Board 8 > Board 8 Watches and Ranks Animated Movies 4 - The Results Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

gonna guess Vivo.

Ermine, back me up on this:

Scooby Doo and Krypto Too is like, 10x better than DC Super Pets, right?

Yeah, I'd say I enjoyed it a good portion more than it.

On one hand, it is nice to see the silly kid-friendly side of DC make a return to the big screen, and it somehow isn't the worst DC film starring Dwayne Johnson to come out in 2022.

On the other hand, the animation is really ugly, especially the humans' designs, the humor is only slightly less obnoxious than Secret Life of Pets, although the turtle got a few laughs out of me, and where's Streaky and Comet? This was just really lame to me.

Okay, Ron's Gone Wrong for real this time.

20. Early Man

Inviso: 5
Ermine: 11
Plasma: 13
Red: 16
Evillord: 17
Johnbobb: 19
Mythiot: 22
Karo: 28
Suprak: 29

Total: 160

Inviso: I know he hasnt been everyones cup of tea throughout these rankings, but for me, Nick Aardman has yet to make a film that is so abjectly terrible that I felt compelled to rank it low on a list. Hes just got that quirky, British sense of humor that you know is going to at least produce something FUNNY, even if its not the most hilarious film of all time. Early Man is a weird concept about Cavemen versus Bronze Age humans in a soccer match, complete with weirdly anachronistic treatment of the sport and of modern society in general (instant replay just being a puppet show, for example). It was still cute and fun though, and its weird that weve had multiple instances of weird, cartoonish soccer matches in movies in the rankings, but weirder that the last film I saw in theaters (as of this write-up) was Dungeons & Dragons, which also featured a similar tinge to its ending. But yeah, I liked this, and it had a good heart overall.

Ermine: I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I was going to. Not to say I love it or even really like it that much, but for the most part, it's just inoffensive fun with some awful jokes every so often. I did like the pig, and the section where he and the boy caveman were sneaking in to get another soccer ball was probably the best part of the film. That was some pretty good comedy there.
Overall though, very predictable film in every way, a few fun jokes and sequences but ultimately just not my thing.
BUT! It could have been so so much worse!

Plasma: Completely stupid, yet oddly enjoyable. The claymation does a great job at selling the goofy prehistoric atmosphere, the characters are silly yet fun, and the whole prehistoric soccer match scenario is so dumb that I cant help but love it. This is like a Mario Party minigame that somehow got green-lighted as a feature-length movie.

Red: Can't say I expected the concept of a bunch of stone age idiots getting overrun by a more advanced society to actually be an underdog soccer story. But this is about as standard a sports underdog story as it gets. Its tropey as heck. They face a far superior team of individuals that cant teamwork, they bring back a girl the main character likes who is actually a great motivational coach, teacher, and player herself, and she trains them to work as a team and see their potential to beat the super team. Oh and they have a revelation that yes, despite all their hopes and dreams, they really were a bunch of losers this whole time. This is so by the book standard underdog sports story I am internally laughing quite a bit at it. It isn't horrible, and masking a typical underdog sports story like this has some cleverness to it, but it still is safe and unremarkable.

Evillord: Aardman with another lovingly-crafted stop motion film, this time some sort of animated documentary about life in modern Britain.

Johnbobb: I mean it's no Ted Lasso, but it's pretty good. Might honestly be my favorite Nick Park movie, though that's not really a high bar as I've never really been a fan of Wallace and Gromit.

Mythiot: *no writeup submitted*

Karo: A bunch of cavemen challenge bronze age people to a soccer match and much predictability ensues in this highly unmemorable and extremely standard sports underdog story.
They do actually give some real stakes here instead of the usual shallow sport 'glory', but that doesn't change the fact that the story or the people who inhabit it are not interesting or likable and I just do not care if they end up being beat to death in the bronze mines or whatever.
Much of the film is just a bunch of ugly Aardman people being stupid and/or uncoordinated because cavemen, and a lot of 'prehistoric versions of modern things' gags that are not as clever or funny as the Flintstones.
There's a funny quip or two of British humor here and there, but it is largely dull, low-brow physical comedy that is only a few steps removed from being a Minions movie.
Aardman is just a highly overrated studio that has made like two good animated features in their lifetime and this certainly isn't one of them.

