I don't think I ever watched that Superman episode, but a Supes as Batman plot line is a must see obv.

Nice write up... made me want to rewatch Mask Of The Phantasm. I think Under The Red Hood and The Dark Knight Returns are absolute musts also.

Agreed. I did not mention those two only because they had already been suggested more than once.

Knight Time is a GREAT episode. It's so much fun watching Superman get coached by Robin on how to inhabit Batman's identity. How to speak like him, how to act like him, how to BE him. Most of this is communicated with a couple of great gags and one AMAZING action scene against one of Batman's most deadly foes.

It's incredible how deeply a twenty-two minute cartoon explores the conflicted alliance between Batman and Superman and how this event requires Superman to rethink how he sees the caped crusader.

Fracture (2007) with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling.

Hopkins kills his wife and plays games with Gosling, the DA who is prosecuting him. Surprised I never heard of this movie before. I liked it a lot. 8/10

Great post busto

The Girl With All the Gifts

Very good adaptation of one of the best horror novels of the last 20 years. Glen Close, Gemma Arteton, a viral zombie infection destroys most of the world....and a class of half/zombie/half human children who may be the only hope for a cure.

Surprisingly faithful to the book, but in the end it seems a little truncated and rushed. Nicely done, though.

awesome!
any tips on the best order to watch them in or does it not matter?


+1 fracture is awesome.

i really like gosling.

I'm watching the mask of the phantasm and really enjoying it.

wish they made more serious dark adult animated movies.
not just superhero movies but reg films but animated.

such a great medium.

I've never been into animae (tho I did love spirited away) but maybe I'll check some out.

I liked a scanner darkly but other than that can't think of any adult animated movies made by western film makers.

edit: was waking life any good?
has anyone seen metropia or renaissance?

ok here is a list I came up with after very cursory googling:

fritz the cat
metropia
scanner darkly
Renaissance
waking life
spirited away
beowulf
waltz with bashir
Persepolis
watership down
fire and ice
fantastic planet
heavy metal


I've seen scanner darkly and spirited away but none of the others, wondering what ppl's thoughts are on any of the others on the list.

and obv pls add any good ones that I've left off.

for now I'd prefer ones in english, I'm sure I'll do another thread at some point for foreign animated films (yes I know I included spirited away but whatever I've already seen it so don't need feedback on that or scanner darkly)

I really really really want to see April and the Extraordinary Wrold and The Red Turtle, but haven't been able to find them.

Kubo and the 2 Strings is my favorite anime??? in awhile.

The Boy and the Beast was a lot of fun: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/63...=#post50679441

When Marnie was There was pretty slow but had a lot to say, especially if you're into Japanese culture:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/63...=#post50659168

Pretty much the same for Up on Poppy Hill and the airplane movie:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ostcount=12328




Really hard to go wrong with Miyazaki.


As far as recent children movies: How to Train your Dragon, Up, and Wall-E are all amazing.

I loved wall-E haven't seen how to train your dragon and maybe I need to give up another chance cuz I think I'm the only person alive who didn't like it.

As personal preference, I'd watch the contemporary stuff before I watched Batman Beyond, but it doesn't really matter.

The only two I would watch in specific order are Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, followed by Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. They don't quite follow each other, but there is a spiritual continuity you'll appreciate once you've seen them both.

Superb!

if you've seen Spirited Away on that list... you've seen the best.

It always cracked me up that Watership Down had a U rating in the UK (available to all without condition), given how relentlessly grim and bloody it is in places.

All the mums would see Art Garfunkel singing Bright Eyes on Top of the Pops with some cute animations, and take their little ones to see the rabbit equivalent of Hamburger Hill.

Here is a good list of dc animated movies in a decent order to watch

http://screenrant.com/best-dc-animat...ague/?view=all
I will switch TDKReturns (both parts) to number one, for me this gem is what the TDKRises and BVS should have been.

Some adult anime I suggest:
Princes Mononoke (same creator as spirited away)
Grave of the Fireflies (same studio as SA)


Paprika (Inspiration for Inception)
Perfect Blue (inspiration for Black Swan)

Akira (japanese sci-fi clasic)
Ghost in the shell (another sci-fi clasic and soon to be released as a live film with Scarlett J.)

Not trying to put this in order, but animated movies I really liked:

Spirited Away
The Incredibles
Wall-E
Up
Toy Story III
Monsters, Inc.
Snow White
Coraline
The Iron Giant
Dumbo
Jungle Book
My Neighbor Totoro
Kiki's Delivery Service
Sleeping Beauty
South Park movie
Winnie the Pooh

Most of them are for kids/adults.

Mary and Max was good - not really for kids, though fine for older kids/teens imo

Also claymation...

Wallace and Gromit
Chicken Run
Hell and Back

Charlie Wilson's War

Prior to giving you my review of this movie, I feel the need to paraphrase the anecdote that Hoffman tells Tom Hanks at the end of this movie. A boy gets a horse, all the town people say "how nice", and the Zen master says "We'll see." He falls off the horse, breaks his leg, the town people say "how awful," and the Zen master says "We'll see." All the town boys get sent off to war, except the boy because his leg is broken, the town people say "how nice," and the Zen master says "We'll see."

