Today's (well it's past midnight - so counts as a new day😅) recommendation: Escaflowne the Movie

Forget the plot or storyline. Let yourself be wowed by the visual & aural treat that this movie is. Listen to it with eyes closed/ watch it on mute to experience the brilliance of its sound & animation on their own.

And THE BEST opening 5 minutes of any movie I've ever watched 💙 Gives me goosebumps!

https://youtu.be/tX5O3Fxz4Dc

Today's recommendation: How To Train Your Dragon

Perfect for a weekend watch, love how this movie tackles parent-child relationships, friendships & disability, throughout the trilogy with some comic shenanigans from the supporting characters. And who can resist the adorable-looking Toothless?

Today's Recommendation: Bolt ⚡

Seems like an apt move to reco here considering your love of ⚡. This is just a super-fun movie taking us through the classic hero's journey, except the hero here is a dog.

Antics of Rhino the hamster are my favourite part of the movie 💙 A good one to watch with kids!

Today's Recommendation: Anomalisa

Exploring themes of isolation & relationships, this very adult film (not for it's depiction but for themes it handles), is relatable. Personally, it make me ask those uncomfortable questions - if you're leading a mundane life, is that life worthless & how do you change tracks? Plus, the stop-motion animation translates into beautiful scenes 🖤

Today's Recommendation: Song of the Sea

This movie has jaw-droppingly gorgeous animation, narrating an Irish-folktale-inspired story of a a family discovering a secret that leads the kids - Ben & Saoirse - to a faerie-filled adventure in the sea. A simple tale with beautiful visuals & music.

Today's Recommendation: The Boy And The World (O Menino e o Mundo)

I don't know how they marketed this movie - because the crayon-drawing beauty of it's visuals hides a personal tale of a boy, Cuca, travelling in search of his father enmeshed with a commentary on capitalism, labour and natural resources, and culture. Music adds as much color to this nearly dialogue-free movie, as it's eye-popping visuals.

Despite being Oscar-nominated (2015 had the best Oscar animated shortlist - fight me on this!), it's rarely recommended and I find that a bit sad as it's my favourite animated movie ever 💙💙 Maybe one day I'll get to watch it with someone that relishes this film as much as I do 🫂

Also, excited for Alê Abreu's next film ☺️

Today's Recommendation:The Peanuts Movie (2015)

When you're having Monday blues, maybe the thing that will get you through is the thought of coming home to watch Charlie Brown & his friends going on their low-key adventures. It gets the tone & ethos of the comic just right, making for a cozy viewing anyday❤️

Today's Recommendation: Wall-E

Imagine the purest, most endearing soul on the planet. Now imagine that's not a human(or a dog😝) but a box-shaped 🤖 with gorgeously big eyes and presto, you have WALL-E. Even with minimal dialogue, the movie stays true to both the central romance & the overarching environmental narrative.

My favourite character is the frustrated cleaning bot MO who inadvertently saves the day! Who to petition to get some shorts featuring MO? 🤔

Today's Recommendation: Zootopia

A fun adventure movie with a lovable bunny-cop & fox-thief duo as it's protagonists, who team up to unravel a series of missing creatures. This film has the most memorable side-gags (inlcuding the DMV sloth) & a plethora of film references thrown in, while making a not-so-subtle commentary on stereotypes & prejudices. Not so sure if it lands the themes, but it makes for a very enjoyable (re)watch.

Today's Recommendation:Spirited Away

When Chihiro & her parents are lost on their way to their new home in the countryside, they come across an empty themepark. As they find & devour a feast at one of the stalls & are turned into pigs, Chihiro is transported into a fantasy world trying to get her parents back.

Miyazaki-san conjures up a world with odd beings walking into a bizarre bathhouse for the spirits yet makes its everyday routine feel so familiar. The film's triumph is how we root for Chihiro as she navigates this world, despite a very intro to her life. A creative masterpiece from Studio Ghibli, it's worth multiple viewings ✨✨

Today's Recommendation: Isle of Dogs

Wes Anderson's aesthetic meets animation once more in this story of a young Atari, running (flying) away to Isle of Dogs to rescue his pet/guard dog Spots, who has been banished to the Isle post an epidemic of Dog flu. Atari teams up with a motley gang of dogs led by Chief to find Spots in this oddly-paced adventure film.

The abruptness of some of the stop-motion animation adds to its charm!

Today's Recommendation: In This Corner of the World

This is a vividly gentle portrayal of civilian life during a war, as seen through the eyes of its young woman protagonist. A newly married Suzu navigates the struggles of marital life along with that of war in Hiroshima. And this film flows with as much elegance as Suzu's drawings. I like that the film focuses on the smallest details of the banality of the daily even during strife (there's no sequence depicting the battlefield despite Suzu's husband being drafted), yet still records the abject horror of Suzu's circumstances.

If you find yourself unable to handle Grave of the Fireflies, In This Corner of the World is a movie in a similar view but with a more hopeful ending.

Today's Recommendation: A Monster in Paris

The movie begins in the most unsurprising manner: an experiment (by Raoul) gone wrong creating a monster, a flea turned huge with a singing voice to boot. Roaul's friend and singer, Lucille accidentally comes across the monster & persuades him to join her for a duet at the club even as her fiance, Police Commissioner Maynott, is on the hunt for the monster.

Combining stylistic visuals, popping music (love the La Seine) song, this French animation lands the meesage of looking past the facade in a delightfully lighthearted manner.

