Great Animated Movies That Aren't For (Or Aren't Necessarily For) Kids

animation can be this edgy, cool, inspiring medium, yet so much of it is -- understandably -- geared towards kids. i want to hear about great animated films that aren't (necessarily, at least) designed for children.

three films that jump to mind are waltz with bashir; persepolis; and one we just saw, the secret of kells (which, okay, can be for kids but, [url=http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/movies/05secret.html]as the NYT review points out[/i], has "extraordinary visual brio," so i included it).(n.1) what other non-kid focused animated films are worth checking out, and why?

apologies if this has been covered before. the search engine didn't identify anything similar to it, but maybe i missed something.
___________________________________
(n.1) the NYT story also notes that "Cartoons in this country tend to be for and about children." but there has to be more.

yeah, i screwed up that link. here's the paranthetical, written properly:

(which, okay, can be for kids but, as the NYT review points out, has ""extraordinary visual brio," so i included it).

begone dull care - Norman McLaren

U can watch it for free online at NFB.ca but it is best seen on a decent size screen in a dark room

that's this one, i believe. looks intriguing; i'm going to order it (well, rent it from blockbuster online) now.

thanks!

it is one of my fave movies

obv lots of anime

really liked waltz with bashir. a scanner darkly looks similar. i quite like the waking life-looking stuff too, and i really like the animated segment from the five obstructions.

i'm not familiar with much anime. it struck me as sort of an odd middle-ground between kid-oriented animation and something else? but maybe i'm way off-base.

the one youtube clip i found of begone-dull-care is really interesting.

i could dig this film. it's from 1949!

waltz with bashir is devestating.

The Secret of NIMH is, I suppose, meant for children -- but I actually liked it even more when I saw it recently as an adult.

Then of course, Watership Down, and Plague Dogs... which I don't think is a kids movie at all.

I haven't seen Rock and Rule but it looks seems pretty adultish. I hope they release that on dvd soon cause right now the only way to watch it is a really bad VHS copy split up into a bunch of youtube clips. Have never seen it for sale or for rent at any movie store.

Don't miss the adaptation of Raymond Brigg's When The wind Blows.

there was a director in the 70s -- ralph something -- who made some pretty cool (for the time, at least) animated movies.

Bakshi. They haven't aged well.

this guy: The Ralph Bakshi thread: C/D, S/D, etc

haha xp

ez, is that this film?

Fritz the Cat.

Yep.

xpost

Bakshi films are better with the sound off, I swear. I could only watch "Lord of the Rings" with the French dubbing. That DVD really had a freaky amount of language options. I feel like a lot of his moviesa re up on youtube and google video if you are dying to see them.

yeah, i forgot he did that early version of LOTR.

The entirety of Plague Dogs is up on Youtube as well

http://www.youtube.com/user/PlagueDogs

If you get the U.S. DVD, about 17 minutes have been cut.

Oh i saw When the Wind Blows, it is haunting. Its so sad. Its one of those movies that leaves it very ambiguous as to if and when the characters die in it.

One I like is an Italian parody of Fantasia, Allegro Non Troppo. Clip is NSFW in a goofy '60s way.

Meant to include this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4s1nhlCMMI

just remembered a very sad french animated film. about aging and longing, iirc. i'll track down the title.

these are all such cool recommendations.

(yours, not mine, i mean)

Fantastic Planet ("La Planète Sauvage") feels a little slow to me sometimes. Even watching it high. But it's very dear to my heart, and it just looks awesome!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgCxCZNkQ9E

Before I got married the only things on my DVD shelf were animated films, sketch comedy box sets, and musicals.

Now its those things and a couple of horror and sci-fi movies.

found it: the triplets of belleville.

very sad, but very worthwhile.

I am having the hardest time not posting all of "Allegro Non Troppo" in this thread. There is this one part with a cat walking around in an abandoned house that is so fantastic.

