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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Gotta agree with the list and add my newest favorite the Fleischer Superman cartoons.
The rotoscoped animation is much more natural than anything I have seen in modern times, the shows are short, the art deco designs beautiful and they capture what makes Superman such an enduring character.
The only problem is as you hit the later ones there are nasty images of the Japanese (funny that, what did they ever do?), but again that can be a discussion point or parents can just skip them.
"Graveyard of the Fireflies" was mentioned in an earlier post, but I can't imagine a film more inappropriate for young children; it's emotionally wrenching and both main characters die horrible deaths. It's an excellent film, but for teens and up.
What about:
The Land Before Time and Dot and the Kangaroo?? Someone else posted The Last Unicorn, which also gets my vote.
Neverending Story!!!
Although as a snobby high school film teacher, I would push Keaton and Chaplin before Lloyd, as a parent, I do have to relate this story. A few years back, I took my son (now 12) to see Lloyd's THE FRESHMAN in our art movie-house; we had a great time. At the end of the summer, I asked my boy what was his favorite movie of the summer. I fully expected him to say BATMAN BEGINS, but he said it was THE FRESHMAN. I will always remember his (and the entire audience's reaction) to the climax of the film. As a teacher, my students are astonished to see that Adam Sandler did not have an original idea with THE WATERBOY when I show Lloyd's climax to them. You cannot go wrong with kids with any Keaton, Chaplin, or Lloyd films.
what??? no neverending story? no princess bride? no the day the earth stood still??
no parent trap? no fly away home?
sigh.
Ah, Yellow Submarine...I can remember watching it over and over in the early morning hours, wide eyed, intoning "wow...I AM the Nowhere Man..." and thinking "my life's never gonna be the same now that I've realized all of this..."
It's also cool when you're a kid, and have no idea about anything implied by the above paragraph.
And I second your plug for Fly Away Home.
More hesitantly, I want to mention an animated film called Titan A.E. The story is pretty intense (early parent/child separation, destruction of home world), but the animation is terrific, and the cast wonderful: Janeane Garofalo, Drew Barrymore, Matt Damon, and John Leguizamo, among others. Now 14 and 11, our kids (especially the boy, who's younger) loved this five or more years ago.
A Little Princess is a little miracle.
Did anyone mention Babe? How 'bout the original Charlotte's Web, with Paul Lynde as Templeton?
Great list, Andrew. I'd also like to see what you left off.
I'm glad you had the Charles Scneer and Ray Harryhausen classic "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" on your list. I saw it as a kid in '73 at the Greenway Plaza movie theatre in Houston Texas when I was about 10. Tom Baker's performance as the evil enchanter of the dark arts, the cruel sorceror Sakura, was an inspired performance, just as good as his turn as Rasputin in "Nicholas and Alexandra." Baker is an underestimated actor and I wish he'd done more movies. Of course any little boy seeing Sinbad was captivated by the beautiful Caroline Munro as Sinbad's cutey companion. Of Sneer's and Harryhausen's trilogy of Sinbad flicks, I think "Golden Voyage" is the best. It captures the spirit of the Arabian Nights better than any other movie outside of Alexander Korda's "Thief of Baghdad. Also, when I lived in Cairo Egypt many years ago, "Golden Voyage" was a favorite of my film buff friend Hanify, as well as many other Egyptians who still love and tell the tales of Shaherazad. Thanks for helping Sinbad to sail again.
Great list, Andrew. "Dumbo" was Nora's favorite as a tiny child -- I went away for a weekend to a cousin's wedding, and when I came back she'd make me rewind it so she could watch the "Baby Mine" sequence over and over -- still one of the most poignant memories I have! I've never left her since, and she's 18. Kidding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7JvL2ap3Cg
She also loved "The Secret Garden" -- at 5 or 6, fwiw.
But yes, we want the runners up, too!
You should at least give a shout out to the excellent non-mouse alternative "Allegro Non Tropo". The evolution sequence set to Bolero is fabulous. The live action slapstick between the animation sequences are witty and lampoon Disney. I don't recall any scenes scarier than "Night on Bald Mountain", but it is more mature in theme. As befits an Italian movie there are religious references and it certainly casts a jaundiced eye on humanity. Okay maybe it's for tweens and above.
In the European animation vein there is "The Triplets of Belleville". Mobsters, music, and the Tour de France.
Certainly anything by Nick Park - especially "The Wrong Trousers".
Oh, what about "Holes"?
(see subject line)
Duma
Fly Away Home
Into the West
Little Women (1994)
What's Opera Doc?
If you are a Mommy and believe - for whatever reason - that your kids need to see Daddy cry over a movie, just sit everybody down to watch "Ponette."
This is one French movie that not even the most subtitle-averse clod will hate, because most of the dialog comes from cute little French children. It just so irrationally amazing to hear children speaking a "foreign" language - so fluently! - that every word on the screen is automatically precious.
But once you get over the sheer charm of it, you will be simply stunned by the performance of five-year-old Victoire Thivisol. The director and adult actors all had a particular genius for evoking the correct dialog from Thivisol, when she could not possibly have memorized such a script verbatim.
Ponette is a little girl who has lost her mother, which sounds like a framework for pure melodrama, but I assure you that melodrama is entirely absent from this film. There are scenes of conversation between father and daughter that seem so much like a documentary that you feel almost ashamed for invading their privacy.
The climactic scene with Ponette will tear your heart out. And it's all done with the kind of emotional purity and honesty that would make any serious actor ask, "Why can't I do that?"
If Dad doesn't cry you need to get another Dad.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