Suprak: *no writeup submitted*

Outlier:

Inviso: 109
Evillord: 82
Plasma: 77
Johnbobb: 66
Ermine: 66
Mythiot: 53
Karo: 56
Suprak: 56
Red: 49

Yeah sure

I'll switch to Vivo

Three in a row... THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!

Vegas Odds on #19:

+500 Vivo (2021)
+650 Wendell and Wild (2022)
+850 The Girl Without Hands (2016)
+850 Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
+1000 Turning Red (2022)
+1250 Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (2017)
+1250 My Father's Dragon (2022)
+1250 The House (2022)
+1500 Waltz with Bashir (2008)
+1500 Flee (2021)

+200 ANY UNLISTED MOVIE (+2000 if guessed correctly)

Vegas Leaderboard:
1) Johnbobb $3100 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, The Hobbit 1000, Yellow Submarine 750, Sing 2 650)
2) Red $2750 (Ne Zha 2000, Yellow Submarine 750)
3) Inviso $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
3) Mythiot $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
5) Evillordexdeath $1300 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, Strange World 600)

The House Won On:

• Sita Sings the Blues (+500)
• Lightyear (+1000)
• The Willoughbys (+850)
• DC League of Super-Pets (+2000)
• Early Man (+1000)

I appreciated Early Man trying to disguise that it was actually just an incredibly stereotypical sports movie in disguise.

Going with Ron's Gone Wrong still.

I really like Shaun the Sheep so I was predisposed toward Early Man going in but it was honestly just so lackluster that I have almost nothing to say about it.

I'll guess Birdboy is next.

Shaun the Sheep 1 is fantastic

Yeah the first one in particular slaps

19. Vivo

Suprak: 6
Red: 8
Ermine: 10
Inviso: 13
Karo: 16
Johnbobb: 23
Mythiot: 23
Evillord: 24
Plasma: 30

Total: 153

Suprak: *no writeup submitted*

Red: We don't necessarily have a parent to kill off here, but we start with a heartbreaking death because we've set that up as formula to hook people early in animated movies. I'm torn on this because there is a decent story in here, some songs that are definitely above average. And then at times things like Gabi trying to sing come up and her characters doesn't quite walk a great line between annoying and misunderstood.

Ermine: We're getting to the point in the list where I started losing interest in these films...
And I have this at 10th place. So take this as my benchmark. Vivo and everything I have under this is considered MEH or worse.
The bulk of this list really isn't all that good if VIVO gets 10th for me.
Not to say this film is all that bad. I think it has a really strong opening, and I do quite enjoy Vivo as a character. Lin-Manuel is just over here trying to earn his paycheck, alright?
There were actually a bunch of songs that I enjoyed in the film!
And then there was Gabi! Gabi is terrible awful no no bad! And god her songs... WHY?! Why do this to me?!
I'm picturing a film where they replace Gabi with an actual good character and it's like... wow! Maybe this could have been something special!
The movie is FINE, it's amusing at times but I feel like there was a lot of lost potential here sadly.

Inviso: This was the most emotional Ive gotten over a film through 2021 on this list (granted, there are still 12 more movies left after this one), and yet, it doesnt entirely work for me the way that some of the higher-ranking films do. On the one hand, this is the most musical movie I can remember watching in a long time. Like, there are plenty of animated musicals out there, but they dont follow a stage musical formula the way this one does, and I kept finding myself entranced by the fact that Lin Manuel Miranda was able to blend his musical stylings into an animated format so expertly (keeping in mind he did Moana and Encanto, which are musical, but dont follow the stage musical format). That, to me, was interesting. I also loved Vivos story in general, trying to make good on his dearest friends final dream. It made for a solid, emotional throughline to the film.
There are negatives though, and they all revolve around Gabi. Gabi is annoying. She is over-the-top obnoxious, and her introductory song is the most irritating song to listen to in the entire film. But shes just this hyperactive brat all movie long, and while she does eventually chill out, once she realizes how important Andres song is to Vivo...shes just a little bit too much for me to deal with as the deuteragonist of the movie. Plus, her entire presence leads to the middle of the film, where we have an ultimately pointless girl scout subplot, and a trip into the Everglades that feels like its only in the film to fill time and add more animal characters beyond the titular Vivo. If wasnt for that chunk of the film (or if Gabi was toned down like, 75%), I could see myself ranking this higher than I did.

Vis Cry Count 10: When Andres dies and his music page gets swept up by the wind, and Vivo is desperately chasing after it, since its the last thing he has of his best friend.

