Thursday, June 19, 2014

Favorite Animated Movies

With a six-year-old nephew around, we watch a lot of animated movies, although I'm still amazed how many animated movies (old and new) I have not seen yet.  Of the ones I have seen, here's my personal top ten favorites list.

I made this list by looking at all the animated movies I love (which is a large list), and then asking one simple question:  "if I never see this movie again, would I be okay with that?"  If the answer is no, it makes the favorite list, which I then narrowed down to ten.  If the answer is yes, the film stays on the "I love this movie!" list, but doesn't advance to favorite status.  I've been revising all my favorite list using this criteria.  It's quite a useful question and really helps me narrow down my current favorites.  I find I answer "yes" and drop a movie off the current favorite list for multiple reasons.  Sometimes, I've simply seen a movie so many times, it's part of my consciousness and I can quote it, etc., but I've overdone it and have no desire to actually see it again right now (although if it came on, I would still watch it).

As for which movies I love, (and this applies to every favorite movie I have), I have to want to be one or more characters in the film, and those characters almost always have to be protecting someone, or some ideal, or some place, or some thing.  There's also almost always some kind of beautiful scenery or locations in my favorite movies. I've come to realize that beauty is a key element that draws me to one movie over another.  It's actually mostly why Kung Fu Panda makes this list.  It is such a beautiful movie -- I might even rank it the most beautiful of all of these -- with the most exquisite colors and scenery.  I oooh and ahhhh every time I see it.  There are so many moments in Kung Fu Panda that I want a picture of to put on my wall.  I love the story and characters, beside, but man, do I really love how they chose to animate this movie.

1. Rango
2. Epic
3. Tangled
4. Up
5. Wall-E
6. The Lorax
7. How to Train your Dragon 2
8. Brave
9. Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
10. Kung Fu Panda
11. Puss in Boots

Okay, I cheated and included eleven, but Puss in Boots is sort of a tie with Kung Fu Panda, sooooo...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would you believe I haven't seen a single one of those 10 films?! I'm not a huge fan of animated films, but the ones I love are the "old school" Disney films I watched over and over when my kids were growing up. Beauty and the Beast leads the pack!

By the way, I love that question you ask yourself. I need to do that myself.

Have a great evening,
Patti

DKoren said...

Nope, not surprising! I probably wouldn't have seen a lot of these myself without having nieces and nephews around.

I've seen the old Disney films up through Sleeping Beauty, then just a few after that. I did see Beauty & the Beast once in the theater, but I've never seen it since, and I have almost no recollection of it. I was at the wrong age, so never saw Little Mermaid or most of the Disney films after that. Starting to catch up on a few of those now.

James the Reviewer said...

You have some great picks here! Rango is one of my favorites as well when it comes to 3D animation. The humor and western satire in the movie is so clever for an animated flick.

Even though I have seen probably all of the old classic Disney flicks from the 40s to early 90s back when I was a child, I never cared for any of them after I was about 11, so I don't have any nostalgia for them like others do.

Haven't seen Tangled, The Lorax, Puss in Boots, or HTTYD2, but I am fan of the first HTTYD, so I am sure that I will enjoy it.

Brave is a movie that will always make me mad at for robbing Wreck-It Ralph at the Oscars, granted, I am in the minority for never being a fan of Pixar except for Toy Story and The Incredibles.

As you probably know from my blog, I am more of an anime fan myself, so my favorite animated movies are ones like Princess Mononoke, Whisper of the Heart, Paprika, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time just to name a few (not in order). As for 3D animated movies, my favorite is definitely Wreck-It Ralph with Rango and HTTYD behind it.

Anyway, I enjoyed this list post!

-James

DKoren said...

I have heard a lot of good things about Wreck-It Ralph from multiple people. I have not seen that one yet, but I clearly need to!

I have seen Howl's Moving Castle many years ago, which was quite cool. Really enjoyed it. But that's the only anime film I've seen to date. I will try to check out some of the others when I have a chance, particularly the ones you list.