2nd Animation Hall of Fame

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Women will be your undoing, Pépé



Wizards

As a youngster artist/stoner, I had always enjoyed the visuals of this film. There was something unique in the fact that there was not one specific format of animation but a complete hodge podge of work.
There were these wonderful fantasy sketches done in chalk on colored paper, as above, then there were moments of rotoscoping (taking live action and painting over it) mixed with the cartoon style of characters


to backgrounds of purely inked linework


and even the character artwork would vary from intense to vaudvillian


The allegorical warnings of propaganda and the destructive nature of technology within the story always seemed to drift into the background. The smorgasbord of various art forms, even now, takes precedence over the story as I watch, and remember the impression that the artwork made on me and the pleasant "trips" I had on numerous occasions and the artwork it inspired during those early years.

Much of the work seems more sketch work than finished/completed work, giving it a more overall rawness that I still find very worthwhile. Even some of the rotoscoping which I wasn't too much of a fan of, has some valid merit these many years later.

Quite the fun trip down daze gone by.
Thank you for that.
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Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no tobira) (Shin'ichirô Watanabe, Tensai Okamura, Hiroyuki Okiura, and Yoshiyuki Take, 2001)
Imdb

Date Watched: 7/26/19
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: The 2nd Animation Hall of Fame, nominated by edarsenal
Rewatch: No


I knew basically nothing about this going in and, now that I've seen it, I still don't know what the hell it was about. Something to do with nanobots that act like a virus and break down into protein being unleashed by some soldier/guinea pig with hallucinations who is trying to find a "door" or some such ****. Whatever. The plot was too convoluted for my apathetic mind to follow.

Adding to my boredom was the fact that I cared absolutely nothing for any of the characters and didn't much like their highly stylized and elongated designs. Also, I would like to put forth this... thing (Ed) as a nomination for most irritating animated film character ever:


(Toad from The Wind in the Willows also deserves a nomination)

All that said, the film looked great - truly beautiful animation and nice use of color. But pretty, pretty pictures are simply not enough to engage me.




Meet the Robinsons

There's nothing really wrong with this movie, it's just not special or new in any way. The filmmakers involved don't try for anything original, as almost every plot element has been used in other time travel movies. There were way too many characters as well, which definitely hurt my interest and enjoyment of it. But other than that nothing really sticks out... which is both a bad and good thing. There wasn't really anything too annoying, but nothing spectacular or amazing that I would want to revisit.




I've been going over the notes I wrote while rewatching The Sword in the Stone, and there's an abnormally high amount of Monty Python and the Holy Grail quotes in there. I might have two things relevant to the film I actually watched haha.





Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Imdb

Date Watched: 7/27/19
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: The 2nd Animation Hall of Fame, nominated by ahwell
Rewatch: Yes.


Spirited Away carries an important and still very much relevant message about consumerism, greed, and the environmental destruction it causes. It features exquisite animation with vibrant colors. Its characters and situations are bizarre and imaginative enough to rival the likes of Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately, however beautiful it may be, it lacks that classic film's humor and charm. It also drags on for far too long and could easily have done without several scenes, especially the romantic elements.

In the end, I found myself respecting the film - but I still don't like it.

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@Miss Vicky considering your other reviews could Spirited Away actually make the top half of your ballot?



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@Miss Vicky considering your other reviews could Spirited Away actually make the top half of your ballot?
That could help it out, is that she hates other films here more



@Miss Vicky considering your other reviews could Spirited Away actually make the top half of your ballot?
I guess that depends on what I think of Tower, since it’s the only one left that I haven’t seen.



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I can. I can wait the rest of my life.

BTW, have we set a deadline?
Let's go with September 18th, although maybe I'll be the only slowpoke needing that long





The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Directed By: Wolfgang Reitherman
Starring: Karl Swenson, Rickie Sorensen/Richard and Robert Reitherman, Junius Matthews

The Sword in the Stone is a film that I've often defended from friends and acquaintances who dismissed it, or thought that it completely failed to live up to Disney's standards. No one else seemed to have a copy of it when they were young, so I've always wondered if nostalgia might be colouring my opinion of a mediocre film, or if it really was an underrated classic. While I do still think the film deserves more respect than it typically receives, I have to admit that it's far less magical than I remembered it being.

The animation is not immaculate, but I've always found that those little imperfections give a certain charm or character to the images that modern techniques miss out on. Even though the backgrounds are quite static, I liked their style and use of colour. There's a minimal number of musical numbers in the film, which is something I appreciate just as much now as I did when I was a kid, but if I ever have to watch this again, I'm skipping over every one of them.

My biggest problem with the film is that it doesn't really work for me as an adult. Much of the story seems pointless, since it's just Arthur and Merlin getting themselves into avoidable trouble. These segments do teach morality lessons to children, but I get absolutely nothing out of them now. I like that Merlin is clumsy and absent-minded, but the slapstick comedy involving him often just made me cringe. I did enjoy some of the dialogue, but could do without the occasional 4th wall breaking. I do still like it more than much of Disney's later offerings, but overall it ended up being a rather mixed bag.


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I kind of surprised myself by getting through that entire post without making a single Holy Grail reference, even though I had jokingly written an entire paragraph on how pulling swords out of stone anvils was a far better basis for a system of government than strange women lying in ponds distributing swords. I mean, you can't expect to wield supreme power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you, but pulling a sword out of a stone is completely acceptable.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
I kind of surprised myself by getting through that entire post without making a single Holy Grail reference, even though I had jokingly written an entire paragraph on how pulling swords out of stone anvils was a far better basis for a system of government than strange women lying in ponds distributing swords. I mean, you can't expect to wield supreme power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you, but pulling a sword out of a stone is completely acceptable.
Arggh, and here I was, WAITING, ANTICIPATING some Holy Grail references!

You silly English Kuuuuunigits.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
We are not silly, we are knights of the round table and we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. It's very serious business.





LOVE that movie. Knew it by heart in high school and we'd do the entire dialogue of it while out partying and causing havoc.





The Adventures Of Prince Achmed (Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed) (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
Imdb

Date Watched: 07/29/19
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: The 2nd Animation Hall of Fame, nominated by ahwell
Rewatch: Yes


I first watched this film back in 2016 and, while I was impressed with the film from a visual standpoint, I found myself quite bored by it. Tonight's experience was a little better. I didn't care much for the story - magic, demons, weak-willed women, and men who seem to subscribe to the notion that "no" means "yes" - aren't really my cup of tea, but I managed to stay engaged for a good chunk of the film. That is, until the fourth act where all the nonsense with Aladdin stretched my ability to give a **** beyond its breaking point. Still, I have nothing but respect and admiration for the attention to detail and immense patience and dedication it required to create this film and I remain very impressed with the beauty that was achieved through such a primitive technique.

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Wizards



The problem with Wizards for me is that it is a story that really should have worked for me but it lacked in the execution that I was hoping for. Someone said it in an earlier review, but I wished that it would have focused more on the adventure aspect and less on the battle and propaganda.

These characters also should have been made more interesting and I didn't care for the voice acting of any of them. Elinor was the worst of them all for me, and could they have made her any uglier. I didn't think that Avatar was all that compelling either. I wish Peace played a bigger role. Blackwolf was kind of a lame villain for me. Peace would be my favorite but I also think he needed an expanded role.

I didn't mind the animation and some of it looked rather cool. What I didn't like we're the live action blended scenes nor did I enjoy the narration scenes all too much.

I'm mainly disappointed than anything else. I think the groundwork was there to deliver something cool but it just didn't happen.