Vis Cry Count 11: When Gabi is singing the lyrics of the destroyed song, and Vivo starts playing the melody, only for them both to realize that they each know half the song, and its not really gone.

Vis Cry Count 12: This one wasnt earned, but I cried anyway. Just Gabi revealing to her mom that she wanted to deliver Andres music, because he never got to tell Marta he loved her, just like she never got to tell her dad she loved him.

Vis Cry Count 13: The performance of Andres song, specifically when Vivo started envisioning him getting to play alongside Marta, and be with her, fulfilling the dream he died before he could accomplish it.

Karo: A pet monkey tries to honor the wishes of his late master and deliver a piece of sheet music to the dark and noisome land known as Florida. It hits both the emotional and musical beats very well, but something feels scuffed and unfinished about the whole thing.
Front and center for the problems is animation that feels a decade old at the very least. I feel the acceptable bar in the 2020s for a CGI movie from a major studio is 'it has to at least look as good as Illumination' and this does not at all come close to the mark. The film is rife with questionable character modeling and putrid texture work that make it feel like a PS3 game in places.
Though the movie starts out very strong, it loses its way with an arbitrary journey through the everglades full of useless side characters that doesnt add anything to the story. Like seriously these fucking spoonbills have got to be the most unfunny and irrelevant animated comic relief characters since the two moose in Brother Bear.
It is cute and touching in places, but the rocky production really hampered its potential, not to mention delaying it into a most unfortunate year headlined by that OTHER animated Lin-Manuel Miranda musical.
Quite a shame.

Johnbobb: Vivo does what a lot of "pretty good but not amazing" animated movies do. Starts really strong and emotional, has some goofy time filler in the middle, and then ends strong and emotional again. As much as I'm used to father figures dying in the first act of animated movies, the death of Andres still hit hard. Gabi definitely gets annoying at times, but overall I liked her friendship with Vivo (she does get the worst song in the movie though, which gets an EXTENDED version in the credits). It's not a movie that I think will stick with me but I enjoyed it

Mythiot: *no writeup submitted*

Evillord: This was the first time I can remember hearing the word "Kinkajou" and each time it was said my brain really wanted to correct it to "Pikachu." Seeing both the Netflix and Sony idents at the start of a film is one of the most ominous feelings in the world, but Sony animation in particular does a little better with the style it has been developing ever since the success of Spiderverse. For Vivo, there is an alternate art style that's used in a couple of the musical sections, which is great because it's a break from the "we want to be Pixar but we're really not" look the movie normally has. In general, it comes alive during *some* of the songs (I went back and re-watched the opening musical number after the 15-minute credits rolled, but on the other hand that little girl character's song is not pleasing to the aural senses, to say the least), but the rest of the movie feels kind of directionless, or rather it feels like its core story was enough for a half-hour short film and some contrived episodic conflicts were needed to pad it out to a feature-length adventure.
A Cuban street performer with a rapping pet monkey voiced by The Hamilton Guy receives a letter from a famous musician who he used to work with 60 years ago, asking him to come to Miami to play with her at her farewell concert. That sounds nice, but there's no conflict in this premise to base a narrative upon. So his monkey decides he REALLY doesn't want to go and they have to stay in Cuba, which comes off as very unwarranted, I mean it's a plane ride to the States for one concert, I spent this whole section wondering what the fuck Pikachu's problem was. But then he gets over it in like five minutes ... so then the musician just kinda dies of unspecified causes in his sleep ... then the monkey meets an annoying little girl character who lives in Florida and will help him get to the concert and deliver the sheet music for the last song his mentor wrote which expresses his decades-old confession of love... but her mom wants her to go to a girl scout meeting instead ... but then they run away from home to go to the concert ... but then the girl scouts start chasing them on bikes because their leader is a Mean Girl ... but then the monkey beats up a cobra in the jungle and they become friends with the mean girls ... also there are some awkward birds to whom the monkey must teach the art of romance. It's normal for adventure stories to be built on these kinds of little episodes, so I guess my real problem is that these storylines aren't interesting and I don't like any of the side characters. All of these little arcs are so short and under-developed that there's nothing to latch onto or take away from them. Even the storyline about the annoying little girl's relationship with her mother is basically all just handled by like two minutes of forced dialog at the end where they solve all their problems. This in turn leads to all the emotional scenes falling completely flat. Oh well, I've seen worse movies, at least a couple of those singing scenes were fun. I wish the monkey vs. snake fight scene one had been longer.

