awful. She seems to be better remembered for Becky in Land Before Time though. I remember seeing it on some sort of crime doc about various celebrity crimes years ago.

Becky? I think you mean Ducky.

Same thing.

I was sure i was right as well so i didn't look it up

Not the first time you were sure about something when you were actually wrong.

Letters to Iwo Jima.