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An American Tail: Mystery of the Night Monster (2000)

AnAmericanTail-4After doing research online I learned that these clumsy sequels to “An American Tail” are actually intended to be in-betweenquels. “Fievel Goes West” is, as many fans have debated, the final film in the chronological timeline. That doesn’t make much sense since the character Tony is nowhere to be found in “Fievel Goes West,” and the Mousekewitz’s only have two children, rather than two and a half. In either case, it’s probably best not to think about it, and just accept these movies however you want to.

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An American Tail: Treasure of Manhattan Island (1998)

AnAmericanTail-3The globe trotting Mousekewitz family find themselves now living in Manhattan again, their new home after New York, and the West apparently didn’t quite work out for them. This new movie is set directly after the short lived animated series on television, so this is kind of a new continuity rather than the one after “Fievel Goes West.” I assume to understand why the Mousekewitz’s are back in New York, you’d have to have seen the series, but the least they could have done was inject a few lines to help the audience catch up.

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An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)

AnAmericanTail-FGW“Fievel Goes West” is a childhood favorite and a fitting end to the legacy of Jimmy Stewart. Not only does Stewart play an old dog who was once an old West hero, but Stewart was a man very fond of family friendly entertainment. “Fievel Goes West” is a film just as good as the original where the Mousekewitz family find themselves being exploited by a capitalist cat who wants to enslave the mouse community before eating them. Masquerading as a Southern mouse promising a new start in the old west town of Green River, the Mousekewitzes make another trek in to a new frontier after the crowded slums of New York didn’t quite work out for them.

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An American Tail (1986)

AnAmericanTail-1986Like a lot of Don Bluth’s films, “An American Tail” feels like a very personal animated film that tells a universal story about the immigration experience. It’s sad that “An American Tail” has gone somewhat pushed to the corner of the animated world over the years, since it’s such a touching movie and brilliant exploration of family and bonds. Fievel is one of the most likable and human protagonists of all time. He’s not heroic or overly courageous. He’s just a young mouse looking to make his way in the world and explore the vast open land that lies before him.

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Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

BDoS“Belladonna of Sadness” is an animation film from 1973 which had not been released in the US until now for multiple reasons, one most likely being due to the nudity and sex.  The style of animation is reminiscent of watercolor paintings with a touch of 70s/80s anime.  The film is a mix of painted images being panned across and moving parts which makes for mesmerizing visuals.  The restoration looks fantastic and the attention to details put into it show the work thousand of hours spent on it brought in terms of colors, visuals, and feelings.

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NSFA: Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990)

Allstars1Growing up in the nineties, I would watch cartoons all day long during the weekdays; hell I pulled seven hours at school and was a grade A TV junkie, so I watched a ton of television. During the cartoons, between the toy and candy commercials, there were about thirty anti-drug and alcohol PSA’s played between the hours of three and six. Hey, mock me all you want, but those PSA’s worked and worked well on me. It’s not enough that I always found the idea of drug use disgusting, but the PSA’s that would air on television scared me straight, just as they intended.

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Coda (2014)

codaAlan Holly’s “Coda” is a remarkable and beautiful animated masterpiece. It’s rumination on the beauty of life and how senseless it can be. But Holly also observes that the beauty of life can be in how senseless and unpredictable it tends to be. Surely, people die for no reason, especially good people, but there’s a lot of amazing things that happen without prediction either. Often times some of the best moments of our lives happened spontaneously like fireworks from the darkness.

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