Plasma: Out of all the movies on our list, this one pissed me off the most. In the first ten minutes, I thought I was being treated to Casablanca: The Animated Musical, and I couldnt wait to see how the old man and his monkey would return to his long-lost love.
Then the old man abruptly died and was replaced by the human-cancer known as Gabriella, a self-proclaimed wild girl who poisons every remaining moment of screen time. The main problem with her is that the movie isnt self-aware enough to acknowledge that shes an annoying narcissistic brat, and instead it thrusts her into the spotlight like shes charismatic or something. The story never recovers, and its brainless plot developments only drive this one farther down my rankings board.

Outlier:

Inviso: 115
Plasma: 88
Evillord: 87
Ermine: 75
Johnbobb: 70
Suprak: 69
Karo: 59
Mythiot: 57
Red: 60

Ironically, Shaun the Sheep is probably my least favorite Aardman movie >_>

Vivo is a movie that should have been great. The premise the opening told was awesome, an old man seeking his lost love with his pet monkey and some quality music and solid animation along the way.

...Then it just decided to not be that movie.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Vivo is a movie that should have been great. The premise the opening told was awesome, an old man seeking his lost love with his pet monkey and some quality music and solid animation along the way.

...Then it just decided to not be that movie.

Yeah...it's tough to decide between Gabby or Ne Zha for worst individual character on this list, because she actively turns a potentially-decent movie bad...whereas he is the central character of a movie destined to be awful since he's the lead.

Ne Zha is great smh

Given what's been dropping, I still think this is Ron, Red, or maaaaybe My Father's Dragon

But I'll go back on Turning Red for now

Every character in Nhe Za is terrible in some way.

Going to guess Ron's Gone Wrong again.

PAYOUT!!! JB makes another $500 as we finally put Vivo behind us (WTF Suprak??)

Vegas Odds on #18:

+600 Wendell and Wild (2022)
+700 Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
+850 The Girl Without Hands (2016)
+850 Turning Red (2022)
+1000 Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (2017)
+1000 My Father's Dragon (2022)
+1250 The House (2022)
+1500 Waltz with Bashir (2008)
+1500 Flee (2021)

+200 ANY UNLISTED MOVIE (+2000 if guessed correctly)

Vegas Leaderboard:
1) Johnbobb $3600 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, The Hobbit 1000, Yellow Submarine 750, Sing 2 650, Vivo 500)
2) Red $2750 (Ne Zha 2000, Yellow Submarine 750)
3) Inviso $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
3) Mythiot $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
5) Evillordexdeath $1300 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, Strange World 600)

The House Won On:

• Sita Sings the Blues (+500)
• Lightyear (+1000)
• The Willoughbys (+850)
• DC League of Super-Pets (+2000)
• Early Man (+1000)

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Vivo is a movie that should have been great. The premise the opening told was awesome, an old man seeking his lost love with his pet monkey and some quality music and solid animation along the way.

...Then it just decided to not be that movie.

Yep. Setup was fantastic. Then they dropped a potential Top-10 movie in the garbage.

Seeing it pop up i will take a new one with Waltz with Bashir

PrinceKaro posted...
Plasma: Out of all the movies on our list, this one pissed me off the most. In the first ten minutes, I thought I was being treated to Casablanca: The Animated Musical, and I couldnt wait to see how the old man and his monkey would return to his long-lost love.

You might want to check out Chico and Rita, an adult animated film also about Cuban musician lovers who get separated for decades.

Mythiot posted...

You might want to check out Chico and Rita, an adult animated film also about Cuban musician lovers who get separated for decades.

Sounds like redemption. Thanks.

Im surprised Apollo isnt on Vegas Odds.

Of course I guess that little yellow FUCK is about to drop 6 times in a row and then the second I switch to something else he finally dies.

