Images of the day, 4/11/11

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• James Keepnews says:

  April 11, 2011 at 10:47 am

  What, you could­n’t get repro­duc­tion rights to any stills from THE FOUNTAIN? (Maybe I mean LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND? No, most likely not…)

• Oliver_C says:

  April 11, 2011 at 1:52 pm

  The Hayao Miyazaki-directed, Isao Takahata-produced ‘Nausicaä’ is con­sidered pivotal to animé his­tory, a film whose artist­ic qual­ity was “widely regarded as more than suf­fi­cient to hold the interest of adults” [Kenji Sato]. It became the first ever anim­a­tion to make the ‘Kinema Junpô’ crit­ics’ top ten – sev­enth place, first prize that year going to Juzo Itami’s ‘The Funeral’ – while the magazine’s read­ers voted it film of the year. Its pop­ular­ity led to the estab­lish­ment of Miyazaki and Takahata’s anim­a­tion stu­dio, Ghibli, in 1985.

• The Siren says:

  April 11, 2011 at 5:31 pm

  I abso­lutely loved Tangled.
  I liked it bet­ter than Toy Story 3. **ducks**

• Glenn Kenny says:

  April 11, 2011 at 6:50 pm

  I think “Tangled” and “Toy Story 3” are almost com­pletely dif­fer­ent kettles of fish, so I have no prob­lem with one such as you express­ing a strong pref­er­ence for one over the oth­er. Some cyn­ic, before even see­ing “Tangled,” made a crack about how great a Broadway music­al it was gonna make in five years, but I thought that qual­ity was one of its sig­nal strengths: it was incred­ibly deft in put­ting the musical-as-a-genre ele­ments togeth­er ala “Beauty and the Beast,” a pic­ture that really makes you say to your­self, among oth­er things, “Wow, what happened to Jeff Katzenberg?” And it does have great songs. And great images.

• Eric says:

  April 13, 2011 at 2:24 am

  How To Train Your Dragon was eas­ily the best anim­ated film I saw last year.

• lazarus says:

  April 13, 2011 at 4:10 am

  Tangled, Dragon, Toy Story…none of these are fit to hold The Illusionist’s top hat.

• The Siren says:

  April 13, 2011 at 6:32 am

  Glenn, the hand­ling of the false moth­er psy­cho­logy and guilt-tripping in Tangled was a big part of what I loved. The hero was very much in the Fairbanks Sr/Flynn/Power mode, and that was cool too, and the anim­a­tion was gor­geous, but that mother–man, Tangled went into some amaz­ingly bold places about jeal­ousy and aging and tox­ic par­ents. I haven’t seen that in very many con­tem­por­ary adult movies, let alone Disney. Also con­sid­er­ing the movie’s con­vo­luted pro­duc­tion, it’s quite an achievement.

• MovieMan0283 says:

  April 14, 2011 at 9:59 am

  Have you seen Waking Sleeping Beauty? Though some­what in the apo­lo­gist mode, it’s a fairly can­did look at the behind-the-scenes oper­a­tions of Disney dur­ing this peri­od. My take-away was that Eisner, Katzenberg, et al did­n’t have a whole lot to do with the accom­plish­ments they took cred­it for (esp. Katzenberg) dur­ing this peri­od oth­er than cre­at­ing the envir­on­ment in which it could flour­ish. Which is nice but hardly the stuff of Uncle Walt – and that’s from a doc which tried to make the execs look likable…
  I’d give Howard Shore & Alan Menken the biggest cred­it for the film; the anim­a­tion is excel­lent, but in the end it’s the music that makes it great.

• MovieMan0283 says:

  April 14, 2011 at 10:00 am

  The last com­ment refers to Beauty & the Beast if any­one is confused.

• Oliver_C says:

  April 14, 2011 at 10:57 am

  I think you mean Howard *Ashman* and Alan Menken. (Howard Shore doing the music for a Disney fea­ture, now that I would like to hear!)