Because Kyle Asked: An Animation Special

Because Kyle Olson asked what animated movies DO I like, I decided to put the answer into a blog post. As well, since it's that time of year when there are a myriad of cartoon specials dancing around television, what better time than now to talk about my favorite animated movies.

I spend an awful lot of time talking about the suck cartoon movies out there; from Cars to Shark Tale to Emperor's New Groove, I hardly get to the really good animated films. In fact, my favorite film from last year was Fantastic Mr Fox. Happy Holidays, here is my top 10 Favorite Animated Films.

10. Ratatouille/The Incredibles - Tied for 10th Place, and perhaps a spot deserving of many of Pixar's best films from Toy Story to Finding Nemo, but these two stand out as two of my favorites from them, and for different reasons. Ratatouille is prime example that Pixar really knows how to tell a story. The movie is so captivating from start to finish, it's like they've re-invented the same story structure that's been around for thousands of year, but making it feel so fresh and new. This was the first of the so-called "Art House Pixar" films, making a film that was more like an adult movie than a children's animation, the film has great themes and interesting dialogue. I can't say anything bad about the film. Even the main voice talent, Patton Oswalt is stupendous.

The Incredibles is in the same vein, a film that feels like it could be for adults. It's the classic, kids will love it while not getting all the jokes, yadda yadda. But it's true, what's playing here is the average family allegory played out as superheroes. Each super member of the family has a power related to their personality and social position; the mom stretched a million directions, the invisible daughter, the energetic and bored boy, and the strong father emaciated by society. If this were live action, which it seems in many ways it already has been in some ways in other films, it would have probably been overlooked or at the least not regarded by the critics the same way. Which shows the importance of stretching the limits of genre, this film went in a direction no animated film had gone.

8. Sword in the Stone - A childhood favorite. The story is simple enough, even for the likes of Disney. Instead of delving into the adventures of the King Arthur, the film follows his backstory, which is taken from an 20th century author's story about the Legend of Excalibur, rather than from the original tales. Interesting how the story was slightly watered down even before Disney got their hands on it. But as most Disney films go, this is the story of adolescent struggling with challenges larger than they can comprehend. Young Arthur has little to no control over his surroundings, even pulling the sword out is by accident. Then what makes this story so magical? The spectacle and presentation; mostly involving Merlin. He has a Wizards' Duel, he transforms Arthur and himself into animals, and my favorite thing he puts his whole household (in which everything has personalities) into his bag.) The sugar cup! Oh boy, what a naughty little utensil.

7. Secret of NIMH - Another childhood favorite, but this one holds up even more, which is a surprise, you'd think it wouldn't. It has the look of those old, forgettable Non-Disney Animated films, but this one is better and deeper. The story is solid, and leads your imagination down a deep hole where you can explore the many possibilities of the NIMH world. In fact, the books have a lot of great adventure stories. But alas, no immediate sequels were meant to be for this low performer. Maybe it was just a little too dark for the masses of children and their parents to grasp. At any rate, it's a modern set adventure that has a timeless feel of a classic myth. And I love it.

6. Kung Fu Panda - Finally, Jack Black in an animated film playing basically himself, but more awesome. This film kind of breaks my rule of not liking anachronistically wrong cartoons, but who cares, this film was awesome. Who cares that it's supposed to be set in ancient China, but Jack Black is like a kid growing up in 1980's San Fernando. In every other way, this is done so right. It's like they merged all the good things from Karate Kid and every awesome Kung Fu movie, then packaged it in an awesome anthropomorphically animal movie for awesomeness. I was saying Skadoosh all Summer after this came out. And now that I remember that awesome word, I'm going to use it all Winter. Skadoosh!

5. Wall-E - If you could make a captivating animated film without using any dialogue for 45 minutes, I will put you on this list. If you can also add in some social commentary and a love story between two robots, you will displace this film from my heart. No animals (besides a bug), humans take a back seat, and hardly any dialogue, make for a weird combination to make a cartoon movie, especially one set in a bleak future. But as the best animators do, they provide a lovable hero without conversations or heavy plot. Before all that starts, we know and love Wall-E, laughing and longing with him until finally Eve shows up and turns the world upside down. Pixar was channeling all the great silent-era comedians for this film, and honestly only through animation could you make a futuristic science fiction film that's basically a silent movie romance.

