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2009: A Great Year For Family Films?

posted 16 years ago by Chwelve
3 replies | jump to latest

In addition to "Coraline," which was already brilliant, we've just gotten the trailer for Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are" adaptation, and holy hell does it look good. On top of that there's Pixar's "Up," which looks like more quirky and off-kilter fare in keeping with "Ratatouille" and "Wall-E" (this is a good thing), Disney's first 2D animated film in years (which looks potentially promising), Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," and Hayao Miyazaki's latest hitting the US. Then there are a couple other projects that sound like less sure-fire things, but still not without promise--Zemeckis' 3D animated "Christmas Carol" (Jim Carrey as Scrooge? I'm skeptical, but we'll see), and the most recent "Harry Potter" (getting to be a pretty dull franchise, but David Yates gave the fifth film a jolt of excitement, energy, and invention that none of the others--save Cauron's "Azkaban"--had, so hopefully this one will be worth seeing as well). Are there any I'm forgetting about? And does anyone else think this sounds like a really, really great year for family films?

[–] Chwelve 16 years ago

True, but I like to judge a great year by all the great stuff that comes out, rather than the amount of awful stuff (there's always awful stuff). I wasn't a Pixar devotee, but "Ratatouille" and "Wall-E" was an amazing one-two punch, and "Up" looks terrific. Haven't seen much about "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," but it strikes me as a probably bad idea (though I would've thought the same about "Where the Wild Things Are" if such great talent hadn't been involved), and its release date alone bodes ill.

[–] hiddenagenda1 10 years ago

I believe so.

10/10
1. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
2. Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
9/10
3. Up (2009)
8/10
4. Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009)

Volker Flenske: (While torturing David) I don't know why you're doing this to yourself!

[–] TutuAnimationPrincess 10 years ago

I know this topic is old but since it's been revived, I thought I would add my retrospect of 2009. I don't know about family films necessarily, but 2009 may have been the best year for animated films ever. It's not just that there were a lot of good films, it's that the ones that came out were amazingly good. This is probably the only year I could make a top ten list of animated films and not have to sacrifice quality. Great year!

If everything is not all rainbows and kittens for you today, hopefully it will be tomorrow!