New Disney short, Lava, is streaming on their DMA app. Meh.

Just seeing your post has that song stuck in my head.

^ Now it's in mine!

It's actually not a bad little tune.

Hmm, my nieces are coming to visit towards the end of the month...I may have to take them to it!

I kind of liked it...

And mine! I liked it and I'm not ashamed to say it! Was it their best one? Eh, probably not-my favorite is probably "Partly Cloudy" though it's hard to just pick one. But maybe it's because I'm a fan of Hawaiian music, I liked it.

not may, "ought to"

this should have been in the top ten over last weekend - sadly it wasn't coming in at #11 - 'Pixels' at #9 ... what is wrong with you America??? (you have a movie which receives unanimous praise, it's a kid's movie that also has adult appeal this should be a no-brainer)

Nothing's wrong with Pixels, you young whipper snapper that doesn't remember Adam Sandler from when he did the same stuff early on as nearly every other comedian does.

The "may" comes in if they have already watched it! It is summer still and their parents might take them, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm with you on that one! I have no desire to watch "Pixels" or Adam Sandler. I've never enjoyed him even though he was big when I was growing up. I have liked a grand total of one of his films, "The Wedding Singer," and that's it. He was pretty funny on SNL but I never got how he was able to make a film career. But then again, I don't know how Will Farrell did it either, and he's pretty popular too.

I'd much rather watch Wallace and Gromit!

I had to take my dog to the vet today, so got a late start. When I got home, I continued Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, and watched an episode about a prehistoric whale's search for food.

Yesterday I noticed that Song of the Sea, by the same director as The Secret of Kells, is on Amazon Prime.

I'm halfway through Walking with Prehistoric Beasts. Just finished an episode about a giant animal whose name I can't even begin to spell.

I have a question. Since the moths in the Rebirth of Mothra series are puppets, would they count, or should I use my wild cards on the trilogy?

Hope it wasn't for anything serious!

I haven't watched this, but I'd say that if the moths are in 50% or more of the film, then yes, they'd count. If it's much less than that, use a wildcard.

Watching "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" right now and have a question for fans of this. The dialog is in Japanese (using subtitles) but the music is in English. Also, when they access databases, the words are also in English. This doesn't seem to be part of a translation, it seems to be how it was originally done. I haven't watched a ton of Japanese animation/anime, but what I have watched usually has these sort of things in the language it was created in. Is it that I just haven't watched the right sorts of anime or is this unique to this movie? Just curious...

No, nothing too serious. He had to be put out, and is still groggy, but it was just to have a toenail cut that was growing into his paw.

I haven't watched them in a while, but I remember them being in at least half of the movie.

One thing I like about the Happily Ever After Fairy Tales series, is every effort has some great songs. I just finished 'Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves' on HBO On Demand.

I don't know for sure as I'm still in the process of a first viewing of the series... BUT... what I've seen so far makes it seem that the series was produced primarily for a English speaking audience as, like you've indicated for the movie, screens and signs all seem to be in English. The lip sync also seems to fit English better than the Japanese track. I'm watching the series in English for those reasons (as well as it being recommended) plus that the subtitles frequently don't quite empart the same meaning or as much information as does the English audio track.

Glad it isn't too serious!

Hmm, the DVD started automatically, right into the movie with the subtitles on and the Japanese language track. Looks like there is an English track, though. I'm kind of surprised that whoever did the DVD didn't set it up the opposite, then!

I have to admit I'm enjoying it. It took a bit to get into the film, but now that I am, it's pretty good. I don't think I'm going to go look for the series, but if I stumble across it, I might give it a watch. I also kind of enjoyed Evangelion 1.01 and Ghost in the Shell, though that one not as much.

So, my Google-fu has failed me and I'm hoping someone here might help! What are some non-fiction animated movies other than "Waltz with Bashir" and "Persepolis?" I've tried a few different ways of searching but I keep on getting results for sci-fi animated movies or anime.

I've looked at people's checklist's this year, but don't see that anyone has watched anything for it. Have people had problem's in the past finding new material for this? Should we talk about removing this one from the checklist from lack of options? Or at least move it to where people have a choice of using that one or not?

Oh, I also noticed that 2014's Saturn Award winner is not on the icheckmovie's list. It's "The Lego Movie" for those who do the checklists.

watched Strange Magic tonight - yes... THAT movie

what .. the ..@#$% ???

I have no idea who this was trying to appeal to, the use of the modern songs were just so odd and jarring. The animation and soundmix are stunning, but it can save the other apparent blatant flaws of the movie.

Try the Prelinger collection at archive.org, the only caveat is that they're all shorts. Oh, and the exact wording is 'Watch a work of animated non-fiction [i.e., Waltz with Bashir, etc.]', the example is feature length, but I took it to mean any non-fiction animated work.

Of course shorts count! The problem is I can't find a list or recommendations anywhere. I've found a college course but no help there as there aren't any references listed!

