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Animation DVDs

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (+ Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]

Sales Rank:925
List Price: $35.99
Lowest New Price: $16.97
Lowest Used Price: $15.29
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Animated
Color
Dolby
Extra tracks
Widescreen

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Matt Lanter
Ashley Eckstein

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Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Four

Sales Rank:844
List Price: $64.98
Lowest New Price: $22.00
Lowest Used Price: $20.10
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Animated
Box set
Color
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Original recording remastered
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Robert Clampett
Arthur Davis
Chuck Jones
Constantine Nasr
Frank Tashlin

Actor(s):

Mel Blanc
Orson Welles
Stan Freberg
Arthur Q. Bryan
Bernice Hansen

Like previous installments, the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 mixes favorites from the Warner Bros. archives with relatively obscure older works. Chuck Jones' "Mississippi Hare" and Friz Freleng's "Sahara Hare" and "Knighty-Knight Bugs" (which won an Oscar) offer hilarious performances by Bugs. Two of Jones' earliest films, "The Night Watchman" and "Conrad the Sailor" prefigure his use of subtle expressions in his later cartoons. The disc of shorts by Frank Tashlin includes "Plane Daffy": pigeon see-duck-tress Hatta Mari anticipates Jayne Mansfield in such later Tashlin live-action comedies as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Not all of these films have aged as gracefully. Younger viewers will probably not catch the references to Charlie McCarthy, Bill Robinson, and other old film and radio stars. The Speedy Gonzalez cartoons feature ethnic humor that seems embarrassing today; it's also crashingly unfunny. Each disc offers a disclaimer about stereotypes, noting, "they were wrong then and are wrong today."

The discs are loaded with extras that range from a partial set of storyboards for "Sahara Hare" to three of the "Private Snafu" shorts, which were made for the "Army-Navy Screen Magazine" during WW II. The oddest extra is the documentary Bugs Bunny Superstar, which infuriated many of the Warner Bros. artists when it was released in 1977. Much of its information should be taken with a grain of salt. (Unrated, suitable for ages 6 and older: cartoon violence, some ethnic stereotypes, mild risqué humor, alcohol & tobacco use) --Charles Solomon

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Robot Chicken: Star Wars

Sales Rank:1217
List Price: $14.98
Lowest New Price: $7.67
Lowest Used Price: $6.85
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Animated
Closed-captioned
Color
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Mark Hamill
George Lucas

Robot Chicken's finest half hour is more savvy than Spaceballs, more inside than Family Guy: Blue Harvest, and funnier, even, than The Star Wars Holiday Special. This Very Special Episode of Comedy Central's stop-motion animated series parodies and goofs on all things Star Wars, from a disgruntled Empire janitor to an ad for Admiral Ackbar Cereal ("Your tongues can't repel flavor of that magnitude"). Twenty three minutes goes by like the jump to hyperspace with such priceless bits as the collect phone call to Emperor Palpatine from Darth Vadar to inform him of the Death Star's destruction, awkward morning-after pillow talk between Luke and Leia ("That was so wrong"), and George Bush's newfound Jedi powers. Co-creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich and company immerse viewers in the Robot Chicken universe with generous bonus features, including storyboarded deleted scenes (with self-deprecating commentary), behind the scenes footage of animation meetings, and alternate audio takes. Good sport George Lucas, who gave his blessing to this episode, boldly goes where William Shatner went before by voicing himself in a Star Wars convention sketch that concludes with a Lucas-worshiping geek telling his son that meeting his idol was the best day of his life. What about his son's birth? "Not even close," dad replies. But you don't have to have that kind of devotion to Star Wars to be amused by this weather forecast for Cloud City: "Cloudy, followed by clouds." --Donald Liebenson.

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Madagascar (Full Screen Edition)

Sales Rank:1088
List Price: $19.99
Lowest New Price: $11.75
Lowest Used Price: $8.87
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

AC-3
Animated
Color
Dolby
DTS Surround Sound
Dubbed
DVD-Video
Full Screen
Subtitled
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Stephen Apostolina
Sacha Baron Cohen
Cody Cameron
Cedric the Entertainer
David Cowgill

