Featured Posts. Welcome to Camp Disney Family. Tips for a Day at the Disneyland Resort with your Toddler. How to Have an aDORYable Summer. Disney Crafts and Recipes. Watch from 2. 99 Amazon, YouTube. Disney. Princesses, family, friendship, and lovethese are the main themes Disney movies deal with. You can expect a couple of. DreamWorks Pictures also known as DreamWorks SKG or DreamWorks Studios, commonly referred to as DreamWorks, trading as Storyteller Distribution Co., LLC is an. Sita Sings The Blues 2008 Most animated films require literally thousands upon thousands of people working for years and years, at the cost of millions. Its sort of remarkable, the ways that animation on the big screen has changed in the past two decades or so. In the early 90s, the game was pretty much entirely. Watch The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit Online Hulu' title='Watch The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit Online Hulu' />The 5. Best Animated Films Of The 2. Century So Far. 40. Sita Sings The Blues 2. Most animated films require literally thousands upon thousands of people working for years and years, at the cost of millions and millions of dollars. But it doesnt necessarily have to be that way. Animator Nina Paley made Sita Sings The Blues entirely on her own, and then released it online free, and the film became a word of mouth hit despite the lack of backing of a Disney or a Dream. Works. A deeply personal film that contrasts the break up of Paleys marriage with an adaptation of the story from the Ramayana, as Sita fights for her beloved Rama despite him continuing to doubt her, while the songs of jazz legend Annette Hanshaw score proceedings. You could perhaps raise questions about cultural appropriation over Paleys approach, but theres mostly a mix of respectfulness and irreverence that walks the line right, and the playfulness and personal force here is overwhelming. It feels at time like a sort of outsider art, in the best possible sense. Boy The World 2. Its incredibly exciting to see great animation emerging not just from its traditional homes, but from new countries scattered around the world, and if the Brazilian pic Boy The World is any indication, theres some extraordinary work to be found from there in the near future. Initially premiering in 2. U. S. release last year, nominated for an Oscar earlier this year and hitting home video this very week, its the fable like story of a young boy whos swept away on an adventure when his father leaves to go and find work. Watch The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit Online Hulu' title='Watch The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit Online Hulu' />Told without dialogue any speech is delivered in a nonsense language, and without much in the way of narrative, its a blunt political allegory about industrialization, globalization and the exploitation of the worker. But lest it sound too much like everyones favorite Soviet Itchy Scratchy substitute Worker Parasite, its an utterly charming and gorgeously realized fantasy that doesnt feel preachy in the least, and that marks director Al Abreu as a serious talent to watch. April And The Extraordinary World 2. Aside from Heavy Metal and, actually, our next entry, the long, fine tradition of the European comic bookgraphic novel hasnt had much success in being translated to the screen, but the recent sleeper April And The Extraordinary World bodes well for the future. Directed by Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci, its actually an original rather than an adaptation though created by Adele Blanc Sec writer Jacques Tardi, set in an alternate world where the French Empire continued to grow across the late 1. April Marion Cotillard embroiled in a hunt for her long thought dead parents, and a serum that could make people invulnerable. A simple but beautiful art style brings to life a thrillingly realized steampunk world, but the storytelling know how is just as impressive, with a potentially convoluted story coming across effortlessly. Its basically the film that Brad Birds Tomorrowland could and should have been, and worth seeking out once it hits home video. The Adventures of Tintin 2. Speaking of Euro comics, Steven Spielbergs The Adventures Of Tintin finally brought Hergs boy detective a key influence on April And The Extraordinary World to Hollywood. Or more accurately, to New Zealand the film was brought to life, surprisingly, through performance capture at Peter Jacksons WETA. Spielbergs first animated movie underwhelmed some at the time, but anyone who knows whats up knows that its something of a delight. The script by the heavyweight trio of Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish amalgamates three Tintin adventures into one and becomes a sort of origin story for the hero Jamie Bells friendship with Captain Haddock a phenomenal Andy Serkis. The result was the most energized movie that Spielberg had made in years, the director palpably giddy with the possibilities of the medium, and turning out something thats both a faithful homage to its source material, and at long last a great new Indiana Jones movie. Ponyo 2. 00. 