Today's Recommendation: Only Yesterday

Maybe because of the stage of life I'm (gosh makes me sound so old 🙈), I enjoyed watching this movie with it's leisurely pace. Join the film's protagonist Taeko as she travels to a rural town Yamagata from her native Tokyo and reminisces about her childhood years, when she longed to go the countryside for the holidays like her friends. The train-ride and her subsequent days in Yamagata, brings up more memories & make her take stock of her life.

Simple. Serene. Pensive.

These would describe the town, Taeko as well as the film itself. This is the kind of film that calls for self-reflection & pondering - so best enjoyed on a long weekend afternoon.

Today's Recommendation: Megamind

It's basically a villain coming-of-age story: the born-to-be evil Megamind vs goodness-personified Metro Man with the curious journo Roxanne thrown into the mix & you think you know where it's headed but nah! The Metro Man arc is the most interesting, making one question how conditioning affects all! Overall, a rollicking fun movie with enough gags & genre-cliche spoofs to keep the pace going.

And remember, "It's all about Presentation!!!"

Today's Recommendation: Fantastic Planet

An eerie sci-fi movie with big blue aliens called Draag & tiny humanoid creatures Oms, depicting the power imbalances & how that plays out in their society. The story is a s

simply told sombre allegory to racism but the visuals from this 1973 film straddle the fine line between being bizarre & avant-garde. Whether it's enjoyable or not is a matter of taste but it'll definitely leave an impression!

Today's Recommendation: My Neighbors the Yamadas

This leisurely paced film from Isao Takahata is a slice-of-life episodic narrative from events in the Yamada family that comprises of mom, dad, grandma & 2 kids Noboru & Nonoko. It captures both the eccentricities of and emotional bonds between the family members in a unique style that's between watercolor & comics, with sparse background details.

A film sans melodrama, it makes for a solid weekday watch too 😊(it's split into small segments that can be watched stand-alone)

Today's Recommendation: Loving Vincent

This film deploys a novel technique of using Van Gogh's artistic style to narrate the story of his life (& death) . Each frame is a gorgeous painting done in his style, giving it a very unique look - kudos to all the artists that worked on this movie 🙏

But it's not all looks & no substance - the narrative is an evenly paced, gripping portrait of the tormented artist & at times his brother Theo.

Today's Recommendation: Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse

Introducing Miles Morales as the Spiderman, this film deftly captures the comic book style, particularly in it's action animation while also narrating an emotional story of Miles growing into his superpowers, under the guidance of many of his counterparts from other universes, while tackling both Kingpin & teenage. Somehow it's funny, touching & thrilling at the same time and there isn't a single moment that's not memorable 💜💜 (Seriously, i can recall almost every scene despite watching it just twice 😅).

Can't wait for the next one this year!

Today's Recommendation: Whisper of the Heart

In short, a teenage romance from Studio Ghibli, directed by Yosifumi Kondo. Shizuki, an aspiring writer gets curious about the person who's been checking out the same books as her at the library. That person turns out to be Seiji, whose grandfather owns a curio shop & wants to be a luthier. As the pair hang out at the shop, Shizuku's bond with Seiji grows stronger and her fervor for writing takes flight too. A frills-free story of 2 people enjoying being together even as they pursue their individual passion, with music playing a key role.

Country Roads, Take Me Home 💙💜

Today's Recommendation:Wreck-it Ralph

Sometimes you just want to watch a feel-good movie that doesn't involve superheroes & Wreck-it Ralph is made precisely for those occassions! In its own fun way, it's like a Toy Story but with video-games where the baddie Ralph gets tired of his role in Fix-it Felix & wants to become a hero in a video game. And on the way, he unleashes a virus that threatens their world, that he, Felix & friends have to destroy.

An enjoyable movie that has a heart as big it's anti-hero 💜❤️

Today's Recommendation: When the Wind Blows

Watching this movie, makes one feel anxious and severe sevond-hand existential dread. A lovely old British couple Jim & Hilda Bloggs, follow the instructions of the Protect-And-Survive pamphlets to the T even as they try to maintain their usual routine, hoping to get through the war. But will they?

It's not subtle but it's achingly touching & delivers a powerful message about the damages of war. (With the trifecta of this, In This Corner of the World & Grave of the Fireflies, maybe I have a type🥲)

Today's Recommendation: Ice Age

Three Men And a Baby, except the men here are pre-historic mammals (the baby is still human). Manny, Sid & Diego make for an unlikely trio, but the story gives them enough character & emotional weft that it works splendidly. Thankfully, Scrat - the squirrel- & his shenanigans while attempting to retrieve an acorn is funny in this first movie. Overall it's a fun adventure with a good balance of comedy & drama.

Today's Recommendation: The Lego Movie

I admit I was a skeptic at first - but the storyline; the self-awareness won me over & the animation style grew on me 😅 Emmet, the blandest (thanks for the rep🙏), most normal person, stumbles onto a Piece of Resistance that's supposed to help in a fight against Kragle-wielding evil Lord Business. So he goes on the stereotypical hero's journey, meeting Master Builders like Vetruvius, Wyld Style & Batman 🤭 in a surprisingly fun adventure.

Though the live-action ending is a bit controversial, the thing that stands out is the song Everything is Awesome, that is a guaranteed earworm.

That's the main list of recos. There are not many movies in the list that released prior to 2000s or the new streaming ones, cos I haven't watched most of the classic &90s Disney films & Netflix ones.

Some of my To-Watch movies include Waltz with Bashir, Persepolis, Aladdin, The Lion King 😬, Pinocchio, Princess Mononoke & Marcel The Shell With Shoes On. I think I'll add more to the list once I watch these

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