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Amazon Listmania Review: "Best Animations"
By E.L.Splice Wednesday December 10, 2003
 | | Listmania! Dare to Compare! | | Author's note: The Mouse™ is censored in place of the actual animation corporation's name.
Today on MovieCall we take a look at artemisa64, self proclaimed movie collector, and his list of “The complete list of the best animated movies ever.” looking over his list of animated favorites, it’s soon made clear that his list of the best animated films ever made is comprised almost entirely of The Mouse™ Films with only a few questionable exceptions. Let’s take a look.
The Very Best
This includes:
Beauty and the Beast (Platinum Edition)
Aladdin (Platinum Edition)
The Lion King (Platinum Edition)
The Little Mermaid
Okay. Time out. This is the very best? I could let Beauty and the Beast slide since it actually got an Oscar nomination and Fantasia is an obvious classic but I find the rest of this section dubious to say the least.
Is there anyone at this point who hasn’t heard the tale of The Mouse™’s alleged rip-off of Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba the White Lion, which they recast as The Lion King? If you haven’t, you may read about on The Straight Dope:
| Quote: | | A coincidence here and there I could see. But ten? When The Lion King came out in 1994, a lot of people concluded that The Mouse™—so zealous in defending its own intellectual property that it once demanded removal of Mickey and Minnie Mouse images from a day-care center—might have appropriated someone elses. |
Perhaps on the platinum edition they give credit to Tezuka. In any case, there are bigger fish to fry. The biggest question is: Where ARE the very best animated films on this list? How in fuck’s name did Titan A.E. wind up on the list in place of the Iron Giant? Is Record of the Lodoss War really more worthy of the "very best" mantle than Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue, Ghost in The Shell or any film by Miyazaki? I could probably name 20 great anime films before I hit Lodoss Wars. Don’t even get me started on Shrek. Funny my ass. If I see Eddie Murphy cast as an annoying sidekick character in another animated film, I think I’ll have to assassinate him personally. It would have been nice to see Jan Svankmajer make the list or The Brothers Quay but I guess stop-motion animation was disqualified by virtue of the artemisa64’s shortsightedness. Perhaps these oversights will find a home in the next section of artemisa64’s list:
Great movies from 1986 -2002
includes:
Lilo & Stitch
Monsters, Inc.
The Road to El Dorado
The Emperors New Groove
A Bugs Life
Antz
Anastasia
Hercules (The Mouse™)
Toy Story & Toy Story 2 (2 Pack)
Pocahontas (The Mouse™)
The Land Before Time
An American Tail
First of all, where feature animation is concerned, this is an oddball era to focus on. This would be forgivable if only the list reflected a better selection of films from this era. For example, adding a few Don Bluth films to the list is all fine and good but how could one omit The Secret of Nimh, which is clearly his best work? Furthermore, how could one replace it with such atrocities as The Emperor’s New Grove and Hercules? Oops I forgot. It didn't fit in that idiosyncratic sixteen year period between 1986 and 2002. Let's talk about Antz, too. Putting Antz on the same list as A Bug’s Life casts serious doubts on artemisa64’s mental stability. MovieCall readers have surely noticed that worthy films absent in the first section are still missing here. Unfortunately there’s little hope for them to show up in the next section:
The The Mouse™ Classic
includes:
The Aristocats
The Jungle Book
The Sword in the Stone
101 Dalmatians
Sleeping Beauty (Special Edition)
Peter Pan (Special Edition)
Cinderella
Bambi
Pinocchio
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (The Mouse™ Platinum Edition)
At this point, artemisa64 seems to have lost sight of the list’s goal to note the complete list of the best animated movies ever. Instead, artemisa64 has shifted focus. Perhaps a better title for the list would be “Every The Mouse™ movie I could list off the top of my head...and friends.” This section is quickly followed by Great Sequels, which I shall not discuss, and:
The Mouse™ movies I don’t like very much
includes:
The Black Cauldron
Dinosaur
Alice in Wonderland
Dumbo (60th Anniversary Edition)
I can’t defend Dinosaur or Black Cauldron (though Black Cauldron is distinct in that it is the only The Mouse™ animation ever to feature a character willingly commit suicide.) The section is silly to begin with but Dumbo appearing on this lowly list is a fucking crime. Not only does it feature the timeless “pink elephant” sequence, it was once described by David Mamet as “the perfect film.”
artemisa64’s list might make you laugh or cry but it is certainly not indicative of great animation. Like MovieCall, this list is not to be trusted!
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