2nd Animation Hall of Fame

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Spirited Away



Of all the films I've seen this is probably the most imaginative of them all, with only The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland giving it any sort of a competition. The film is obviously artistically beautiful. He put so much time and effort into the animation alone. I love the world's that Miyazaki builds in general but this is also his top dog in that regard. The bath house just has so much character to it, with all the little creatures and characters that are a part of it. I really like all the characters in the film, Chihiro and Haku being my two favorites. Haku is really kick-ass as a dragon too. The sound and the music may be the films most underrated component, just a beauty to take it all in and listen. Most engaging is the story, I love how she tries to save her parents from the spell that they are under as the character finds out truly what she is made of. That's always been a winning film recipe for me with characters overcoming adversity. It's hard to really find a flaw, so i give it a perfect rating as my favorite animated film ever.

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Women will be your undoing, Pépé
I'll watch Spirited Away today. I'll give us until Sunday night to finish, think just Hash and Ed have films left. I haven't heard from @Funny Face so we will see if she sees/responds/finishes. Obviously she had a lot going on so I won't push too much.
More than understandable and THANK YOU, Raul, for extending the deadline as you have. It really is appreciated. Having something very personal occur for me these past two weeks that had only added to my usual procrastination.
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Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Spirited Away



Of all the films I've seen this is probably the most imaginative of them all, with only The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland giving it any sort of a competition. The film is obviously artistically beautiful. He put so much time and effort into the animation alone. I love the world's that Miyazaki builds in general but this is also his top dog in that regard. The bath house just has so much character to it, with all the little creatures and characters that are a part of it. I really like all the characters in the film, Chihiro and Haku being my two favorites. Haku is really kick-ass as a dragon too. The sound and the music may be the films most underrated component, just a beauty to take it all in and listen. Most engaging is the story, I love how she tries to save her parents from the spell that they are under as the character finds out truly what she is made of. That's always been a winning film recipe for me with characters overcoming adversity. It's hard to really find a flaw, so i give it a perfect rating as my favorite animated film ever.

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Some excellent points I fully agree with.
I think this as hit the top rank for most engaging of the Miyazki films for me and the imaginative comparisons and how it rises above them are spot on.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé



The Wind in the Willows

Badger: Do you mean to say you don't promise never to touch a motorcar again?
Toad: On the contrary! I faithfully promise that the first motor car I see...
[puts on his driving goggles]
Toad: Poop-poop!

While not breath-taking or enchanting, some of the background and camera angles in this old tale have a lovely rural beauty to them. Much of which is showcased in the opening segments and the introduction of our first character, Mole. These serene pastoral scenes extended to the rowboat/picnic with Rat and sprinkled through the remaining film.

I know extremely little of this children's story but vaguely remember Disney's presentation, done in '49 which shared a double bill with the haunting The Legend of Sleepy Hollow which was a Halloween feature on TV's The Wonderful World of Disney and always stuck in my mind more than the motoring escapades of Toad and his friends.
Looking into it, I did notice both renditions use some very talented British actors voicing the characters. I was pleased to see that Badger was voice by Sir Michael Hordern, who, with along many other esteem roles, I remember from my favorite A Christmas Carol film from 1951 where he played Scrooge's (Alastair Sim) partner, Jacob Marley


A genteel, polite little tale and a quiet end to my viewings for this HoF.



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Is Funny Face disqualified?
I haven't heard from her yet. So it's a possibility even though she only has one film left last I heard. Maybe @Miss Vicky knows if she could finish soon?



I haven't heard from her yet. So it's a possibility even though she only has one film left last I heard. Maybe @Miss Vicky knows if she could finish soon?
I saw her Friday and reminded her that she needed to hurry up and post her write-ups. She said she would post that day, but of course she didn't. She takes her dog to the vet clinic where I work. As far as I know, no drastic change has happened with Daphne's health.

I don't know what is up with her procrastination, aside from the fact that - in my experience - being on time for anything has never been something she's good at.

If I remember, I'll give her a call later today and remind her again.



FF called me back earlier this afternoon and said she'd watched everything. I told her she needed to hurry up and post because people were asking if she was going to be disqualified. Hopefully she doesn't forget again.



I don't know what is up with her procrastination, aside from the fact that - in my experience - being on time for anything has never been something she's good at.
I wish I could say she's wrong, but it's true.

Daphne is still with us and I am grateful for each day I have with her.

I did indeed finish the countdown and apologies to everyone for taking so long and a very big thank you to MV for giving me a call and to Raul for the extra time and being flexible.

