Originally Posted By mawnck >>I can't imagine how you did it for the entire film!<< On the contrary, I enjoyed the hell out of this one, and recommend it to anyone who's into the Ed Wood thing. The screenplay was a parade of movie cliches barely tied together by a plot that made no sense at all, and totally devoid of even the most cursory attempt at character development. The filmmakers were clearly intending to repeatedly tug at the heartstrings, but were so clumsy and clueless about it that it just ended up being funny. And while I wouldn't describe the eye-searingly colorful landscapes as especially artistic, there was still plenty of interesting stuff to look at if you needed to take a breather from trying to follow the non-plot. It featured the most. annoying. movie. dog. ever. God I loved that stupid dog. Oh evil, evil whatchamacallit, why did you kill the elephant but spare the dog? WHY? The elephant's name was Elephant. Nuff said. There were also plenty of amusing bloopers to watch out for, my favorite being the recurring blue butterfly which, thanks to an overenthusiastic foley artist, had loudly flapping wings.
Originally Posted By mawnck Aaaaand Summer Wars. Anime. Shy hapless teenage boy (is there any other kind?) gets conned into posing as a cute classmate's fiancee at an extended family gathering, and of course ends up battling an artificial intelligence computer program (that looks like a satanic samurai monster) that's trying to destroy the world. Not a bad movie if you dig Anime, but it's playing way out of its league in present company. It's silly, predictable, a bit slow moving in spots, and the animation is pretty mediocre (Jinsha was animated better). And the English dub, notsohot. I'm not real sure what possessed Funimation to submit this one. What's in it for 'em?
Originally Posted By mawnck THE MAWNCKSCARS! Let's count 'em down from 15 to 1. And I'll toss in a few other flicks I saw this year for good measure. It was a very good year - although not as good as last year. *** Tales From Earthsea (Not eligible due to length of time between Japanese and American releases) Rudderless scrambled mess of a movie from Hayao Miyazaki's son, Goro. Lovely to look at, but agony to endure. *** Piercing 1 (shown at LA Animation Fest) One-man Chinese production - a thriller about two teens getting mixed up in organized crime. If the one man had possessed any drawing abilities whatsoever ... well, it still wouldn't have been that great, but hoo boy was it hard on the eyes! Gets in ahead of Earthsea because it at least makes sense. 15 The Dreams of Jinsha I've gone into this one in great detail in posts above. Dopey as it is, it's still considerably better than the two prevous turkeys. 14 Cats and Dogs - The Revenge of Kitty Galore Lived down to my expectations. 13 Legend of the Guardians - The Owls of Ga'hoole Another pretty one with a wretched script. Gets a slight boost from the pretty awesome battle sequence toward the end.
Originally Posted By mawnck 12 Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue It does have its moments, but the story is exasperatingly mundane, closing in on "My Little Pony the Movie" territory. Good lord, Vidia's one of the gals now? Fairyland just got REAL boring. And is it just me or has the animation quality taken a BIG dip? 11 Alpha and Omega Not much to this one, it was just kind of there. 10 My Dog Tulip Based on a true story about an eccentric British author and his satanic helldog. No plot, just 90 minutes of dog barf, dog poop, dog mating (or lack thereof), and generally naughty dog behavior. The critics LOVED this one. The critics are weirdos. 9 Despicable Me This one was decent ... I just felt like it tried WAY too hard to be adorable. The yellow guys didn't do anything for me either. 8 Summer Wars Described in earlier posts. A pretty good anime, somewhat hindered by subpar animation.
Originally Posted By mawnck *** Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) (LA Animation Festival) Very weird psycho-comedy-drama that used surreal cutout animation. Not everything in it worked, and the story was a little more predictable than you'd expect, but I still enjoyed it. 7 Shrek 4, Shrek Forever After, Shrek the Final Chapter, Shrek Whatever Else They're Calling It This Shrekky version of It's a Wonderful Life was a great sendoff for the series, and somewhat made up for the steaming pile that was Shrek 3. *** Midori-Ko (LA Animation Festival) The real weirdo of the bunch this year, a Japanese feature (not really anime as we understand the term) about an alien (?) plant with a face that a young girl has to protect because all her neighbors want to eat it. Surreal, confusing, creepy, and done entirely in colored pencil. 6 Megamind WAY better than Despicable Me, with a much more solid plot and infinitely better animation. And a much better minion than those yellow guys. 5 Idiots and Angels Bill Plympton gets serious and turns in his first REALLY good feature. Rotten-to-the-core bar patron suddenly sprouts angel wings on his back, and they have a mind and conscience of their own. Dark, moody, entrancing.
