Animated Creatures: ILX's top 100 animated films (results thread)

iirc The Emperor's New Groove is the one with the documentary that "disney doesn't want you to see" or something...
.. "The Sweatbox" is its title. I've never seen it though. Disney wins again.

Just in time:

#69: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
dir. Chuck Jones, Ben Washam
1966, USA
110 points, 6 votes
http://i.imgur.com/v6XY7.jpg
film
Chuck Jones interview

Now I just have to wait till the next holiday so that I can resume with the upcoming seasonally themed entries.

Oh I might have to read the manga in that case. The film of Nausicaa is a wee bit dull IMO.

I made the mistake of reading the manga first, then watching the film -- the manga's scope is absolutely jawdropping, it's on a par with Kirby's New Gods stuff, except Miyazaki had the chance to fully realize it. And for something done in a super-deformed style, IIRC it gets into some heady, nuanced realpolitik material. Or, what Doctor Casino sez.

Am I wrong in remembering that Miyazaki he only started the manga as a way to develop the film, sort of like Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrick re: 2001?

Huh, I'd never heard that! I know he took several long hiatuses from it - would be interesting to go back and track the manga against those gaps, see if there's major shifts in tone or anything. Certainly there are some characters in whom he seems to gain interest later on, and certain settings/large chunks of plot that are contained in the last sections...but they're also foreshadowed early. (Sorry if this is taking us afield from the thread topic - I just don't have much to say about the Grinch, sadly!)

I know the manga only from the old "Perfect Collection" trade paperbacks in four volumes...I believe it's been rereleased since then, maybe in correct/non-flipped order and possibly with a new translation? There are one or two places that I recall the old one being sort of stilted or just confusing (with regard to the two "emperor-brother" characters).

No need to apologize to me on not discussing the Grinch -- I just remember when I watched it that I sided whole-heartedly and unironically with him because I thought that the Whos were so ugly that they deserved privation.

Aha, my memory serves! Well, sorta:

According to the "Birth of Studio Ghibli" featurette, Miyazaki only wrote the manga because Studio Ghibli film producer Toshio Suzuki was unable to get funding for a film that was not based on a manga.[2] However, other sources tell a different story: Miyazaki started the manga on the condition that it would never be made into a film. He later agreed to do a fifteen-minute OVA, but Animage editors eventually convinced him to make an entire feature-length film.[3]

Yeah, there's a new 2-volume HC box set with non-inverted pages now -- don't know why I haven't even thought about getting it, considering how much I like it. Ah well, Xmas present to myself!

Anyway, I'll stow the Nausicaa talk, you know, in case the film version or any other Miyazaki ranks... ¬_¬

Though of course if you have more to say, don't let me stop you! Who knows if/when Nausicaa might reappear...

The Nausicaa manga is SO cluttered and storyboardy, not surprised that it was meant to be a stepping stone to the film.
glad to own it tho'. would like to buy that slipcover box.

"The making of how the grinch stole christmas" hosted by Phil Hartman is nowhere to be found online. Wouldn't mind watching that right now.

re: Nausicaa - "cluttered" i'll give you - there is a definite filling-in of every frame with detail, and some of the action sequences end up sort of hard to follow for that reason. Storyboardy...huh. I'll have to think about that next time I read. Not saying I'd disagree, just that it hasn't ever distracted from my reading experience.

well i have the smaller tpb ones, the 8x5 1/2 inch versions. Very cramped in that format.

Same here. For sure. Would love to see them at some huge folio size. I had one issue or so of the singles that Viz put out in the 90s, at standard US comic size - looked pretty good IIRC.

wow, i thought i would just watch a couple minutes of that mel blanc video upthread, and i sat there riveted and watched the whole thing. so good. i even teared up a couple times toward the end.

Merry holidays, yall.

#68: Ninja Scroll
dir. Yoshiaki Kawajiri
1993, Japan
116 points, 3 votes
http://i.imgur.com/jqLBY.jpg
trailer (NSFW)

i'm watching sweatbox right now (from bittorrent). pretty good! sting is such a wanker.

Woah, Ninja Scroll? Really? I admit I've never seen it the whole way through but I associate with, for lack of a better word, ''Manga Man Says...'' anime...stuff that was in a lot of rental places before anime had its bigger breakthrough later in the 90s, and which found an audience mainly on ultraviolence and titillation, like, woah, these Japanese cartoons have gore and swearing!!! But now I'm thinking maybe I misjudged it?

You're basically right in your judgement, plus it has a very straightforward and rather cliched story, but it's still entertaining, with great action scenes.

Yeah, there's a new 2-volume HC box set with non-inverted pages now -- don't know why I haven't even thought about getting it, considering how much I like it. Ah well, Xmas present to myself!

I gave up on reading it when it switched from hand-lettering (Orzechowski iirc?) to an early, insensitive, off-the-shelf computer font - does this "restored" version have improved lettering?

If memory serves, Ninja Scroll didn't make the official nominations list for the poll, so that's an impressive showing for a write-in! Haven't seen it in 15 years, but the borrowed VHS copy from a coworker functioned as a terrific gateway to further anime discoveries, as well as pulpy shit like OTT wire-fu and Riki-Oh. Good times.

Lots of animals coming up in the next batch...

#67: Princess Mononoke
dir. Hayao Miyazaki
1997, USA
116 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/dqY1W.gif
trailer

i love the gif; trippy.

Mononoke was my first Miyazaki -- didn't love it (the violence in the opening scene stunned me a little bit, maybe I didn't recover), sort of a remix of Nausicaa.

