The Animated Movies Thread

#1

Where on earth are all the animated movie threads around here? What’s the deal people? We’ve got loads of threads about everything Disney breathes out but nothing on all the superb animated stuff being released!

The only thread I could find was @rei’s “What? No Moana Thread?” waaaay down the search results which is simply not good enough. Harumph!

Anyway, I watched My Life as a Courgette recently with my girlfriend and it was such a beautiful film, and I don’t mean just to look at.

http://www.showfilmfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ma_vie_de_courgette-637498614-large.jpg

If you can, watch it in French where every scene was live acted by the cast giving it a very natural and honest quality that I dare say is lost in the dub.

Much like Inside Out or Zootopia, My Life is a Courgette does that wonderful thing of being family friendly while still not shying away from heavier themes which, as tempting as it might be to label them ‘adult’, unfortunately are not in this case. It’s one of my favourite films I’ve seen this year and weighs in at a mere 66~ minutes long.

I mentioned it in the Netflix thread but another short animation that blew me away earlier in the year (that won an Academy Award in 2008) was The House of Small Cubes.

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80142133

It reminded me of Up but without the runtime and nonsense involving talking dogs flying planes.

I’m also really looking forward to Loving Vincent, a fully oil painted animated biographical drama on van Gogh. It looks staggering.

#2

I’ve been a little underwhelmed by most of the animated movies I’ve watched recently, some of which were highly praised. Like Song of the Sea, for instance. To be fair, they were fine as kids’ movies, but I haven’t seen much in the way of adult oriented/friendly animation that has really blown me away since the era of Miyazaki, Belleville Rendezvous and Waltz with Bashir. And early Pixar, of course.

That said, there’s stuff I’m really looking forward to seeing, like Your Name, The Red Turtle and Klaus (which feels like it’s been in production forever).

#3

Song of the Sea was gorgeous and I enjoyed it a great deal, more so than the Secret of Kells.

Have you seen Mary and Max? The Illusionist (by Sylvain Chomet who also did The Triplets of Belleville), Persepolis, Wrinkles and Anomalisa all come to mind too as more adult oriented animations. That last one’s an oddball but I warmed to it a lot after realising what the film was based on. I haven’t see Waltz with Bashir yet.

Red Turtle is on our list. We recently watched When Marnie Was There and Arriety, which were both great. When Marnie Was There evoked similar feelings in me as Spirited Away, despite being a different kind of film. Not many films are capable of that!

#4

Anomalisa’s a good shout, actually. I’d forgotten about that.

#5

I loved song of the sea. It was amazon prime for a short time.

#6

Kubo and the Two Strings was excellent. Could have been a Pixar story. Lovely animatiin, especially of the paper samurai. Stop motion, that last true artistic form of animation.

Looking forward to The Incredibles 2 a great deal. Written and directed by Brad Bird, one of my personal animation heroes and one of my favorite storytellers. If I ever have an opportunity to kneel down and kiss his feet, consider them kissed.

I can take or leave rotoscoped stuff like Waking Life and the upcoming Van Gogh. Yeah, its painted over frames, but it ends up looking like a photo shop filter to me. Van Gogh is a terribly interesting subject, though.

#7

Kubo I enjoyed the animation, but wasn’t particularly sold on the story/writing (same for Song of the Sea, though less impressed with the animation). In both cases it might have helped if I were either a child or a parent.

#8

I want to know what Photoshop filters you’ve been using! ;-)

Kubo’s models, sets and animation were just awe-inspiring. I’m a fan of Laika’s work in general though, ParaNorman, Boxtrolls, Coraline. Unsure which is my favourite!

I make a point of watching the making of features just to remind myself how much goes into stop-motion animation. I’m aware already, but it’s easy to take the finished thing for granted. My Life as a Courgette is also stop-motion animated.

#9

I’ll add this to the list.

#10

Yeah, its painted over frames, but it ends up looking like a photo shop filter to me.

Same, although that’s not entirely fair to the massive effort involved. Maybe shows how programs like Photoshop have infected one’s sense of what’s possible or what animation can look like.

I’ve always felt in a way that rotoscoped animation looks a bit like ‘cheating,’ but it’s been used forever, going back at least to 1930s Betty Boop cartoons where they would use film of Cab Calloway to create the motions for certain characters.

All of this reminds me of Waking Life, which I liked but which again felt like a live action movie that had been put through a photoshop filter of some kind.

#11

A Town Called Panic is a fantastic little French film.

#12

Yes, I highly recommend Town Called Panic. A level of manic insanity that is rarely topped, even in children’s films!

#13

Excellent, thanks for the recommendation. Watchlisted.

#14

It’s been used forever, but there’s a huge difference between rotoscopy as reference and just tracing right over it. For example, Snow white dancing with dwarves is ‘traced’ for the motion and timing, but necessarily heavily adapted to suit the likeness of Snow White, and the physiology and cartooniness of the dwarves. Fine artists use models all the time for reference, light and shadows, etc, and you’d never call that cheating. Artists will take pride in being able to draw/paint/animate many things without reference, but then that muscle memory was gained through observation in the first place.

All that said, yeah I agree, if something feels too closely to being slapped on top of video reference I tend to not appreciate it as much, regardless of how much work went into stylizing it.

#16

I have been watching tons of animated movies to learn tricks and such for my own stuff. Recently watched Akira again. Man the animation is that is outstanding, as is the sound design, soundtrack, everything.

The song and visuals during the motorcycle chases are legendary. A master class in showing speed and kinetic action.

#17

I feel like I’ve been trolled. If there were ever a movie to nominate for only watchable on drugs, I’d give this movie 10 gold stars.

I used to think Fantasia or Winnie the pooh and the heffalumps, but this movie is in it’s own class.

Horrible, Horrible movie sober.

#18

Not trolling, I love the madness of it. I would think subtitles would be tough to follow impaired, or did you watch a dub?

#19

With subtitles, although with character names of Horse, Indian and Cowboy I’m not sure that it added a lot. I think this could be scored differently and just watch the spectacle unfold without any dialogue because the only thing that dialogue added was a rudimentary story at best that I think would challenge @Kelly_Wand to make any weirder.

#20

It’s great if you have kids. It is exactly the manic intensity of children, to a T … man.

#21

Nice.