Here are the remaining films from my list:

Meet the Robinsons (Stephen Anderson, 2007)
The first time I had watched Meet the Robinsons, I had been putting it off because the trailers never grabbed my interest but when I finally got around to it, I loved the sweet story of Lewis trying to find his birth mother and the adventure that leads him to finding his family. I used to work at a mental health agency, specifically for children dealing with trauma- in foster care and also those in terrible life situations from dysfunctional and or broken families and it was a joy to see those resilient kids bloom when they were able to become part of a loving family that provided them with the love and support they needed, wanted and deserved- and I’m sorry to say that it didn’t happen as much as I wish. I’ve also thought about adoption since I was little so Meet the Robinsons hits my emotional triggers but in a light way and with the positive message of ‘keep moving forward.’ I also love the reveal of Bowler Hat Guy and afterwards always want to hug the $h!t out of him.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (Shin'ichirô Watanabe, Tensai Okamura, Hiroyuki Okiura, Yoshiyuki Takei, 2001)
Cowboy Bebop had been on my watchlist for quite some time and had put it off since I also haven’t watched the series and thought the story might be hard to follow without prior knowledge of the characters but glad it was nominated because that wasn’t the case.

I liked everything- the story, the characters, the style, pacing and the music. Everything went well together to keep me engaged and get enough of a feel for the characters who all balanced each other well. Reminded me of various other sci-fi adventure movies that I love like Total Recall in a good way. Definitely plan on checking out the series to get to know the characters more but the movie gave enough personality and information about each and unlike some, I didn’t find Ed annoying at all. And not that it had any influence on how much I enjoyed the film, I appreciate a good head of hair and Spike and Vincent had some impressive locks.

Ernest & Celestine (Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner, 2012)
This movie is so charming and cozy. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen it and have since started working with watercolors myself and enjoyed the animation even more. I saw my local library had one of the Ernest and Celestine books the movie is based on. The illustrations were a little different but overall the film captured the little moments between Ernest and Celestine in the day to day that I loved like comforting Celestine when she had a nightmare and in the specific story I read, her feelings of being left out when she doesn’t see a single picture of herself in Ernest’s photo album. Watching the interaction between Ernest and Celestine as they become a family was lovely.

As a side note, I’ve shared this movie with several of the kiddos I’ve worked with over the years and noticed that none of them seemed to be terribly into this and I’m not exactly sure why.

Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed was interesting and I liked watching the story unfold through silhouettes and negative space. It took me about twenty minutes to get into the actual plot and I kept being reminded of the artist Kara Walker and how she also uses silhouettes for storytelling. I like and appreciate the history but don’t have much else to say about this...

Tower (Keith Maitland, 2016)
This was the hardest film for me to rank for this countdown. It’s not something I plan to watch again and again because of the subject and emotional impact but thought it was very well done. Going into this one, I wasn’t sure how much the animation would add but found that using animation to retell each experience of the shooting helped bring the past into the present moment opposed to only talking to the survivors that are now much older.

Your Name (Makoto Shinkai, 2016)
Your Name had a intriguing and engaging plot and the ending was satisfying in feeling complete and open ended. Like other noms in this countdown, Your Name reminded me of other elements I enjoyed in other films, like In Your Eyes but much more refined and thought out and felt familiar in plot to a great book I read last year called A Tale for the Time Being (highly recommend this book for anyone who liked this film). I think someone mentioned the romantic aspect didn’t add much to the story and I agree but still liked it. I suppose if I had one gripe with the story is that Taki’s fascination with Mitsuha’s body felt a little excessive and unnecessary...however, I was never a teenage boy, so I can’t relate.

The Sword in the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1963)
Didn’t watch this movie as much as Robin Hood but The Sword in the Stone was one of the first few Disney movies my dad had recorded for me on VHS and combined with not having cable I’ve watched this countless times as a kid. I haven’t seen it since and the only scene I remembered was Archimedes teaching Wart how to write the alphabet and telling him to use his head (like Raul I got a huge kick out of Archimedes). So much fun to revisit this because I had forgotten all the songs and got a rush of nostalgia watching Merlin packing up his home with the silly Higitus Figitus song. I always liked the silliness of Merlin changing Arthur into various animals and the trouble that would always ensue. Mim was never a favorite but the way the duel with Merlin ended was and is still funny to me.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Is Funny Face disqualified?
She got all write ups done as you can see. Just waiting on your 2 yet. If possible I'd like to do the unveil Sunday night. Let me know if you would need a little more time than that.





I’m not particularly an anime guy, hell I get confused why some people retract themselves to anime and don’t look at films from different countries.I guess this hall of fame has helped me become more comfortable with anime, and I might check out more of it.

Eda r suggested we watched the English dub, which I did, and I can see why; i really liked Steven Blum’s voice. I like that the people who made this film made it accessible to people who weren’t fans of the show (The exact opposite of End of Evangelion), I might start watching the show at some point now. The whole look of the film is very beautiful; It looks like our own world except with a hint of that rusty Blade Runner vibe. The characters were well written and entertaining. The villain was very cool. The action scenes were great and the villain and his plan were very threatening.

Very good film @Edarsenel; , might watch The Animatrix by the same directors at some point.




She got all write ups done as you can see. Just waiting on your 2 yet. If possible I'd like to do the unveil Sunday night. Let me know if you would need a little more time than that.
Sunday night is fine. I'll send it way before that. What's you time zone?