The Film List ANIMATION
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Jin Roh Anime Thriller Somber ending suited to a long yet at moments very touching film that really plays with the thin line between authority and dissonance. The double lives of the main characters has some clever depth and exchange. Mostly, though, I love this because the Panzer Cops are so freaking COOL. Strange stuff.
Not for everybody. If you like Stormtroopers better than rebels, you'll probably dig parts of this flick a lot.
Blood Anime Horror Although I'm sad that it's only a little over an hour long, I LOVE this piece. It is definitely a new watermark in Japanese animation.
Godlike!
The Emperor's New Groove Disney Comedy A wonderful piece of work! Slow to build, but always entertaining, and by the time the two protagonists run into the two antagonists in the diner, my eyes are watering from the onslaught of punch lines. Excellent timing, pacing and characterizations. I mean, is Yzma hot of what?
FAB!
Monsters, Inc. CGI Pixar Hits all the marks. I love this one. Big furry monsters and cutie pie little girls, a formula for success as old as mankind, really.
Excellent!
Samurai Jack Cartoon Network The "pilot" film and one bonus episode (#11) on this DVD. Awe inspiring, strange, wonderful, silly, slick and all the way around again. Loved it!
Excellent!
Kôtetsu tenshi Kurumi aka Steel Angel Kurumi Anime A nifty yarn with really atypically wonderful costume design for the myriad of steel angels in the course of the show, designs that reflect nearly every genre I can think of that has roots in the 20's or 30's. A lot of solid animation, and some very strange cutie big head segments that made me smile. The story is entertaining at worst and enjoyable at best.
No regrets, inspirational costuming design.
Atlantis Disney Awesome. Animation has some odd bits, like inconsistent character depiction when idle versus when in action. Strange hands, but the style grew on me throughout, so not really a criticism. Lots of bits are homage to preceding work, but are effectively employed here. The Mike Mignola design work resonates in some moments of the film's more robust visual segments.
Love it!
Final Fantasy 3D Animation Beautiful. The story is simple and somewhat derivative, as was much of the design for the armor and characters and the big space gun, but all done with great integrity. Odd marionette animation occasionally, noticeable only in contrast to the realism of everything else.
Cool!
Roughnecks Starship Troopers Chronicles Vol. 1 3D TV Series Episodes of initial story arch blended into a single filmic narrative. Very cool work, great design, decent animation, solid modeling and impressive writing.
Boss!
Kiki's Delivery Service Studio Ghibli The brilliance about this film, as with most films from this studio, is the subtle excellence that permeates the film like sweat on a cow. Like toes on feet being more defined than a typical Disney wedge, or knuckles on fingers, or individual spokes on bicycle tires, or feathers on crows, or even foreground blades of grass and straw. All of this humbling detail without ever distracting from the story at hand. Further, I deeply respect this film's ability to be at it's most powerful when also being most quiet. A girl's slow progress along the side of a curved coastal road becomes an encapsulated Homer's Odyssey, the heroes journey against all odds. Sure, the 10 year olds watching this with me were bored stiff through the first half, "this is no Samurai Jack" they decreed. Sure, they're right, that is a completely different kind of masterpiece. Still, to my older, supposedly more refined pallet, this is one of the finest things I've seen in a long time, and then I have to wonder, what took me so darn long to watch it? Oh, yeah, I remember, Samurai Jack was on. ;)
Brilliant!!!
Spirited Away AKA Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli Rich, dense, elegant, horrifying, comical, even more dense, and that's just the credits. I love this, the simplicity that rapidly unfolds into complexity with an organic flow that feels both stunning and terrifying. Note, I watched this in Japanese with subtitles, so I have no idea how different the US dubbed version might be, though friends tell me it's pretty much the same, perhaps the most respectful dubbing of all time. Perhaps, but I'll pass anyway, thanks. On another note, really dug the entrance into the alternate world, very much like Lion, Witch & Wardrobe and more recently the Japanese ghost film Kakashi. Comparisons to Alice in Wonderland of course are far to easy to make in a grossly general way, true all the same, except completely wrong as well. Excellent.