4. Beauty and the Beast - I honestly don't know why I love this film so much. It's packaged perfectly for little girls, but still it appeals to me. Again, it's just that Disney (of old) knows how to tell a story. And here, they tell the Beast story so well. Perhaps, they simplify it too much from the classic fairy tale, and also classic Cocteau film, but honestly this is the blueprint for all romance stories. I'm probably mistaken, but its basically the first romance comedy. Disney just managed to strip away the unnecessary parts, like the sisters and some details, then added in three hot triplets and made a perfect film. In fact, my only gripe is without Gaston himself, he should have forgotten about Belle and married the three triplets.

3. Dumbo - Which leads me to another silent hero; Dumbo. He says even less than Wall-E does, but still he manages to capture your heart. Like Sword in the Stone, this really is another example of a youngster trapped in a bigger world that he can neither understand nor control. As well, there isn't much of a story either, Dumbo becomes an outcast and through the help of a friend triumphs and saves his mother. All in 60 minutes. Considering that a good 10 minutes is taken up with the Pink Elephants song, there is barely a story at all here. But who cares, this is spectacle at its finest...a child elephant with huger than normal ears, "black" crows singing, a dark musical number about being drunk and seeing images, plus one of my favorite animated bit parts; the Stork. It's fun, it's easy, and you can always go back to the film for pure joy.

A Break From the List

My Favorite Animated Short

Mickey's Trailer - This cartoon utterly fascinated me as a kid. This is the one where Mickey, Donald and Goofy are traveling in a little trailer. Goofy is driving the car pulling the trailer, while Mickey and Donald are inside. Lots of hijinks ensue, where Goofy almost kills them with his absent minded driving. But what got me was the wonder of the trailer. How they had all the different compartments and how different areas turned into different things, and especially how it all fit into the little trailer.

2. Fantastic Mr Fox - The 2009 Nick Reddoch Movie of the Year Award Winner. This movie was fantastic. I haven't ever read the book, but love Roald Dahl's imaginative worlds. Mixing that with a director that creates worlds in real life places in an animated film and we have the makings of a masterpiece. I'm not going to claim that this film is some kind of masterpiece, but it stands apart from other films so distinctly. The art direction, story pacing, rich detail, fun and interesting characters...there isn't one flaw with it. But who cares about those things, the story was so fun and quirky and for once a film tackles the difficult question of how humans and intelligent anthropomorphic animals and regular animals live together. This film finally acknowledges the difference between smart animals and the dumb ones that can't think, it's part of the plot and basically part of the whole theme of the movie; animal instincts and how to overcome and is overcoming them what makes us civilized? Up didn't ask those kinds of questions, or hint at any deep theme to think about. Fantastic Mr Fox didn't force you to cry in the first 15 minutes only to lead you into some stupid and meandering adventure that ends up making no sense. (That's right, think about Up next time it's a Sunday night and your friends are getting together to watch something fun that everybody loves. Ask yourself, wait...why am I teary eyed at the beginning of the film before I've truly grown attached to this character...wait....is Pixar manipulating me? Wait...what's happening to everyone's eyes...why are they crying...am I actually watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers?....wait....I wanted to watch Finding Nemo....wait!!!!!!)

Fantastic Mr Fox doesn't wow and pizazz you into a spectacle of emotion. It tells a story like Plato (or whoever came up with the 6 things a story should have...was it Aristotle?)...like whoever that philosopher guy intended. Sorry, Pixar...I really liked Toy Story 3.

1. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - And now we have number 1!!! A forgotten Disney classic, it was released as part of a duo with The Wind in the Willows. But growing up, we had the video cassette of just the Ichabod Crane story, with some hilarious Halloween shorts before it. That tape, which I stole from my Mom's house is so worn out it doesn't play normally anymore. The sound is fine, but the frames frlicker and move off the screen. Luckily, I bought the DVD used and it's as good as new, but now has the Mr. Toad part with it.

So what makes this film so good? It's spoken entirely by Bing Crosby! And he sings through a lot of it. The whole film is just one big piece of Disney kitsch. On top of that, it's Disney's dark kitsche, like the Haunted Mansion or Something Wicked This Way Comes, it's evil and demented, but never entirely over the line. But still, just like on the ride Haunted Mansion, some of the details are really dark if you think about it.

In Ichabod, there's drinking (even by animals) and attempted murder and of course a Headless Horseman that may or may not have killed the main character. It's wicked fun, and I watch it every chance I get.