This is important to reference, as this movie is about the slick job that a nobody congressman did to single handedly win the war for Afghanistan against the Russinas in the 1980's. Of course we know the aftermath, as those Afghani freedom fighters later became the Taliban, so as far as the happy ending of the movie, we must invariably say "We'll see."

That being said, this is a wonderful movie. Tom Hanks may seem like an odd choice as a drinking, cocaine snorting, hooker loving, shady congressman, but he was the perfect choice, because behind those superficial qualities, was a driven man looking for his opportunity to make his mark, and he found it with the Afghani war.

As a member of the Defense Appropriations Committee, he was able to raise the funding for this "covert war" from 5 mil a year to 1 billion, leading to the Afghani victory. To do this, he enlisted the help of a Texan Socialite (Julia Roberts), a rough and tough CIA guy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) his assistant (Amy Adams), and a few others, including a partnership between Pakistan and Israel.

For such boring material, only Aaron Sorkin could write something that makes us feel engrossed the entire time. The plot is convoluted, but easy to follow thanks to the script and some sharp direction. For instance, there is a great scene where Hoffman first meets Hanks to tell him about Afghanistan, and during that time Hank's assistants (all big buxomed blondes) keep interrupting to discuss the ongoing cocaine and hooker scandal. It plays like something out of the Marx brothers or Three Stooges, and yet is crucial to the development of the plot.

I couldn't help but think the entire time how maybe it would've been better had this guy never done what he did and we just let Russia win, which did detract from my enjoyment of the movie. That aside, my recommendation for this movie is as follows. "Go see."

I feel that stuff like Persepolis and Waking Life barely belong on the list (have not actually seen Persepolis). Sure they're animated, but I guess I'm associating "animated" with fantastical elements, not more down-to-earth stories. Obviously I'm not correct, just pointing out how I think about "animated".

Waking Life was good when I was in college - probably worth a watch. What I remember is largely just people talking about lucid dreaming and philosophical concepts the way you do in college.

Heavy Metal is an anthology and I would recommend it if you've taken an interest in adult Western animation. I don't think I loved it, anthologies are always a mixed bag; but worth a watch.

Fritz the Cat is whatever, kinda cool though in that it captures that 1960s beatnik (?) subculture. Also worth a watch if you are continuing down this path, largely for historical reasons - just don't expect great things.

[TANGENT THAT I THINK I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN ABOUT]I've noticed that animation often seem to do a better job of capturing the essence of a real time and place better than live action. Example, Fritz the Cat - I'm aware of no live action movie that captures a 1960's NYC college beatnik lower-class partying druggie lifestyle in this way.

Another example, old Disney cartoons. Many live action movies from that time period ('20s-'50s) focus on the rich, or sanitized suburbia, and/or it's all filmed on fake-looking sets. Mickey and pals live in middle America in tiny, shabby, sparse houses. Similar with some early Charlie Brown. You rarely if ever see that in live-action film. In the special features for Revolutionary Road, they say that they couldn't physically film in a house that was actually representative of how small suburban houses were at that time, so there you go.[/TANGENT]

My biggest Western adult animation recommendation really would be the Aeon Flux cartoon series (it has the anime "look" a little bit, but creator is Korean-American). Watch all of the shorts, the first two seasons (this is prob only like 45 minutes total). From the full-length third season, watch Thanatophobia and The Purge (all episodes are stand-alone) and then go ahead and watch the rest of the season if you want to. If you do this it will be around 90 minutes and the equivalent time-wise of watching an animated film.

"Casting Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson is insane"
"Maybe"
"No seriously no one will believe Hanks as a cokehead womanizer"
"Maybe"
"Uh like seriously, Matt Mcconaughey, Brad Pitt, Dennis Quaid, anyone else. Not Hanks!"
"Maybe"
"see bro?"
"Dammit. What did you want me to do, he was the Producer!"

Seriously, can you imagine McConaughey in Hanks' role? Would have been incredible.

no way...MM certainly has the sleazy huckster down, but a Congressman? No way. Hanks was perfect.

One of the most impressive animated movies I've seen is Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within. Incredible, adult-type sci-fi, with amazing visuals. It was the first mainstream film that attempted to animate realistic-looking humans...and it succeeds, for the most part. They might seem a little "blank" at first, but the voice actors do a wonderful job bringing them to life.

Charlie Wilson was a sleazy huckster!

MM would have been great in the role, but let's not miss that Hanks was awesome. The movie is fantastic as is.

winnie the pooh is awesome.

charlie wilson's war is awesome.

tom hanks as charlie wilson was awesome.

and Baltimore,

that was exactly what I was looking for in my post.
animated films like waking life that aren't fantastical and like the normal Disney animated films.

I wasn't asking for a list of pixar films.