Worst character on the list... I guess I'd say it's a tie between the two Strange World dads personally but I think Gabi is a fine suggestion too, it was definitely a questionable choice to use her shitty song for the credits like that lol

I will guess Ron's Gone Wrong

18. Turning Red

Mythiot: 1
Karo: 5
Inviso: 6
Red: 11
Plasma: 15
Evillord: 25
Ermine: 26
Johnbobb: 28
Suprak: 28

Total: 145

Mythiot: *no writeup submitted*

Karo: A young girl suddenly finds she transforms into a red panda whenever she gets worked up, which is a metaphor for either puberty or being a furry.
So her mom is this horrible Karen who obsessively manipulates, gaslights, and stalks poor Mei through every aspect of her life, leading to an especially atrocious moment where she has some sort of psychotic breakdown and very publicly humiliates her daughter for having a crush on a boy. This is the kind of thing that can scar a child for life so good job with mothering, bitch.
They try to make her sympathetic by showing how her abuse stems from the way her own mother treated her, and of course she has a complete turnaound into an undeserved reconciliation because this is Disney. I'm sorry, but this woman needs fucking professional help and I do not buy her suddenly becoming a calm and well balanced individual.
Anyway, more of her mother's bullshit leads to Mei panda-ing out in the middle of school and the other kids are surprisingly ok with this. I'm serious, everyone single person who goes to her school are complete and utter furries who desperately want to be her friend now and like everyone runs around wearing panda ear and tail paraphernalia in order to look just like her. Rad.
The plot is so simple, but that doesnt mean it is bad. Indeed just watching these girls living their everyday lives while they save up to see their favorite band and deal with spontaneous animal shapeshifting is infinitely wholesome and cute.
There is a joyful nostalgic happiness to the film that makes me enjoy it immensely, not to mention a main character who I identify with way more than I probably should. Even the soundtrack, which I thought was going to be obnoxious, is perfectly ok.
Turing Red is a return to the quirky charm that make Pixar dominate the 2000s animation scene, but without just copying the themes and characters the way Onward did. It is a very rare occurrence of a major animated feature being directed by a woman, and I hope this can break some ground because there is some mad female talent in the animation industry especially on the TV side of things.

Inviso: This movie is cringe as fuck, and I LOVE it for that. I cannot claim to have the life experience of a tween girl hitting puberty and dealing with all the changes (both physically and socially) that come with that, but I can at least say there are some similarities between growing up as a boy, and how growing up as a girl were portrayed in this film. It takes an extremely over-the-top story and plot, and manages to bring the characters to the forefront. Ironically enough, it humanizes Mei-Mei by taking what could be a universal experience and kind of tying it to this mystical curse she faces. And I think thats what makes the cringe work, because why its rough watching someone get humiliated, the fact that she kind of ends up owning it makes it a bit more palatable. Also, I love her mom turning intonot the big badbut A big bad, just in terms of furthering the metaphor. Its all just really well-told in a fun fashion that manages to blend more childish tones with growing up themes, and I think this sort of movie is much needed, since it seems there arent enough coming-of-age stories about characters who kind of in that transition period between carefree kids and got their shit together teenagers.

Vis Cry Count 14: That whole ending sequence when Mei-Mei meets her mothers younger self in the red panda realm, and shes experiencing the same sadness and anxiety Mei-Mei felt, but obviously to a larger extent, since Mings transformation isMUCH bigger.

Red: Disney and Pixar both go real hard on the "family comes to terms with each other" movies this list. So lets just get this out there, this all could have been avoided if someone just told their daughter the very important fact that one day they'd turn into a potentially murderous dangerous red panda that needed to be contained at all cost. But we need plot convenience so this just isn't going to be on anyone's mind until it becomes necessary. We get some fun panda antics and teenage girl experiences in between a story of the standard "family comes to an understanding" plotline.

Plasma: A good story hiding inside a bad one.
The first act of Turning Red was pure cringe. I dont even like using the word cringe, but I have to here, because the movie went out of its way to characterize everyone in the main cast as either obnoxious or loathsome. Early on, I thought this one was doomed for a Bottom 5 finish.
Then things picked up in the second act. The characters got humanized, and I started sympathizing with Mei as she dealt with puberty and her supernatural panda bear curse. Seeing her endure embarrassment while learning to control her emotions was engaging to watch, and the way her friends supported her through it all was refreshing. There were also several poignant moments along the way, like the cool kids demanding she show up in panda form for their selfish enjoyment. Very real, very sincere.
Then at the end, things got cringe again when Momzilla attacked the concert. It led to some hideous dialogue exchanges, and in the end we were left with a hammy moral about embracing your emotions rather than suppressing them. Thats not to say its a bad message, but I thought it strayed from the sincere approach to emotional control and maturity that we got earlier.

