TheRetroCritic

Several years before Tim Burton rebooted Lewis Carroll's surreal masterpiece with all the 3D bells and whistles, we got this Alice In Wonderland TV movie in 1999 as an all-star cast took on the classic story. There was something irresistible about this interpretation of Alice In Wonderland as, not only would it be packed with great actors in familiar roles but it was the perfect opportunity to explore parts of the tale the older versions never explored and show off some creative new visuals. The film starts very differently from the book, which is a little off-putting at first, but soon enough Alice goes to Wonderland and the story finally begins in a faithful way with some added moments from "Through The Looking Glass" thrown in. The first thing you'll notice is Tina Majorina (known for  Napoleon Dynamite and Veronica Mars ) feels somewhat miscast as Alice: her performance is much too awkward, her English accent isn't convincing and that yellow dress she&#

I talk a bit about Disney's new live-action sequel Alice Through The Looking Glass .

Watching Spirited Away at the cinema upon its release was something of a personal event for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first anime feature I'd ever seen on the big screen but it was also my first Hayao Miyazaki film and it was, on top of that, really bloody good. Coming at a time when 2D animated films looked like they were on their way out with Disney focusing its attention on CGI animation, the anime was a breath of fresh air and proved once and for all that this kind of animated feature more than deserved to stay. The film follows a young girl called Chihiro who is about to move into a new house with her parents. She's reluctant to leave her old life behind and start a new one. Her father drives towards what he believes to be a shortcut but instead finds an abandoned old fair accessible through a creepy tunnel (as all the best fairs are). They wander aimlessly until Chihiro's parents decide to stuff their faces with random food they find lying arou

Back when I first heard about this one, I kinda just wrote it off as a lesser Studio Ghibli effort purely because it sounded a bit too silly and, not being one of Hayao Miyazaki's very own works, I didn't feel the need to actually sit through it properly. I was an idiot. The Cat Returns is actually tons of fun and way more charming than I expected. Yes, the premise is ludicrous and the first time you see a cat stand up on its back legs and talk it's... insane but the film knows it, which is why Haru, our main character, lives through this whole mad ordeal completely wide-eyed and practically in shock. Anne Hathaway, who plays Haru in the English dub, does a terrific job at capturing those reactions. The plot sees Haru save a cat's life before being introduced to some hidden Cat Kingdom and being rewarded with a place on the throne if she agrees to marry the Prince. She is advised by an unknown voice to find something called the Cat Bureau where she befriends a b