Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta (1986)

Ever since I watched my first anime flick (Howl's Moving Castle), I have had a special place in my heart for the genre, particularly the unrestrained creativity that comes from Studio Ghibli. Castle in the Sky brings a great adventure out of ordinary happenings. The boy & girl team end up foiling secret agents, flying all over the world, facing magical foes and of course discovering courage and strength along the way. The best part of these stories is the unpredictable turns, which may also be what people don't like about them - the magical elements are simply boundless making it easy to conjure a story that no one else could make up.

Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

I had to try and keep my eyes open for this predictable and not very funny animation. They started with a title and built a film around it (a la Snakes on a Plane).

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Happy Feet Two (2011)

We took our kids to see this over spring break as it was a cheap deal and didn't appear to be too scary for our young. They enjoyed it - though my daughter did get scared at one point.

They film seemed typical in its humour and quite glittery in its animation and I enjoyed it except for the the niggling I had for the first 90% of the film when the plankton were discussing existentialism. I disagreed with much of what appeared to be the one's conclusion, but was surprised and pleased with the conclusion.

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L'illusionniste (2010)

The Illusionist is a lovely tale from the makers of The Triplets of Belleville - this one is far more melancholy and far less violent.

A French illusionist ends up on the road in a rustic and remote island off of Scotland. There he picks up a loyal fan who has is urbanized slowly when they settle in Paris. The film centres on his resourcefulness, her quaintness, and their devotion to each other.

The animation is lively which is good because the film is rather slow. Great story telling though and you will find yourself responding out loud with the emotional movement.

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Tangled (2010)

I enjoyed this modern, musical, Disney-fied take on the Rapunzel story. With such high returns on animated features these days, they typically gather a stellar crew of writers, animators, and producers.

As is typical, the side characters are the funniest and most interesting (the horse, the chameleon, the tavern crew, etc.). Some of the songs are fun, but a lot of them are sentimental crooning which, you know, get stuck in your head and will likely be memorized by young girls.

My pastor preached a sermon on this movie, likening it to a modern parable about identity and going home.

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The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

What sheer pleasure this film was. Adventure in one of its purest forms. Tintin proves that he is as much a super hero as the American variations by his unwavering tenacity.

Peter Jackson (prod.) teamed up with Steven Spielberg (dir.) to make this animated feature and they complement each other very well. The camera placement/movement, animation and motion capture are so stunning that any childish aspects of the story are dwarfed (not that the screenplay is lacking, it's just a really simple story).

In one scene we see Captain Haddock and you can see the yarn that makes up the sweater and it looks so real. The advantage to digital animation is that the camera can be placed wherever you wish and so Spielberg kept it moving throughout the film. I don't think it was still for a moment.

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Rango (2011)

A clever and dark, superbly executed animation. The creatures of the desert are brought to life and given such detail just in their appearance that it is almost unnecessary to have a story - but it does, and it's a gooder.

Self named lizard Rango stumbles into the western settlement of Dirt, a town struggling to maintain subsistence levels of water. He decides to reinvent himself as a real tough guy (having to lose the hawaiian shirt along the way) and is soon adulated by the dusty population.

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The Corpse Bride (2005)

Brilliant animated feature! What could have been a very dark film is light, refreshing and full of hope - especially if those who are quite put off by the murky depths of the grave simply look at it as a parable (I could include myself in this category sometimes).

Tim Burton leads a troop of puppeteers and stop-motion animators to tell the tale of a Victorian fella named Victor who is betrothed to Victoria (I love it!) only to accidentally wed a corpse as he rehearses his lines in a cemetery. All of the characters - living and dead - give stellar performances and some of the puns are gut splitting hilarious (like when the maggot in the corpse bride's head pops an eye out and says "I'll keep an eye out for him.").

Fighting my dislike of celebrating death and all things spooky, I realized the amazing parallel that we have in Christianity: Christ, the bridegroom, will one day wed his church who's many parts will have been dead and so his bride could be considered a corpse. I think there is some valid parallel here. Some great resurrection images too (the young boy who approaches a walking skeleton, pauses, and then leaps into it's arms shouting "grandpa!").

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The Secret of Kells (2009)

This is such a lovely, fresh film that I can't help but give it my full endorsement. The animation is themed after the illuminating art in the Book of Kells - Celtic production of the four Gospels circa 800 AD. The story focuses on an Irish monastery where this special book is being guarded and produced under constant threat of invading clans. A young boy left in the care of the monks is so drawn to the book and also to the forbidden woodlands that his loyalty to the abbot is questioned.