Evillord: Pixar's first movie to be set in Canada, complete with references to Toonies and Tim Hortons. This is what you have to do to create a recognizable setting out of a country with no unique architecture and barely any culture.
I don't really have a lot to say about this film, it just kind of felt like Pixar going through the motions. The idea of a mother-daughter kaiju battle at a boy band concert, which serves as this film's climax, could be really funny, but the way it goes down in the movie just lacks the kind of energy and humor it takes to capitalize. I liked the idea of Mei's friends giving her the emotional stability to control her feelings-based panda transformation, but this cast of characters aren't that likable or interesting, partially because of their (admittedly realistic) annoying 13-year old Canadian girl mannerisms. Since the conflict is between a young girl and an overbearing matriarch she can never impress, it's kind of like a more irreverent version of Encanto, but again I wish it committed harder to being wacky. The best part is the imagery and sound of the Chinese mythology based sections like the ritual scene. I'm a little unsure why I feel so underwhelmed by Turning Red when I liked Luca so much, since they both have this vibe of low-stakes Pixar movie, but I think I appreciated how Luca was more chill, felt the characters just had a lot more charm, and the summery Italian landscape definitely made a much more captivating atmosphere than the dismal, almost brutalist cityscape of Toronto, a place I never wish to see again.

Ermine: I'm so so so incredibly disappointed that this is what we got for a red panda film. They are my favorite animals of all time and THIS is the shit we get with them? LIKE COME THE FUCK ON MAN! WHY IS MY LUCK SO INCREDIBLY BAD! Now we'll never get a cool animated movie with red pandas because it's "Already been done."
I'M PISSED!
*Cry*
Ugh, whatever. All of the kids suck and are unrelatable. It's ANOTHER generational conflict film because god we gotta have more of those. The mom was actually the best character in the film. Another positive, I enjoyed the throwbacks to late 90s early 2000s Canada, that was fun to see.
But yeah, I hate every single one of the kids, including Mei. They are all unbearable and completely unfunny in very way. I also... really hate the art style, it borders on revolting. The red panda design is disgusting. How do you take red pandas, who are so incredibly cute and ruin them like that. Sing 2 did the same fucking thing! They took red pandas and made them look awful. HOW?! HOW DO YOU RUIN RED PANDAS!?
Man whatever, I'm over it. This movie sucks.

Johnbobb: I get that a lot of people like this movie. I guess I even get some people thinking it's great. I am not in even the slghtest extent the intended target audience of this movie, and just truly did not care for it.

Suprak: *no writeup submitted*

Outlier:

Inviso: 127
Evillord: 94
Plasma: 91
Ermine: 83
Johnbobb: 80
Suprak: 79
Mythiot: 74
Karo: 72
Red: 67

PrinceKaro posted...

I'm so so so incredibly disappointed that this is what we got for a red panda film. They are my favorite animals of all time and THIS is the shit we get with them? LIKE COME THE FUCK ON MAN! WHY IS MY LUCK SO INCREDIBLY BAD! Now we'll never get a cool animated movie with red pandas because it's "Already been done."
I'M PISSED!

I like Turning Red but this is a good argument against it.

Maniac64 posted...

I like Turning Red but this is a good argument against it.

I'm glad you think so LOL

Big money goddamn

I'll go Ron next

Turning Red at #1 is definitely a take.

I rather enjoyed the movie personally. #1 though... yeah definitely can't relate. Let's see...

8. Turning Red

I've fallen so hard out of the habit that I think I'll just post my half list and some quick blurbs once the topic is finished.

Turning Red never really hits the emotional highs of pixar's bests but also doesn't hit the boring recycled notes of Pixar's worst. So its very middle of the road. I can't put it the best words but it definitely feels like a movie suffering a bit from "pandemic bland". Both animation and just overall structure feel like something was missing or more likely they just hit a weird crunch of deadlines and work from home struggles.

Probably likely and Disney's decision to throw it to the wolves with Disney+ probably didn't help.

Turning Red is a very good movie for the message it has, given how few children's movies deal with coming of age in a more tangible and realistic (I know I'm talking about magical red panda transformations, but as a metaphor, it's perfectly on the nose) fashion. It's definitely more worthy of a top 1 than a bottom tier placement.

Johnbobb robbing casinos left and right.