The penguins steal the show. In the sprightly Madagascar, a mid-life crisis inspires Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to escape from his lifelong home, a New York zoo. His equally pampered friends--Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer)--then escape to bring him back. Unfortunately, their attempt at damage control persuades zoo officials that the animals are unhappy, so all four get shipped to an animal preserve in Kenya...only a squad of maniacal penguins change the destination to Antarctica. The quartet end up on an island where, in addition to meeting some hedonistic lemurs, they learn about the food chain--and that Alex is a different link on the chain from the other three. Madagascar doesn't achieve the snappy perfection of a Pixar movie, but it tops most other computer-animated efforts; the collision of friendship and predator instincts makes for an unusually gripping conflict. The vocal performances of the central characters is serviceable, but Sacha Baron Cohen (Da Ali G Show) provides topnotch lunacy as the lemur king, and the penguins--voiced mostly by the animators themselves--are the best thing in the movie. --Bret Fetzer

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The Little Mermaid Trilogy

Sales Rank:309
List Price: $50.00
Lowest New Price: $34.97
Lowest Used Price: $33.49
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

Animated
Box set
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Extra tracks
NTSC
Widescreen

Director(s):

Actor(s):

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid II: Return To The Sea Special Edition

Dive into The Little Mermaid collection and experience every magical moment of Ariel's underwater adventures. Experience all three movies available for the first time together in this 3-movie collection, swimming with exciting bonus features. Relive all the fun and the songs you love from the original classic, The Little Mermaid, and continue Ariel's tale with the beloved favorite, The Little Mermaid II: Return To The Sea Special Edition. Then see how it all started with Disney's The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. It's the perfect collection for the ultimate Little Mermaid fan!

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Spirited Away

Sales Rank:715
List Price: $29.99
Lowest New Price: $21.06
Lowest Used Price: $11.14
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Animated
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history (more than $234 million), Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro Kamikakushi) is a dazzling film that reasserts the power of drawn animation to create fantasy worlds. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Lewis Carroll's Alice, Chihiro (voice by Daveigh Chase--Lilo in Disney's Lilo & Stitch) plunges into an alternate reality. On the way to their new home, the petulant adolescent and her parents find what they think is a deserted amusement park. Her parents stuff themselves until they turn into pigs, and Chihiro discovers they're trapped in a resort for traditional Japanese gods and spirits. An oddly familiar boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) instructs Chihiro to request a job from Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), the greedy witch who rules the spa. As she works, Chihiro's untapped qualities keep her from being corrupted by the greed that pervades Yubaba's mini-empire. In a series of fantastic adventures, she purges a river god suffering from human pollution, rescues the mysterious No-Face, and befriends Yubaba's kindly twin, Zeniba (Pleshette again). The resolve, bravery, and love Chihiro discovers within herself enable her to aid Haku and save her parents. The result is a moving and magical journey, told with consummate skill by one of the masters of contemporary animation. MPAA Rated: PG ("Some scary moments") --Charles Solomon

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Princess Mononoke

Sales Rank:755
List Price: $32.99
Lowest New Price: $15.50
Lowest Used Price: $12.87
MPAA Rating: Unrated

Format:

Animated
Color
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Yôji Matsuda
Yuriko Ishida
Yûko Tanaka
Kaoru Kobayashi
Masahiko Nishimura

This epic, animated 1997 fantasy has already made history as the top-grossing domestic feature ever released in Japan, where its combination of mythic themes, mystical forces, and ravishing visuals tapped deeply into cultural identity and contemporary, ecological anxieties. For international animation and anime fans, Princess Mononoke represents an auspicious next step for its revered creator, Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service), an acknowledged anime pioneer, whose painterly style, vivid character design, and stylized approach to storytelling take ambitious, evolutionary steps here.

Set in medieval Japan, Miyazaki's original story envisions a struggle between nature and man. The march of technology, embodied in the dark iron forges of the ambitious Tatara clan, threatens the natural forces explicit in the benevolent Great God of the Forest and the wide-eyed, spectral spirits he protects. When Ashitaka, a young warrior from a remote, and endangered, village clan, kills a ravenous, boar-like monster, he discovers the beast is in fact an infectious "demon god," transformed by human anger. Ashitaka's quest to solve the beast's fatal curse brings him into the midst of human political intrigues as well as the more crucial battle between man and nature.