Originally Posted By mawnck Isn't this exciting? Picking the order for these last ones was murder, since it's comparing apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries, and total insanity. Can I just call it a 5-way tie? 4 Tangled The most technically accomplished flick of the year, but I'm docking it a couple notches for ... playing things a little too safe. *** Redline Total anime madness - kind of a cross between Wacky Racers, Speed Racer (the live action movie), US and Japanese graphic novels, and crack. Lots and lots of crack. Gratuitous EVERYTHING. Totally nuts, totally exhilarating. And kind of hard to put into words, as you can probably tell. Just go see it as soon as you get a chance, in a theater if at all possible. 3 Toy Story 3 TS3 ended up in third place for not being quite as flawless as my top 2. I just felt like it lost focus in spots, going for gags and set pieces that derailed the overall storytelling a bit. It was minor, and most years it wouldn't matter, but most years don't have ... 2 The Illusionist Beautiful, sentimental, sad, engrossing, and magnificently hand-drawn. An aging French magician with a downhill-heading career becomes a surrogate father to a naive, clumsy Irish teenage girl. By the same director as The Triplets of Belleville, but not really much like that. and the Mawnckscar goes to ... 1 How To Train Your Dragon Again, I can't honestly say this one is any better than The Illusionist or TS3, but it's dang sure just as good, and it was my favorite of the year. So it's #1. Hope you've enjoyed this trip through 2010's animated features. Local news is next.
Originally Posted By Anatole69 Redline sounds interesting: it comes from Madhouse studios (Ninja Scroll, Metropolis and all of Satoshi Kon's movies). I'm not sure when, if ever, I will get to see it here in Thailand. I saw the Earthsea film last year on DVD. The story was perfectly comprehensible to me, I just felt it had huge leaps of logic and it failed to create any sympathetic characters. The animation is stunning, however. - Anatole
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Redline sounds interesting: it comes from Madhouse studios<< So does Summer Wars, I'm afraid. Don't know if it was the budget or an artistic "style" or what, but my reaction was "TV animation quality." Crudely drawn, frequently off-model, not much detail or motion. IE the usual "cheap anime" problems. Redline was about as far from that (in the good direction) as you could possibly get. >>Earthsea ... The story was perfectly comprehensible to me<< Well, it's followable. But with the blank characters, the aimless narrative, and the constant unanswered question of "is there a point to all this?" (No.) it's one of those rare movies that actually makes you angry at the filmmakers. Because it's proactive suckage. It wasn't the budget or the source material or the talent of the crew. It was some nincompoop in a position of authority who, due to a deadly combination of hubris and incompetence, actually WORKED at making it that bad. And it's even more infuriating if you've read the books it's allegedly based on, which are the exact opposite of all those negative things.
Originally Posted By mawnck BTW - It seems you home viewers have a rare opportunity to see one of the strange things that show up at these one-week Academy qualifier runs. "The Dolphin - Story of a Dreamer," last year's turkey of turkeys, which is far worse than even Earthsea, has inexplicably been released on DVD by Fox. I encourage you to rent it, as a benchmark for judging just how bad a movie can get. Here's the trailer, which, I swear to God, makes it look BETTER than it really is: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qb8IRFjzN4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...8IRFjzN4</a>
Originally Posted By Dabob2 "Bill Plympton gets serious and turns in his first REALLY good feature." Didn't care for The Tune? I thought less would have been more, but there were elements in that that I REALLY liked.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Thanks for the rundown! I haven't even heard of most of those, so it's great to get an opinion on them. I still don't understand the fascination with How to Train Your Dragon (it reminds me of Pooh, which is a fine way to spend 90 minutes, but not memorable at all, IMO), but everybody else seemed ot love it, so I can't complain too much. And did Dreamworks really release 4 films this year (Despicable Me, Megamind, Alpha and Omega, and How to Train Your Dragon)? That's a pretty impressive output for any studio!
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Didn't care for The Tune?<< I confess to have only seen bits of that one (it's in the viewing pile) but what I saw didn't seem likely to add up to anything to match Idiots and Angels. >>did Dreamworks really release 4 films this year<< Three: How To Train Your Dragon, Shrek Forever After, and Megamind. Despicable Me is 20th Century Fox/Illumination Entertainment, and Alpha and Omega is an indie studio called Crest Animation Productions.
Originally Posted By JeffG >> "Despicable Me is 20th Century Fox/Illumination Entertainment" << Universal, not Fox. -Jeff
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I confess to have only seen bits of that one (it's in the viewing pile) but what I saw didn't seem likely to add up to anything to match Idiots and Angels.> Oh, no question I&A is better, but you said it was his first really good one, and IMO The Tune was that though I can see it not being to all tastes.
Originally Posted By DlandDug Count me among those who is baffled by the high regard for HTTYD. It was pleasant enough, I guess.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>If you held a gun to my head, I'd now go with: Toy Story 3 How To Train Your Dragon The Illusionist but since you aren't close enough to my head to get a clean shot, I officially give up.<< Dang ... I shouldn't have given up.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<My nominee predictions: * Despicable Me * How to Train Your Dragon * Toy Story 3 I predict Dragon for the win.>> Well... two out of three. As for Dragon winning... no chance. TS3 will get it, because of that second nomination it received. Because of the mutation from five to ten films for Best Picture, we're probably going to see one animated feature in that category from here on, which has zero chance of ever winning. (Read the TAG blog regarding this hotly debated topic, where long-time industry veterans like Floyd Norman give solid arguments why we'll never see it happen.) And because of that double nomination, the film will end up winning Best Animated Feature as a consolation prize. What a scummy thing to do to the other films in the Best Animated Feature category, especially the non-Pixar films that don't have the corporate muscle behind them to influence the Best Picture nomination process. Welcome to the New & Improved™ Oscars!
Originally Posted By Anatole69 ^^ I feel it deserved that nomination, and I don't see it as scummy at all. It was a good film and it deserved to be in that category. - Anatole