Vegas Odds on #17:

+600 Wendell and Wild (2022)
+700 Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
+850 The Girl Without Hands (2016)
+1000 Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (2017)
+1000 My Father's Dragon (2022)
+1000 The House (2022)
+1250 Waltz with Bashir (2008)
+1250 Flee (2021)
+1500 The Little Prince (2015)
+1500 Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

+200 ANY UNLISTED MOVIE (+2000 if guessed correctly)

Vegas Leaderboard:
1) Johnbobb $4450 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, The Hobbit 1000, Yellow Submarine 750, Sing 2 650, Vivo 500, Turning Red 850)
2) Red $2750 (Ne Zha 2000, Yellow Submarine 750)
3) Inviso $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
3) Mythiot $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
5) Evillordexdeath $1300 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, Strange World 600)

The House Won On:

• Sita Sings the Blues (+500)
• Lightyear (+1000)
• The Willoughbys (+850)
• DC League of Super-Pets (+2000)
• Early Man (+1000)

Gonna stick with Rons Gone Wrong.

17. The Girl Without Hands

Plasma: 5
Evillord: 7
Suprak: 10
Johnbobb: 11
Mythiot: 12
Karo: 19
Red: 20
Inviso: 29
Ermine: 30

Total: 143

Plasma: Aside from some pacing issues, I loved this one. The art style lends a surreal atmosphere to the story, which is simple yet captivating. I love how the girl faces harsh obstacles, yet she perseveres and strives to protect her family. And despite all the horrible things done to her by her father and the devil, at the end she gives her husband a chance to explain himself and gets rewarded for maintaining faith in humanity. This movie has charm, sincerity, and heart. B

Evillord: A French adaptation of a tale by The Brothers Grimm with only a few minor tweaks. It's undoubtedly one of the most visually stunning movies on the list with its hand-painted outline look, to the point where even stills are striking to look at. I didn't know about this story before I saw the film, and it surprised me with how bleak it wasn't, after an opening that could have been a set-up for misery porn and its medieval unscrupulousness toward violence, excrement, and nudity. I mean the first scene has the devil take the form of a large man wearing only a cloak on his back, and he then crouches to speak to the girl's father giving the audience a clear view of his fat, swinging devil cock.
The girl without hands mostly gets by alright and there is a lot of good detail about just *how* she manages. This lends the movie some decent emotional range after how horrific the girl's treatment by her father was in the early scenes (he accidentally sells her to the devil but doubles down on that choice after many chances to back out), but the film remains tense throughout because the devil's promise to reclaim her is always in the back of the viewer's mind. I kept waiting for the final cruel twist of fate to seal her doom and wound up feeling pleasantly surprised when that wasn't what happened.

Suprak: *no writeup submitted*

Johnbobb: I really love the distinct art style; it strikes me as a filmmaker/animator making the most of what was probably a very limited budget and really emphasizes the "old folk tale" feeling of the film. I was really into it early on as I'm kind of a sucker for sneaky devil deal fantasy stories. It very distinctly slows done quite a bit as it goes though, kind of dragging in the 3rd quarter in a way that a <80 minute movie shouldn't have time to. If a movie this short has this much time to dedicate to mundanity of daily life while waiting for the husband to come back, then there just needed to be more plot. Still, it's a very pretty film and one I'm glad I watched.

Mythiot: *no writeup submitted*

Karo: There's this woodcutter who is living in the idyllic countryside with his daughter, yet he still wants more. So when a mysterious stranger offers him riches, he does what any good father would do: he lovingly chops off his daughter's arms so she can be raped by the devil, and thus our story begins.
The first thing you notice is the unique visual style, which is astounding and beautiful. Now, in a short film, the style alone would be enough to carry it, but this is feature length. When you look at an animation technique for over an hour it loses some of its novelty if there is nothing behind it to back it up. Unfortunately, that is largely the case here.
Most of the characters are bizarre and hard to relate to, and the movie plods along with not a whole lot happening for large sections of the film. Not to mention there were so many scenes that were, for lack of a better word, fetishistic. Would you believe that projectile squirting of breast milk was something that happened on multiple occasions?
It just feels like the film is missing something more than a pair of upper body appendages, and I'm not sure I'd really ever want to see it again.

Red: When I saw the title of this movie I wasn't sure it would be quite so literal. But in the theme of horrible parents being prevalent on this list, she got one of the short sticks. Inadvertently sold by her father, her fathers says screw it and isn't content just to have her sold, but is willing to do whatever to make her an acceptable sale to a literal demon, including having her hands cut off. Its brutal, its horrible, and we get a whole movie of terrible things happening to her as a devil decides she just needs to die instead of being made unclean. Its horrible, but she does meet up with a couple good people and get an oddly happy ending.

