50 Favorite Animated Films

So after the Oscars last night, I posted a quick note encouraging all of my friends to see The King's Speech, while also lamenting the fact that the Academy has yet to fully acknowledge the importance and artistry of an animated film.

An old childhood friend asked the seemingly innocuous question, "[W]hat's your favorite animated movie?" Little did she realize that a seemingly easy question like that was bound to receive a long, drawn out answer, most likely with a self-inflicted research project attached.

So I have spent the day compiling a list of my top 50 favorite animated films. This is one of the trickier lists I've taken on, because of the amount of variables involved. In addition to the question of how strictly I would limit the field (does stop motion count? puppetry? live action/animation?), age was also a huge factor in determining my feelings about a given film.

Not the film's age, mind you, but my own. There are many films that I loved as a child, which pop up regularly in my memories of growing as a person and a cinephile: the movie I was watching when I learned about cel animation, the first memory I have inside a theater, the cartoon my mother had to trick me into watching because I was a stubborn jackass...

This morning's epic sales meeting provided the perfect opportunity to jot down a quick list of every single animated film I've ever seen and enjoyed. With that in hand, I whittled it down to a manageable size by enforcing the following parameters:

• Film must be of feature length (60+ minutes). Remembering and tracking down the title of every cartoon short I've ever loved would simply be impossible. Also, this disqualified beloved TV specials like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Special.
• Stop motion is included in this list; puppetry is not. Though it's tempting to lump the Muppets in with cartoon brethren, since they often share the same child-friendly subject matter and are both synthetic media being manipulated by unseen hands, the fact is that they are inherently different art forms. Animation - be it cel, CGI or stop motion - is the product of an artist creating a model, capturing an image, then manipulating the model into another pose and re-capturing to imply motion. Puppetry, on the other hand, is the creation of a moving, tactile model and filming it actually in motion; equally relevant, but totally different. Plus, disqualifying Team America and Muppet Treasure Island again made the list easier to boil down to a nice, round 50.
• Perhaps flying in the face of my puppet argument, I decided to include live action/animation hybrids, but only in cases where the animated segments are the actual feature of the film. Raiders of the Lost Ark may have hand-drawn elements, but they are not integral components of the entire film's mis-en-scene. Still, as a matter of good form, I would not allow such a film to top this list.
• Finally, the question that plagues every film list came up: is this a list of "bests" or "favorites"? In the end, I decided to refer to the original question, which asked me for my FAVORITE animated film. While overall quality and artistry are always a factor in my enjoyment, this list is primarily a nostalgia trip. These are the 50 films, loosely ranked, which not only gave me an appreciation for the art of animation, but a love for cinema as a whole. Beyond that, I would contend that great animated films - with their inherently fantastic nature, complex archetypical characters, and capacity for multi-sensory engagement - will often say more about the nature of human growth and development than films featuring real people who are obviously pretending to be someone else.

Without further ado...

DR. MAGNIFICO'S 50 FAVORITE ANIMATED FILMS

1.     Toy Story (1995 | John Lasseter | Pixar)

2.     The Little Mermaid (1989 | Ron Clements, John Musker | Disney)

3.     Mary Poppins (1964 | Robert Stevenson | Disney)

4.     South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999 | Trey Parker | Comedy Central Films)

5.     Alice in Wonderland (1951 | Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske | Disney)

6.     Yellow Submarine (1968 | George Dunning | Apple Films)

7.     Finding Nemo (2003 | Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich | Pixar)

8.     The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993 | Henry Selick | Touchstone)

9.     Beauty and the Beast (1991 | Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise | Disney)

10.  Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988 | Robert Zemeckis | Amblin)

11.  The Lion King (1994 | Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff | Disney)

12.  The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977 | John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman | Disney)