8After the over busy, and to our mind rather disappointing, Howls Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki stripped things right back with the young skewing, sweet Ponyo. A riff on the story of the Little Mermaid, it sees Brunhilde Yuria Nara, a young fishgirl hybrid, become separated from her family and end up being found by a young boy named Sosuke Hiroki Doi and his mother Tomoko Yamaguchi, who name her Ponyo. Its a gentle film, one without much in the way of conflict, and surprisingly small in scope and scale after Miyazakis last few films got increasingly epic. And yet theres still a huge amount to uncover here, particularly its utterly lovable lead character, who Miyazaki is careful to keep as something alien rather than a human with some more water y elements. And the visual splendor when it comes, mostly at the behest of Ponyos father Fujimoto George Tokoro, is stunning. It takes a lot to find a new way of telling this particular story luckily, Ponyo was in the hands of a master. Watch The Builder Online Free HD. The Illusionist 2. From Steamboat Willy and Looney Tunes through to Pixar shorts and Shaun The Sheep, silent comedy has long been a major influence on animation, but rarely as directly as on the work of director Sylvain Chomet. And with the utterly lovely 2. The Illusionist, he paid tribute to one of his heroes, adapting an unproduced script by Gallic legend Jacques Tati. The film sees a Tati like magician move from Paris to Scotland, where he befriends a young girl named Alice. The film was supposedly written as an apology and plea for reconciliation by Tati to his estranged daughter, and Chomet never lets that melancholy slide away, with the films misty, muted tones and mid century style evoking a deep sadness and longing. But Tatis spirit is also thoroughly present in the physical comedy, the immaculate framing, the subtle details, that Chomet includes. Its an utterly fitting tribute to a figure who isnt talked about enough today. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 2. With Satoshi Kon passing, and Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata retiring, Japanese animations been in serious need of some new blood, and the most promising name to emerge in the last decade is Mamoru Hosoda, who first found fame with his nominal feature debut The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Based loosely on, and technically sequelizing, a 1. Makoto Riisa Naka, a Tokyo teenager who discovers that shes able to travel back in time, albeit only for a limited number of times. More teen movie than science fiction, it proves witty and inventive in its early stages, neatly capturing a take on adolescent life that not many animated movies would dare to try, before tipping into melodrama slightly less successfully in its second half. Hosoda would make more visually resplendent films in the years to come see the recent The Boy The Bear, but few as assured as this one. Ernest Celestine 2. The directors of the wonderful A Town Called Panic see below, Stphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, took a major left turn for their follow up, leaving behind the stop motion, mash up vibe for a more classical, childrens picture book feel. But the results were just as impressive. Co directed with Benjamin Renner and based on a series of books by Gabrielle Vincent, it follows the friendship between a brave young mouse Pauline Brunner who wants to do something other than be a dentist which is what all mice become, obviously, and a homeless bear Lambert Wilson who turned his back on being a lawyer to become an entertainer. Its as eccentric as it sounds, but spun around a lovely, universal story of friendship overcoming suspicion, and told in some striking hand painted animation, across a spry, 8. The 5. 0 Best Animated Films Of The 2. Century So Far. Its sort of remarkable, the ways that animation on the big screen has changed in the past two decades or so. In the early 9. 0s, the game was pretty much entirely owned by Disneys hand drawn animated fairy tales, which were hugely successful but almost entirely seen as kids stuff, with the occasional Don Bluth or Ralph Bakshi effort winning some eyes but not really competing and the beginning of an interesting scene in Japan that largely failed to crossover to mainstream audiences stateside. READ MORE The 5. Best Foreign Language Movies Of the 2. Century So Far. But as the end of the 2. Disneys alliance with Pixar saw the explosion of computer animation, which all but killed traditional 2. D hand drawn stuff. Disney boss Jeffrey Katzenberg defected and founded Dream. Works Animation, and soon every other studio was getting in on the act, with varying degrees of success. Japans Studio Ghibli won more and more fans, and international and independent animators found it easier and easier to get their films in front of people. Disney ebbed away to the point of disaster, then came back stronger than ever. READ MORE The 2. Best Movie Soundtracks Of The 2. Century So Far. Its been a tumultuous time, and one thats seen a whole heap of animated greatness for young and old audiences alike arrive. How this weeks The Secret Life Of Pets matches up remains to be seen its probably not a classic, lets face it, though its hopefully a reasonably good time at the movies but it put us in a cartoon mood. And so weve expanded our old list of the 2. Best Animated Films Of The 2. Century part of our occasional Best Of The Century So Far features from a year or two ago to a whopping 5. Take a look at the list below, and make your disagreements and agreements known in the comments. Brave 2. 01. 2Inexplicably dismissed by many on release perhaps because it was more female driven than most Pixar movies, Brave is already aging well just a few years on. Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapmans film about a feisty young Scottish princess Kelly Mac. Donald who accidentally turns her mother Emma Thompson into a bear is atypically straightforward for a Pixar film, with a folklore simplicity that feels more influenced by Hayao Miyazaki or Tomm Moore than John Lasseter. What initially might have felt thin has now shown itself to be something truly resonant, a film with a rare focus on the fractious, ultimately loving relationship between a mother and a daughter. Sprinkled with a feel of real magic, and topped with one of the most emotional finales the studio has made, itll only grow in peoples estimation over time once its departure from Pixar formula settles in a bit. The Pirates Band Of Misfits 2. After a series of disappointments Flushed Away, Arthur Christmas, a warehouse fire, a split with Dream. Works The Pirates was the kind of modest triumph that Aardman Animations needed to put them back on top. Based on a series of books and directed by Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt, the film takes a decidedly silly approach to high seas plundering, with Hugh Grants Pirate Captain and his crew teaming up with Charles Darwin David Tennant to win Pirate Of The Year. With a cast also including Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton as a hilariously psychotic Queen Victoria, Jeremy Piven and Salma Hayek, the film comes across as a pleasingly anarchic, low key counterpoint to the billion dollar glitz of most animated films, the closest thing you can get to a full length Monty Python animation, with more consistent laughs than almost anything else on this list. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2. The film that first introduced mainstream audiences to the very particular sensibilities of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs couldnt have looked much more unpromising on paper a disaster movie parody based on a 3. But in Lord and Millers hands, the film which follows Bill Haders eccentric inventor Flint Lockwood as he invents a machine that rains food on his hometown, only to see it become a Roland Emmerich style world threatener was both visually and comedically inventive, able to draw out belly laughs from young and old while throwing some truly impressive 3. D spectacle at you. But it did more, too, with a sweet natured, simple moral backbone about being true to yourself and letting your special qualities flourish not reinventing the wheel, exactly, but rarely as well executed as it is here. No wonder its directors have since gone on to conquer the world. Tokyo Godfathers 2. Perhaps no Japanese animated director had greater range than the late, much missed Satoshi Kon, and Tokyo Godfathers is his most atypical film. The exact midpoint of Italian neo realism and,well, Three Men And A Baby, it sees a trio of homeless people alcoholic Gin Toru Emori, trans woman Hana Yoshiaki Umegaki and runaway Miyuki Aya Okamoto encounter an abandoned child in the trash, and set out to reunite with its parents. The film has flaws that some of Kons other work doesnt its sloppily plotted Kon would claim that the film was about coincidences, but it doesnt make the contrived quality any easier and a bit treacly in places. But the warmth and compassion, particularly in its treatment of the three central characters and its portrait of the childs real mother, makes up for any holes, and its such a charming fable that its memory lingers long after the frustration of the plot has passed. Frankenweenie 2. Most right minded people would agree that most of what Tim Burton has done this century has been a crushing disappointment, an increasing ossification of a once talented and distinctive filmmaker. But theres actually a bit of a gem among the rough the charming and rather beautiful Frankenweenie, which returned Burton to his roots in more ways than one. A remake of the live action short film that helped bring him to peoples attention, it sees the bond between a boy and his dog severed when the adorable Sparky is run over, only for his owner Victor Charlie Tahan to resurrect him, Mary Shelley style. Put together in striking black and white stop motion, and with big eyed Burton style characters, its a visual pleasure, but a narrative one too, with John Augusts script successfully expanding things to pay homage both to Frankenstein and to a host of other monster movies too. Its deeply felt stuff, and perhaps the closest weve come in a while to the real Burton. Zootopia 2. 01. The recent turn around in Disney animation has been something to see After spending most of the 0. John Lasseter has seen a run of commercial triumphs from Bolt to Frozen. Wed argue that so far, few have been good enough to truly compete with the best of Pixar, but this years Zootopia comes closest. Its conceit world of animals is simple almost to the point of laziness, but directors Byron Howard and Rich Moore build a legitimately fascinating world and a surprisingly involving Chinatown style buddy cop mystery around it. It adheres to formula a little too closely, and the politics are a bit muddled, but the craft, and quality of voice performances Jason Batemans arguably never been better go a long way to make up for it. And again, that world is one that you positively want to swim in, to the extent that the now inevitable sequel feels like good news rather than bad. Kung Fu Panda 2. Dream. Works Animations formula, derived mostly from the Shrek movies star voices plus cute animals plus movie references led to great commercial success in the 0. But theyve had some highlights along the way, and Kung Fu Panda is undoubtedly one of them. In many respects, the story, which sees Jack Blacks slovenly panda become a martial arts master to battle evil forces, follows the companys formula.