Inviso: This wasnt grossly objectionable, but this was absolutely the kind of movie that was never going to do well for me as a viewer. At 75 minutes, it still feels WAY too long, because the pacing is SO slow. Every event in the film takes for-goddamn-ever to happen, and its not even told in an interesting art style. The whole movie is animated in this artistic sketchpad style, and the end result is characters that I cant invest in as a viewer, because I can barely envision them, given the choppiness of their designs in this animation. Also, the movie is called Girl Without Hands, but because of the animation, the back half of the film both treats her physical capabilities like she has hands, and the animation doesnt take away from that assessment. Hell, when she suddenly grows her hands back at the end of the film, its likeshe already had those, pretty much. Finally, the plot was just dull. This felt like a straight telling of a fairy tale, whichtheres a reason Disney had to add a lot of flashy music and animation, and happy endings. Fairy tales are not conducive to full feature-length animated films, and this movie proves it.

Ermine: Annnnnd now we get to the worst film on this list.
I'll just go ahead and say it. The animation sucks. Oftentimes it's difficult to even tell or see what's going on but that's not even the biggest problem with the film. I just hated the Young Girl. I don't even know how it was possible for a film like this, but god I hated her. And who the hell on the direction team thought it was a good idea to get their breast-squeezing fetish into the film. GOTTA SEE THE GIRL SQUEEZE HER BREASTS A BUNCH SO WE CAN SEE THE MILK SQUIRT OUT EVERYWHERE! Love that! Yeah yeah yeah love that so much. Seriously, go fuck yourself movie.
Also what the fuck was the point of the fawn? The girl has a baby with the prince and the prince goes off to war... and the girl can't give her baby milk because she struggles to hold it with her hands... okay... I mean there are ways to work around that, but sure.
But she REALLY wants to give milk so they get her a baby fawn to feed from her breasts... okay... that's fucking weird, but sure.
Oh! But now the other guy needs to come in and STAB the fawn to death... for absolutely no reason at all! OK? COOL!
Oh! And now the girl can feed her baby from her breasts.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
What the actual...
???
HUH?
Why?!
Also why does this devil have such a hard-on for ruining this girl's life, it wasn't her who made the deal, it was her dad. Ruin his life instead. Because she's so pure! Yeah no.
Oh yeah, did we really need to see her and her son shitting? Why do these movies have such a hard on for nudity and showing this kind of crap (literally)?
One of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I've seen Flushed Away and Paranorman.

Outlier:

Inviso: 139
Evillord: 104
Plasma: 103
Ermine: 96
Johnbobb: 86
Suprak: 86
Mythiot: 79
Karo: 74
Red: 70

Eyyyy there we go

I'll stay on Ron

My 29 is still in but I feel like it might make top 10 at this rate

I expect Dragon to drop soon, don't worry JB

I didn't realize how far ahead I'd pulled in the outlier. Yeah, the new crop of rankers really doesn't mesh with my opinions >_>

Also, I love how, despite the films being so diametrically opposed, both Ermine and I picked Girl Without Hands and Ne Zha as our bottom two together.

HOUSE WINS! Ermine should've kept betting...

Vegas Odds on #16:

+600 Wendell and Wild (2022)
+700 Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
+1000 Birdboy: The Forgotten Children (2017)
+1000 My Father's Dragon (2022)
+1000 The House (2022)
+1250 Waltz with Bashir (2008)
+1250 The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales (2017)
+1250 Flee (2021)
+1500 The Little Prince (2015)
+1500 Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

+200 ANY UNLISTED MOVIE (+2000 if guessed correctly)

Vegas Leaderboard:
1) Johnbobb $4450 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, The Hobbit 1000, Yellow Submarine 750, Sing 2 650, Vivo 500, Turning Red 850)
2) Red $2750 (Ne Zha 2000, Yellow Submarine 750)
3) Inviso $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
3) Mythiot $2000 (Ne Zha 2000)
5) Evillordexdeath $1300 (The Angry Birds Movie 700, Strange World 600)

The House Won On:

• Sita Sings the Blues (+500)
• Lightyear (+1000)
• The Willoughbys (+850)
• DC League of Super-Pets (+2000)
• Early Man (+1000)
• The Girl Without Hands (+850)