I have a poor VHS copy of a couple of late 80s editions of the Intl. Tournee of Animation. There are some fantastic shorts on there, not (necessarily) for kids, and a couple that are definitely not for kids. I need to get that tape digitized before it dissolves.

i like how the limited frames in anime give it a kind of theatricality & intensity. maybe this recommendation wld earn me the ire of hardcore anime heads but if yr interested in animation as an artform i wld recommend watching at least some of fooly cooly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS8VhWf5ziM

Did anyone else ever own "The Mind's Eye"? It was just CGI demos & shorts mooshed together to new age music. It was my frigging favorite thing in the world when I was a kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRoS3n5Cn80&feature=fvw

Some hippie once was talking to me about it once like it was some stoner grail, which cracked me up! It's so old-fashioned looking, and I guess 'cause I grew up with it – my even more conservative aunt & uncle gave it to my family – it just seems so Mormon to me.

i am interested in but have never seen chronopolis by piotr kamler

A great one a friend introduced me to is the totally bonkers Korean movie "Aachi and Ssipak" – the world is addicted to a drug called juicy bars that's made out of human shit, and it causes mutant babies, so it basically deals with the aftermath of this. IIRC it was pretty funny – definitely entertaining. And weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSamzE6qnKM

Or maybe the drugs kept you from shitting? I forget. Something about shit was valuable. Mostly it just looked good.

it does look "totally bonkers," in a good way (except for the use of waste as a plot device -- there's no need for an animated companion to the human centipede)

wow & lol at that minds eye video abbott. clearly i do not have a profound understanding of mormonism. music is p fruity, but i like that next to the animation you barely notice it

Abbott I was trying to find that movie but I couldn't, as the search terms "blue babies" AND "shit bars" brought up no relative hits...

I feel like stop motion guys like Bros. Quay and Jan Svankmajer belong on here. My youngest brother reminded me that I let him watch "Alice" with me when he was seven. "You're the one responsible for ruining my mind!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDizcCTUGdw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgJ-yOhpYIM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrKgyY5aDvA

^w/ amazing terry riley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Y1PhOt6sM

"you should have had sushi in bombay, it would have been better"

i love how good that is

this thread is awesome!

i was tempted to post yr horse gif but i guess anything <10 seconds isn't a 'movie'

i didn't even know there was an experimental film thread! thanks. that video is cool, too.

avant-garde, experimental, surreal film

a couple of interesting films from down under to check out: "Mary & Max", and "$9.99".

The latter freaked me out more than it probably intended.

lots of stuff to check here, wow.

waltz with bashir is one of my favourite films in memory really, i've seen it about 10 times and would watch it another 10. is there anything specifically like that? people say persepolis but it isn't really that similar...

i've never read/heard anyone say persepolis is like WWB. both great, but totally different, in animation style at least (both have a pretty somber tone tbf).

Ronan, not an animation, but you could do worse than check out the comics of Joe Sacco maybe? I've just discovered him and his cartoon-reportage on Palestine/Israel is fab!

haha I was going to rec the same thing. Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde are both great. Perseoplis was a good movie but comparing it to Waltz w/Bashir seems a little...unimaginative.

yeah totally, i sort of knew that when people compared. i can't stress how much i liked waltz with bashir, it's like my personal ideal film.

i saw some of joe sacco's stuff and sort of read the covers when i worked in a bookstore back in 07, always found it interesting. it's sort of weird, i've never really known anything about graphic novels or animated films, but i am pretty sure i really like them based on the tiny few that permeate the mainstream which i end up seeing and liking.

dunno if it's been listed yet, really enjoyed 9. Probably adolescent aimed.

i love this stuff, wish there was more out there...

Fear(s) of the Dark / Peur(s) du noir is cool. love the animated Charles Burns.

Grave of the Fireflies is devastating, adult anime though it's about kids (orphans surviving in WWII Japan).

and i'll stan for both American Pop and Heavy Metal, warts'n'boobies'n'all

and Time Masters is like the animated Metal Hurlant - adult sci-fi from Moebius and the director of Fantastic Planet

Oh man, I saw part of Time Masters once. It was fucking crazy! OTOH I was on mushrooms but I'm pretty sure the movie was still crazy.