13.  Ratatouille (2007 | Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava | Pixar)

14.  The Jungle Book (1967 | Wolfgang Reitherman | Disney)

15.  Up (2009 | Pete Docter, Bob Peterson | Pixar)

16.  Wall-E (2008 | Andrew Stanton | Pixar)

17.  The Brave Little Toaster (1987 | Jerry Rees | Hyperion)

18.  Toy Story 3 (2010 | Lee Unkrich | Pixar)

19.  Sword in the Stone (1963 | Wolfgang Reitherman | Disney)

20.  Toy Story 2 (1999 | John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, Lee Unkrich | Pixar)

21.  Cinderella (1950 | Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske | Disney)

22.  The Incredibles (1989 | Ron Clements, John Musker | Disney)

23.  Chicken Run (2000 | Peter Lord, Nick Park | Aardman)

24.  The Great Mouse Detective (1986 | Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, David Michener, John Musker | Disney)

25.  Robin Hood (1973 | Wolfgang Reitherman | Disney)

26.  How to Train Your Dragon (2010 | Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders | Dreamworks)

27.  Pinocchio (1940 | Hamilton Luske, Ben Sharpsteen | Disney)

28.  Shrek 2 (2004 | Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, Conrad Vernon | Dreamworks)

29.  The Aristocats (1970 | Wolfgang Reitherman | Disney)

30.  Peter Pan (1953 | Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske | Disney)

31.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937 | David Hand | Disney)

32.  Princess Mononoke (1997 | Hayao Miyazaki | Studio Ghibli)

33.  101 Dalmations (1961 | Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wolfgang Reitherman | Disney)

34.  Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009 | Wes Anderson | Fox Animation)

35.  Aladdin (1992 | Ron Clements, John Musker | Disney)

36.  Dumbo (1941 | Ben Sharpsteen | Disney)

37.  The Hobbit (1977 | Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin, Jr. | Rankin/Bass)

38.  American Pop (1981 | Ralph Bakshi | Columbia)

39.  Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005 | Steve Box, Nick Park | Aardman)

40.  The Prince of Egypt (1998 | Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, Simon Wells | Dreamworks)

41.  Spirited Away (2002 | Hayao Miyazaki | Studio Ghibli)

42.  Monsters, Inc. (2001 | Pete Docter, David Silverman, Lee Unkrich | Pixar)

43.  Shrek (2001 | Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson | Dreamworks)

44.  Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (2005 | Tim Burton, Mike Johnson | Warner Bros.)

45.  My Neighbor Totoro (1988 | Hayao Miyazaki | Studio Ghibli)

46.  Cars (2006 | John Lasseter, Joe Ranft | Pixar)

47.  Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971 | Robert Stevenson | Disney)

48.  Cyrano (1974 | Charles A. Nichols | Hanna-Barbera)

49.  An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991 | Phil Nibbelink, Simon Wells | Amblin)

50.  Charlotte’s Web (1973 | Charles A. Nichols, Iwao Takamoto | Hanna-Barbera)

Dr. Magnifico's Top Ten of 2010

Oscar night and I'm just getting settled in at home from a long and eventful drill weekend. Obviously, I missed a good chunk of 2010 to basic training and I haven't had a chance to play catch up to my satisfaction; still, tradition is tradition, and my yearly film list must be published before the Oscars are announced. Without further ado...

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2010

10. Shutter Island - Interesting mixture of psychological thriller and old-school detective film. Scorsese is obviously not getting any younger, but he's doing a better job than most when it comes to staying relevant. I mean this as no disrespect, but Scorsese did a great job knocking off Christopher Nolan with this film.

9. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - It's no secret that I'm a fan of hyperbole, but this one may well be true: Scott Pilgrim may feature the most stunningly original use of SFX and sound design I've ever witnessed. Award shows tend to give effects awards to the film that has the most explosions/car chases/orcs, so it's an outright crime that this film is being snubbed for taking all those nifty gadgets and utilizing them in a wholly unique and *gasp* artistic way. Edgar Wright took the oft-ignored slacker culture of the last 30 years and transformed it into a stunning, action-packed fever dream.

Why so low on my list if I loved it so much? Because, at the end of the day, the plot is really, reeeeally shallow. But so are many of the people who this film depicts. It's narratively thin by default; to be an accurate representation of lo-fi dork life, it is inherently devoid of any emotional conceit that can't be solved by pressing Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.