Miyazaki's convoluted fable is clearly not the stuff of kiddie matinees, nor is the often graphic violence depicted during the battles that ensue. If some younger viewers (or less attentive older ones) will wish for a diagram to sort out the players, Miyazaki's atmospheric world and its lush visual design are reasons enough to watch. For the English-language version, Miramax assembled an impressive vocal cast including Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup (as Ashitaka), Claire Danes (as San), Minnie Driver (as Lady Eboshi), Billy Bob Thornton, and Jada Pinkett Smith. They bring added nuance to a very different kind of magic kingdom. Recommended for ages 12 and older. --Sam Sutherland

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The Fox and the Hound (25th Anniversary Edition)

Sales Rank:767
List Price: $29.99
Lowest New Price: $9.99
Lowest Used Price: $9.42
MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)

Format:

Animated
Color
DVD-Video
NTSC

Director(s):

Ted Berman
Richard Rich
Art Stevens

Actor(s):

Mickey Rooney
Kurt Russell
Pearl Bailey
Jack Albertson
Sandy Duncan

The Fox and the Hound marked the last collaboration between Disney's older artists, including three of the "Nine Old Men" (Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and Woolie Reitherman), and the young animators who would make the record-breaking films of the '90s. Based on a book by Daniel P. Mannix, the film tells the story of a bloodhound puppy and a fox kit who begin as friends but are forced to become enemies. Tod and Copper barely establish their friendship before Copper begins his training as hunting dog. Unfortunately, neither character develops much of a personality, which makes it difficult to care about them. The screen comes alive near end of the film, when Tod and Copper have to join forces to fight off an enormous bear. It had been years since Disney produced a sequence with this kind of feral power--and years would pass before they surpassed it. The Fox and the Hound ranks as one of the studio's lesser efforts, but it suggests that better films were soon to follow. (Ages 5 and older) --Charles Solomon

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Howl's Moving Castle

Sales Rank:586
List Price: $29.99
Lowest New Price: $20.93
Lowest Used Price: $12.80
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)

Format:

Animated
Closed-captioned
Color
Dolby
DVD-Video
Widescreen
NTSC

Director(s):

Actor(s):

Chieko Baisho
Takuya Kimura
Akihiro Miwa
Tatsuya Gashuin
Ryunosuke Kamiki

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Classic Christmas Favorites (Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! / The Year Without a Santa Claus / Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July / Rudolph's Shiny New Year / and More)

Sales Rank:2500
List Price: $39.98
Lowest New Price: $20.98
Lowest Used Price: $15.51
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)

Format:

Animated
Color
Full Screen
NTSC

Director(s):

Arthur Rankin Jr.
Ben Washam
Chuck Jones
Jules Bass

Actor(s):

Boris Karloff
Thurl Ravenscroft
Shirley Booth
Mickey Rooney
June Foray

It may not be what you think at first glance, but Classic Christmas Favorites is indeed a set of vintage holiday specials, mostly from the team of Rankin/Bass. Start with the one that's not Rankin/Bass, but is a flat-out classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), the Dr. Seuss tale about a curmudgeon who tries to stop Christmas from coming. From its Seussian zaniness to its humor to its music, Grinch is just about perfect in every way. The version included is the 2006 remastered version with Horton Hears a Who! (1970) and other material, and new for 2008 are three specials previously unavailable on DVD: The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold (1981), Pinocchio's Christmas (1980), and The Stingiest Man in Town (1978). The next most famous special is The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), a stop-motion story in which Santa (voiced by Mickey Rooney) decides to take the holiday off, only to have the movie stolen by Heat Miser and Snow Miser. The 2007 deluxe edition has some documentary material and the two specials that were on the previous DVD, Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) and Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977). On the third disc are the cel-animated Frosty's Winter Wonderland (1976, narrated by Andy Griffith), in which Frosty gets a snow wife, and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974), which uses the Clement Moore poem as an excuse to tell a story about a human and a mouse who have to make amends when an offended Santa decides not to visit their town.

Finally, the stop-motion Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979) is a feature-length (105 minutes!) special that follows the reindeer and the snowman as they get jobs at a Fourth of July circus! One of the fun things about this special is how a number of the original voices return to give the programs a similar look and feel: Jackie Vernon puts in his third stint as the voice of Frosty, Billie Richards again voices Rudolph, Shelley Winters three-peats her role as Crystal (Frosty's wife), and Mickey Rooney returns as Santa.

The 2008 set Classic Christmas Favorites is an updated version of 2007's Christmas Television Favorites, adding the three new specials on disc 1. A quick look at the cover may lead one to think that this is all the original Rankin/Bass specials--Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman, etc. These aren't those, but they're still vintage Rankin-Bass and many people think of them just as fondly. --David Horiuchi

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