Wings of Honneamise or however it's spelled
sacco recommendations: the fixer, palestine and footnotes in gaza are all required reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH5sacgeY5Q

and 2nd the recommendation of time masters. like everything i've seen by laloux, though. fantastic planet especially, but light years, too.

so many good suggestions here. i've only begun to work my way through them.

we saw megamind this weekend. clearly geared for kids, but some stuff for adults, too! especially the cool soundtrack. best bit was the use of g-n'-r's welcome to the jungle at the beginning of the big battle scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXU0iHg1oC0

I feel like stop motion guys like Bros. Quay and Jan Svankmajer belong on here. My youngest brother reminded me that I let him watch "Alice" with me when he was seven. "You're the one responsible for ruining my mind!"

― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Saturday, November 13, 2010 11:27 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

Yeah, Svankmajer and the Quays absolutely. Surprised more people aren't repping them ITT. I think you can watch a bunch of Svankmajer stuff free or cheap on here:

http://mubi.com/cast_members/458

Bakshi's great. Shakey linked to The Complete Ralph Bakshi in the other thread, and it's really one of the best animation related books you could ever read.

A couple other things that spring to mind:

Marquis, French live action/stop motion blend about the Marquis de Sade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcc9E_r_wTw

Isao Takahatao's Omohide Poro Poro or Only Yesterday - there's really nothing else exactly like this in anime, from an animation or storytelling perspective. It's a contemplative, expressionistic story about a 27-year old woman reflecting on her childhood, family and future. I believe there's no official release in the United States due to references to menstruation, but shouldn't be hard to find a region-free copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9WNAcPcIGY

I think Marquis has a scene where a lobster is stuffed in someone's butt. Haven't seen it in 20 years so the details, while traumatizing, may be slightly off. One of only a handful of movies I've ever walked out on.

http://i.imgur.com/MeMTN.gif

pretty sure I need to see this

that's a prosthetic i'm sure of it.

But it's his real face.

Oh fuck yes, the local rental place has it on VHS.

WTF x10000

DOes it have a bunch of philosophical railing like de Sade's stuff does?

Honestly don't remember.

You can watch the whole thing on youtube.

I would save that gif to my hard drive but that one Idaho teacher who got arrested recently for having Simpsons porn on his compy made me reconsider. ~chilling fx~

good lord, why would having simpsons porn -- which i can't imagine to begin with -- get someone arrested?!?

Btw I recommend Only Yesterday much more highly than Marquis! :[

Only Yesterday looks great. Thx for the recs ptt.

Tango

Tango

― Miss Garrote (Eric H.), Saturday, November 27, 2010 10:37 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

Whoa, that ruled! And it was directed by the guy who did the Close (to the Edit) video!

thank you, Eric! i've wanted to see this again for ages. tried YouTube a few times, to no avail. maybe because of the FFN from 3:40 on. NSFW!

wow, i need to check out marquis

Just saw Fantastic Planet for the first time and it blew my mind. I loved it, no caveats, and will be checking out everything that Laloux has ever done in the near future, pretty much. Great soundtrack, too.

Thanking the people who mentioned it on this thread

SO glad you liked FP! It is a favorite! I heard the book by Anton Wul was good, too...someone stole it from the library, though...

I am stoked for "The Illusionist," it is coming to the theater here in a few weeks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZElAeVdDCDs

begone dull care - Norman McLaren

Thanks for recommending this!

Oh, that Debussy clip is amazing too. I added Allegro non Troppo to my Ziplist.

(I'm also fond of Alice and Fantastic Planet. Loving this thread.)

OMG Allegro Non Troppo! I saw that in the cinema in the early 90s and loved it. Such sad parts!

I just watched Mia and the Migoo and I am pretty sure it is FOR kids. I say this because it was just painfully didactic with the most and worst explainy dialogue! But it looked really good. Maybe one to turn the sound off & light a J at home.

Probably the best thing about it was the colors + the nice impressionistic backdrops – hard to find pics that show that tho

http://static.euronews.net/images_old/08/W300px_cinema-MiaMigou.jpg

I saw a dubbed version & I would like to think maybe the translation is what made the dialogue so unbearably bad – but I doubt it!

One of the claymation pieces I love from the Tournee of Animation I mentioned upthread is up. Csaba Varga, Luncheon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMzx_e6l0cM

akira

https://hyperallergic.com/369024/a-trove-of-early-japanese-animated-films-is-now-online/