8. The A-Team - Like Scott Pilgrim, this is the ultimate fantasy film, though this one focuses on professional ass-kickers instead of amateur DDR champs. Also, nothing beats seeing this film on opening day in Columbus, GA right when you're getting ready to ship to BCT on Sand Hill: as soon as Hannibal and B.A. flashed their Ranger tabs and name-dropped Ft. Benning, the whole theater erupted, since pretty much the entire audience has some sort of tie to the post. It was what Walter Benjamin might refer to as an "cult" experience, giving the event an aura of authenticity beyond the merits of the film itself and speaking to the communitas inherent in mechanically-reproduced media; I just thought it was balls-out awesome.

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - Beautifully directed film that corrects many of the book's inherent flaws.

6. How to Train Your Dragon - Easily the best film by Dreamworks Animation (Shrek 2 and The Prince of Egypt are the only others I've truly enjoyed). So far, that company's formula has been to fall back on fart jokes to entertain kids, slip in phallic jokes for adults, and wrap it all in the thinnest of trite plot contrivances. Here, they did what Pixar's been doing all along: construct a living, breathing fantasy world with living, breathing characters.

5. The Social Network - My opinions on this film are many and varied. But the power of this movie and the technology it represents is displayed by the fact that I was able to log onto Facebook via my phone and talk to friends about it as it was playing.

4. Inception - The truly remarkable thing about this movie is not that it turned Paris sideways and blowed up Antarctica and made Juno into an action star...no, the most astounding thing about Inception is that, despite the mounting complexity of the plot, you never *actually* get lost. Sure, you get turned around, but at the end of the day Christopher Nolan and co. give you such a clear thread to follow that, like an eternally-spinning top, you never lose your way amidst the chaos.

3. True Grit - Want to know why the Brothers Coen are the best? Watch the Bear Man scene. Also, consider this: for perhaps the first time in this decade, every Best Director nominee was a relative "new-comer" to the Oscar party. David O. Russell, Darren Aronofsky and winner Tom Hooper were first-time nominees and despite being responsible for some of the most respected cult films of the last 15 years, David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Se7en, Zodiac) was given only his second nomination. The Coen Brothers, with three directoral nominations (well, technically only two because Joel Coen directed Fargo solo) and one win, in addition to awards and nominations for writing and production, were the elder statesmen of the pack.

After spending over two decades redefining the culture and aesthetic of American cinema, Joel and Ethan Coen are finally receiving their due as the top filmmakers currently working; their influence is seen in the work of all their fellow nominees.

2. The King’s Speech - Delightful film that's a throwback to good, clean cinema of yesteryear. It's a story about the people who shaped the world we live in, without trying to make it hip or trendy or explicitly relevant; like King George VI's story teaches, you don't have to be "cool" to be great. It's innovatively British.

1. Toy Story 3 - I'm practically the same age as Andy. I grew up with the same toys as Andy. This film is about my life, my toys, and my childhood. And it has Mr. Pricklepants.

BEST FILM THAT, AGAINST ALL ODDS, WAS AWESOME

Hot Tub Time Machine

And, in the interest of full disclosure, the reason you may not see some of your personal favorites on this list is that I may not have seen it yet, including but not limited to:

AWARD WINNERS, OSCAR BAIT AND OTHER INTERESTING FILMS I HAVEN'T SEEN

Black Swan, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, The Fighter, Tangled, Winter’s Bone, Get Low, Blue Valentine, The Tempest, Four Lions, Secretariat

Cheers,

Dr. Zebulon J. Magnifico, Ed.D

Freeing the Mind, Indulging the Self since 1985

Teaser Trailer

Yet another art/music/film/pop culture blog to be tossed on the Internet's pile. Featuring original artwork, commentary, research, quotations, repostings, thinly-veiled criticism and outright plagiarism. Coming soon to a randomized Google search near you.

Content to be added later.  In the meantime, enjoy this image of Kenny Rogers:

Cheers,

Dr. Zebulon J. Magnifico, Ph.D

Committed to Ambiguity since 1927