I can't wait to see it again.

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The Animatrix (2003)

To complete my first viewing of The Matrix films, I watched this collection of animated shorts that flesh out some of the side stories from the live action films. Each of the nine animations are produced by a different production company and carry very different styles with them. It is clear that some of the films direct their efforts to emphasize very different aspects of the Matrix flicks: style, philosophy, and action.

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9 (2009)

This is a terrific animated tale of heroism and self-sacrifice. It is a further contemplation of how our pursuit of technology and so-called progress can blind us from most virtues.

A collection of special rag dolls seek to redeem the world from a tyrant robot in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The dolls are mostly naïve, childlike giving the film a great tone.

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Toy Story 3 (2010)

Plenty of fun, brilliant animation and even a lesson on materialism! And how scary was that monkey eh? Yikes!

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How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Terrific, engaging writing gives this little story some super characters, even though some are 2-D. It's also a great demonstration of the phenomenal things they can do with animation these days.

A lad in a viking outpost acts contrary to conventional wisdom and befriends a dragon. A moral tale on prejudice.

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Eagle vs Shark (2007)

From the great island of New Zealand comes this quirky (the common adjective used by all reviewers) flick. One of the guys from Flight of the Concords stars as a deeply inept man bent on dishing out revenge on a school bully from years earlier. Mooning over him is the not quite as inept, but socially awkward nonetheless, Lily.

One of the closing sequences is one of the best stopmotion bits I've ever seen. Great!

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How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)

A glorious classic! My favourite part is when the Grinch's dog is hanging over the cliff. In fact the dog is my favourite character.

True worship, true love, true community can transform even the greediest people.

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Horton Hears a Who! (1970)

Dr. Seuss's tale of an elephant who discovers a world on a speck of dust is lovingly animated in this classic. I haven't seen the digital remake, so I can't compare the two, but I really enjoyed this offering.

The story itself is true Seuss and God's truth.

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Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

Dreamworks animated flicks, while they possess impressive artwork and creativity, lack the heart and dramatic story-telling that flows from Pixar studios. Monsters vs Aliens supports this.

A codependent bride gets zapped by some freak radioactive beam and becomes a giant (really, really big) amazonian woman. She is taken captive by a secret government agency and then used with other "monsters" to fight an alien invasion. She finds inner strength through this process rather than finding her identity in her weather man groom.

The other monsters were funny and Ginomica (the big chick) will certainly cause some girls to fret about body image, but the story lacked resonance.

Forgettable.

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$9.99 (2008)

A first feature by an Australian animator, $9.99 is original and packs a lot into the 78 minutes it takes to watch it. An ensemble cast of clay figurines who occupy an apartment building in Sydney, Australia are the centre of this tale about the meaning of life.

The film opens with an odd interchange between a homeless man and a business man. The homeless man ends up offing himself and later reappears as a disgruntled angel. The business man's sons meaning in their lives. An elderly man seeks companionship. A model moves in and seduces a tenant. A magician tries to avoid having his things repossessed. Through it all, the meaning of life is for sale in a small book available for only $9.99

The artistic merit and effort makes this film worthwhile. The story does have some value too, but it's not as engaging as the clay figures who tell it.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Wes Anderson matches his quirky and sentimental take on life with Roald Dahl's children's book to create this beautifully animated film. He again discusses fatherhood (see The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, etc.). One should note that Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) helped write the screenplay too.

Mr. Fox has given up robbing farmers Bean, Boggis and Bunce in order to pursue a less dangerous career as a writer and please his wife. His discontent leads him back into the chicken stealing business and now the entire burrowing animal population is under mortal threat from the evil farmers. Mr. Fox now has to use his cunning to save them all. This is the external story, but on the inside it's about identity, fatherhood, sonship, and living well.

Anderson manages once again to generate plenty of laughs as well as tension and sentiment into this film. He also plugs more British 70's rock into the soundtrack and produces a very satisfying film.

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Coraline (2009)

This was a disappointment. The animation was super. Some of the dialogue was intriguing. The story however was just boring and difficult to engage with.

Coraline finds a portal to a parallel world where everything in her world is, except they are counterfeits. She has to decide whether to sell her soul to the wicked thing that controls the parallel world or stay in her rather drab real world where her parents are too busy for her.

Some definite potential, but a few miles away from greatness. I drifted off a couple times.

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