Took a look at the Prelinger Collection and that does look good, but just to warn anyone else not all of them will count. I just watched, "A Ride for Cinderella." While yes, Cinderella does make her way home in a Chevrolet, the talking gnome riding a "horsehopper" is not exactly non-fiction. It is, however, fairly awesome short with a flying ghost sea monster who has it out for old Cindy.

"A for Atom" does look like it'll do the trick if someone is looking for an eligible title like I was!

I woke up early today, since I was in pain, and didn't feel too good, so I decided to start today's Chinese viewing before my parents take me out for my birthday. I started by finishing the last episode of Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, which dealt with both the mammoths, and early humans.

Sometimes anime filmmakers making works set in the future (like "Cowboy Bebop") understand that signs on Earth colonies are much more likely to be in English than in Japanese. In other anime, when you see signs on a space station in the far future that are in Japanese, it's a case (like Japan's hopes of forcing the U.S. to sue for peace back in World War II) of simple wishful thinking.

As much as Shinichiro Watanabe revels in American pop culture, he did not make "Cowboy Bebop" for an American audience. Unlike other Japanese animators, however, who usually don't care about the world outside of Japan, he was quite pleased when it succeeded in the U.S. and came here to promote the series at anime cons and such (as I've recounted in previous posts either here or in the Sci-Fi Challenge thread).

As for why the lip movements seem to match the English-dubbed dialogue, it's because American voice actors make an extra effort to make the match, while Japanese actors don't. American audiences expect the lip movements to match, Japanese audiences don't. To my ears, Japanese voice actors work much more on the characterizations, while American voice actors, more often than not, just read the lines. However, I do find it annoying when a character's lips start moving and the Japanese actor's voice comes in a beat later.

Lots of Japanese animation features songs in English. I remember stumbling across an end song by Dara Sedaka (daughter of American pop singer Neil Sedaka) at the end of "Queen Millennia," which never got released in the U.S. As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the singers on the "Cowboy Bebop" soundtrack was Emily Bindiger, a New York singer whom I remember from high school (decades ago) and who was initially recruited by Japanese female composer Yuki Kajiura for the anime series, "./hack.sign" because she liked her voice. Tons of American singers have done songs for anime soundtracks and Japanese singers will often sing songs entirely in English on these soundtracks.

That makes sense. I know I tend to view films from a somewhat America centric stance and just assume other cultures do the same, although I know that's not the case. It's interesting that Watanabe created the series from a somewhat realistic (? - fatalistic?) viewpoint of English speaking races establishing most extraterrestrial colonies and, although the monetary system seems to be Chinese, the signage would all be in English, including that of the ships.
There's absolutely no excuse for mouths to move before a voice sounds. While all voice actors typically use a visual track for pacing purposes editing the audio track to better fit the video is a simple matter. Not doing so points to sloppy post production/editing.

I disagree about your comment that "American voice actors, more often than not, just read the lines." While I feel that's typically true of "stars" or "names" used for voicing animation (i.e. "Hey! Let's get [insert famous actor] because people will flock to our sub-par product just for them!) it's *not* true of "real" voice actors (those who make their livings doing just voice work). In all fairness to those "actors" it could be simply bad direction or them just not understanding what it takes to deliver a "good" voice performance, which is quite different than what's "good" when in front of a camera.

IMHO most 60s/70s (and some "modern") "Saturday morning" TV animations have better voice acting than almost any of today's bloated, star studded, productions. Of course there are exceptions. Mark Hamill as "The Joker" in "Batman The Animated Series" is a standout performance, as is almost every other voice in that series. Craig T. Nelson in The Incredibles was outstanding and one whom I did *not* recognize until I was told it was him as the voice of Mr. Incredible. But that's another outstanding work by almost everyone involved.

I could go on but I'd agree with your comment only if "movie stars" are the voice actors and not those who make it a profession.

I watched that in the theater. I liked it better than I thought I would but the marketing such as posters, was completely off compared to what it was really about.

I did find the music use to be odd.

I've seen worse, I guess.

I was referring specifically to the voice actors used exclusively for anime, most of whom are based far from the acting capitals of L.A. and New York. Those anime series dubbed in L.A. and New York benefit from the wealth of talent available, but those are the exceptions. (And Ghibli films are in a class by themselves, since top talents clamor to work on those films.) There's an outfit in Texas that does all the Funimation and ADV titles and an outfit in Vancouver that does pretty much everything else and, to my ears, they sound like amateurs. And when I've seen extras featuring these actors at work, I'm somewhat startled at how young and unformed they are, like fanboys (and girls) suddenly given the opportunity to dub anime. When there are black characters in the anime, they use white actors to voice them with "black" accents and when there are old characters, they use young actors to voice them trying to sound mature. It's ridiculous. This is why I watch anime subtitled whenever I can.

I started to watch Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention last night since it would be a first time view and I could check Nick Park off of the checklist only to realize that it's a live action science show hosted by Wallace and Gromit. So much for that blind buy...

So after watching The Phantom Tollbooth ("What will become of Mi-lo?...") I watched the first episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. S.I.G.