Remix of Nausicaa is exactly how I remember it. Haven't seen this since the US theatrical run. Remember it being great-looking but weirdly cold, with all of the characters feeling strangely distant and wooden. Would be down for watching this one again if just to marvel at the forest ghost stuff and things like that gif above.

saw it just recently; it holds up fairly well. "marvel" is the right way to enjoy it.

#66: Rabbit Fire
dir. Chuck Jones
1951, USA
116 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/k9R1L.gif
film

A+ gifs, Leee

seconded.

I know I've seen the one with that scene, but I couldn't tell you anything else about it. Most of the LT/MM shorts blur together for me.

LT/SS rather (looney tunes/silly symphonies)

no, i was right the first time. aaargh

Just watched that one, thanks for the link. It's about like I remember it from when I was a kid, maybe a little slower and less completely nutso? In my mind these things are always Daffy and Bugs just upping the ante continuously, getting closer and closer to berserk but it's a little more evenly paced than that. Not a negative, though, this thing has some great gags.

God, I'd forgotten what a delicious MORON Elmer Fudd was! He wouldn't be funny at all except that he really is simple-minded enough to be fooled by these jokers and their terrible costumes and tricks, it makes him sympathetic in a way that, say, Yosemite Sam never is. Great character.

Don't get your hopes too far up with the gifs, chums.

DC, the less-zany-than-I-remember thing happens to me with other WB toons.

#65: Porco Rosso
dir. Hayao Miyazaki
1992, Japan
120 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/NQ21g.gif
trailer

the pacing in chuck jones cartoons is always really deliberate -- the 'zany' stuff's more early '40s, when it was more explicitly cartoonish and crazy. there's at least three cartoons with that same basic plot but the one that always reduced me to hysterics was 'you keep out of this! he doesn't HAVE to shoot you now!'

Remember really enjoying Porco Rosso except for extended brutal fist fight in the middle.

just rewatched porco rosso last week; it's gorgeous and i love it but i ALWAYS fall asleep during the dream sequence

Have never seen! Need to keep my eye out for that one.

#64: Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
dir. Stephen R. Johnson
1986, UK
123 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/YprzW.jpg
film

#63: Beep, Beep!
dir. Chuck Jones
1952, USA
125 points, 5 votes
http://i.imgur.com/PbdGs.jpg
film

http://api.ning.com/files/e9HWZjeuNesQRncKm8YlvkhZRzlajLwKhI75LDcXiHobRSRcyZJjgEiV16Zdpw1YTk8dCujQ0ehCCkNoGrlt6ovP*MCO*6eQ/Animal_Man_5__Jan__1989_Closeup_A.jpg

I need to re-read Animal Man.

Next batch: loads of Disney.

Animal Man is great.

I love Roadrunner cartoons. That one in particular feels a little funky; I think it's an early one before the formula got exactly refined, and before some of the iconic bits (like the super-slow fall) were even in place. But they're all basically the same in some sense. The format does have the problem of being fundamentally episodic, with each gag setting up, ending, and then fading to black before another one starts. In that sense, you could basically stick every Roadrunner segment in a computer and tell it to spit out a five-minute cartoon and you'd never know the difference except for changes in animation style and background painting. The cartoons don't really build and they rarely have much momentum or payoff; watching that one, I was surprised that the ending actually bothered to pick back up a thread that was teased much earlier in the episode.

Thing is, if the gags are inventive, the whole thing works. It's just enough of a premise on which to hang whatever bonkers sight gags and surprise pratfalls the writers could think of. You never are in any doubt that the coyote will fail, so they genius is coming up with a way that the latest ACME invention can fail that doesn't occur to you before it happens. Some great ones in that short, especially the one with the boxing-glove. And no matter how many times you see one, a well-made "imaginary train is real" gag will still do it.

Yes, the copy/paste nature of Roadrunner shorts is very formulaic, and hasn't aged particularly well for me (and "Beep, Beep" is the only one that I voted for). I also get the vague sense that as a child, I in fact rooted for Wile E. Coyote for some reason (partly because of my love of nature documentaries, which rarely featured actual roadrunners).

Sledgehammer is total classic of course.

Well, of course you rooted for Wile E. Coyote! He's the protagonist as well as the underdog. It's just like wanting the rabbit to finally get a bowl of Trix.

#62: Lilo & Stitch
dir. Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
2002, USA
127 points, 4 votes
http://i.imgur.com/H4Ib8.gif
trailer

This is a great movie. I'm not sure why I saw it in the theater, in my twenties - might have been the only appealing thing playing while I was home for the summer. Anyway, it just charmed the bejeezus out of me. Loved how anarchically destructive and nutso Stitch was, and how convincing the human cast was...Lilo is maybe a little precocious but it played well IIRC. "Oh no, that's from my blue period!!" I remember not liking it as much on the second viewing but I might have just not waited long enough in between.

xp For whatever reason "Beep Prepared" was up for an Oscar http://media.kickstatic.com/kickapps/images/66470/photos/PHOTO_12462082_66470_18660554_ap.jpg

xp Apologies if the gif is not from the right movie, which I've never seen.

Well, of course you rooted for Wile E. Coyote! He's the protagonist as well as the underdog. It's just like wanting the rabbit to finally get a bowl of Trix.

TBH never thought of him that way! Mostly because there seems to be an unwritten rule that predatory animals typically figure as villains (and the corollary, that herbivorous animals are the protagonists), and the novelty with RR+WEC then would be that this rule gets inverted.

idk that's like considering Tom the protagonist of Tom & Jerry films, or Elmer Fudd.

Lilo & Stitch way way too low, obv.