Brilliant!!
Hellsing Horror Series Excellent build up and look forward to the sequel series, apparently set in the Vatican. Hellsing is an organization in contemporary London that hunts monsters as part of the secret society evolved from the legendary Round Table. The keynote is a vampire who works for the organization that is more than he seems, his student a female cop turned vamp and a host of monsters, ghouls, thrill killers, psycho priests and other fun bits.
Excellent!
Memories Collected short films High art meets anime again in these three beautiful pieces that cover a real spectrum of style and story telling. Magnetic Rose is a space romp delving into the notion of being haunted by the past, both your own and the one imposed by another. Stink Bomb is a witty satire of government over reaction to a biological threat of ludicrous proportions. Cannon Fodder is an anime answer to Metropolis. Beautiful, but what do you expect from the cat who brought you Akira?
Beautiful!
Spring & Chaos Artistic Interpretation An animated biography of modern Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa that strives to capture the essence of the poems and the situations in which they were constructed, further influenced by. The poet and his fellows are portrayed by animals, cats mostly, in 1930's Japan where traditions and Westernization are slamming into one another at breakneck speeds with considerable discomfort felt by all. The short film glides through a myriad of forms, including hybrid CGI, traditional anime, color pencil, water color and such. It oscillates between symbolic and representational introspective tangents and linear portrayals of key influential elements in the poet's life. A very keen way to dig into the essence behind an artist's work, and certainly fetching to watch.
Excellent.
Blood Reign Fantasy Despite the title and back cover promise of monsters and gore, this is a huge waste of time. The gratuitous nudity is about at tantalizing as watching worms mate at 4 frames per second. The monsters might have been entertaining when bell bottoms were originally cool, but now feel trite and under developed.
Weak.
Cowboy Bebop (series) TV Sci Fi series The show I've heard about all these years finally held me hostage for an entire night. Unbelievably solid. Well designed, brilliant situations, delicious humor, vibrant animation, every detail a considered decision that reflects a body of creative genius. And thanks to this show I'm now addicted to Yoko Kanno scores and songs spanning dozens of shows and flicks, her work is a genre unto itself. My only complaint is that there aren't more episodes. Three DVDs is not enough. If pulp like Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z can churn out a hundred episodes a month, how is it something this solid, open and wide spanning can't squeak out a couple dozen more episodes? Oi.
Made me feel like a religious convert on Cesarean Section Day.
Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door Movie spin-off Instead of more episodes, they raised the bar even higher and followed the lead of Lupin the Third to make a high detail feature length film that seriously rocks the house hard core (rather than a bullocks compressed excerpts version of the TV show like some series have). Sweet and seamless with even more rich characters, social commentary, character interaction, intense combat, retro-futurist vehicles, government agencies and a big old parade. Pretty sure the film fits somewhere into the middle of the TV series, hard to tell but doesn't matter. A beautiful piece of work. And even more damn solid sound track work.
Excellent!!!
Roujin Z Futurist Social Commentary Comedy Problem: too many old people, not enough nurses. Answer: get a machine to do the job, a former military application organic AI project turned uber hospital bed that is tapped into the old person's psyche to better serve them. Result: Mecha-bed becomes sentient being that seeks to take care of loved one in her care. Chaos ensues. Fun, well animated, fresh humor and excellent social comments about how a first world country deals with their elderly.
Awesome!
Perfect Blue Thriller Interesting choice to make this as anime when it clearly would have worked as live action. Dealing largely with the crisis of identity in the public eye and the impact that can have on the celebrity privately when their public life owns them. Throw in a stalker, an envious personal assistant, a bevy of J-Pop references, some fan convention satire and a seriously creepy reflection of the self the protagonist sought to leave behind as her career plans change and you have a solid recipe for good entertainment that keeps you amused and guessing through out. The editing and pacing echo the protagonist's mental breakdown incredibly well and are worth noting as the techniques employed are drawing from outside typical anime material, looking instead at the plethora of successful thriller and Noir genre films domestic and abroad. Still, would be cool to see this translated into a live action piece. The creepy parts would probably be considerably creepier.
Solid!