Dark City and the dark cinema of the 90's

The late 90's were kind of a blur. The technology that had been imagined and sometimes used in some sense was now coming around into everyday use. Cell phones, the internet, even cloning was real. The future was here. Or was it? People were still wearing jeans, rock and roll was still popular, but somehow the world was struggling to deal with it all. The world was moving faster and faster. For the first real time, computers were being outpaced at faster rates than consumers could purchase them. And all of a sudden in the world, a person alone could be in so many places at once and almost be no where at all. This is the time  frame that brought us a new range of film that like previous generations was struggling to cope with the world around. Some of the questions were the same; why am I here, who am I, what does it all mean. These questions have been asked since story crept into film, but now something new was happening. Filmmakers started questioning man's very existence. Where are we? Are we even we? These films weren't just thinking outside the box, they were questioning the very box's existence.

The Matrix, The Truman Show, and Dark City all landmark this trend, that has seen American film make the transition into the 21st Century, asking the questions that true art should be asking, and asking them in new ways.

The Truman Show was ahead of the reality show curve that came at us later in the 90's, took over in the 00's and hasn't left us still. Truman is a man who is living unawares in a tv show based all around him, where everything is fake; from his friends, to the town he lives in, to the sky above him. His first clue is a studio light falling from way up above. His world is literally coming down around him.

In The Matrix, the world as we know it is actually a computer program that we're plugged into to feed machines off our energy. In the Truman Show at least what he was doing was real, the world he knew was real, it was just fake. And outside his studio home, the world existed normally. In The Matrix, the whole world was fake. But still, you had your identity, you were still you, just an imagined self image, with flaws and talents. And again, the world outside The Matrix was real, albeit a futuristic wasteland.

In Dark City, mysterious aliens control a city, which is set in space, where they experiment on humans to try and find out what makes them unique; swapping out their memories and cycling them through endless cycles of lives. They not only control the city, by shifting building and streets to their choosing, they shape the lives of the people, changing jobs, spouses and sometimes circumstances and situations. In Dark City, the place isn't real. The world outside that place is empty. And your identity isn't even real. Where are you? What are you doing here? And most importantly, who are you?

A look at the evolution of Dark City's influences will help shed light on both social history and it's ties to the cinema that was made at the time. The most obvious influence to Dark City is, of course, Metropolis. (One of my favorite films of all time, and partially the reason I'm in the film industry.) The allusion to Metropolis is most obvious in it's production design and apparent themes. Metropolis is about a society literally split in two, where the upper half controls the lower half, literally. The poor live below and the rich live above. We can look at the simplicity of the film and laugh, but early cinema was by it's nature, and by necessity, very simple. What's so very clear in Metropolis is who is controlling the city and it's inhabitants. It's simple class struggle, but set in the distant future. It's social commentary about class warfare was fitting to it's time. In Dark City, class structure is joked about in one sequence, where the "Strangers" are placing lower class people into a rich person's setting with new memories of that life. But they know nothing of the switch, and the film moves on. What was so obvious with Metropolis, the idea of a whole society taking back control, basically through revolution, is still present with Dark City, but it follows one man. This one man is a theme shown in many of the modern science fiction films, dating from even Star Wars on to The Matrix, The Truman Show and Dark City. This one has the power in him all the time, but he's got to learn to control it, and with that power he can change everyone else's lives. Even in The Truman Show, where everyone knows the truth but him, he triumphs and allows everyone else to triumph with him and see that you can break the shackles.

Metropolis also brings in the expressionist motif and theme; the world around is distorted and dark. It doesn't always end up like it should, just like it doesn't look like it should. In Dark City, the city is ever changing, even the walls can turn into doors. Both sides, the humans and the Strangers, are somewhat at a loss for what's real. The Strangers keep changing the city and the memories, but the Strangers are also at a loss for what's inside the human's mind and soul. They can't seem to figure out what makes the humans tick, and they especially are at a loss when Murdoch begins using their powers.

The other great influence to Dark City is film noir. The film has all the trappings of a great noir; the hardened detective, the singing dame, the man waking up over a dead body not knowing what happened. Blade Runner is often touted as the great mix of Noir and Sci-Fi, but I don't think it fits so well as with Dark City.
These three science fiction films are the pre-cursors to the first genre films of the 21st Century. By the 2000's we were no longer questioning technology, and by extent science fiction films went back into asking the same questions science fiction had always been asking, what will we do when...we can clone, when zombies take over, when AI will kill us? Superhero films and merging of sci-fi and disaster films have taken over, i.e. Transformers and Cloverfield. It will either take another science or technology breakthrough to jolt the minds of filmmakers or a new set of filmmakers to begin asking real questions again to make the genre new and relevant.