'Akira'

To be honest, I had little to no interested in Japanese animation outside of an episode of “Voltron” before starting this project.

As it’s turned out, maybe some of the best films I’ve seen have all been Japanese animation: Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies and, now, Akira. 

Akira is the oldest of the bunch and it could be considered the frontrunner of those other films and others like it that have caught on in the United States. 

Akira is a very cool late-1980s dystopian tale of motorcycle gangs and a sci-fi twist about children psychics and the end of the world. Anything from Japan has some sort of theme that relates to the atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and for good reason. Good or bad, it sort of defined that country for a long time from the outside in and probably still remains this blot of scar tissue to this day. Like it’ll never go away. 

Made in the late-1980s and based on the manga, it has heavy Cold War themes and the destruction capable should the United States and Soviet Union choose to bomb the crap out of each other (Japan caught in the middle, of course). 

Naturally, the cult status of Akira has spawned at last four attempts to make a snowy white live-action version with actors like James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michael Fassbender, Gary Oldman, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix being mentioned in one way or the other during the synthesis of the project. It’s hard to imagine this turn out well if it ever turns out.  

'The Lion King'

I remember as a young teenager my friend's cousins watching The Lion King while we played Mortal Kombat. I remember like I'm there right now.

The Lion King was a gigantic triumph for Disney Animation. I strongly suggest watching Waking Sleeping Beauty, which chronicles the Animation division at Disney during the lean years of the late-1970s and the early-1980s up until The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and, then, The Lion King.

It was triumphant in ways that Disney animated films are not triumphant. It featured a who's who of voice actors (Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons) and a soundtrack that blew the doors of record sales (Elton John's songs). Then the film: A victory in animation and a victory in entertaining young children. It made $771 million, worldwide.

Frankly, it bores me stiff. If you don't know, it's Hamlet with African wild animals. I think the songs are overdramatic and uninteresting, Simba seems like a trouble maker, there's a fart joke and unlike most other Disney animated films, I don't come away really caring for those characters they're drawing.

For what it's worth, The Lion King is being re-released in theaters really soon and I will more than likely go see it. Go figure.

'Fantastic Planet'

Although it was directed by a Frenchman and finished in a Paris studio, this brilliant animated feature is actually quite Czechslovakian and is considered an allegory for the Russian occupation of the country.

Following Nazi occupation through May 1945, Czechslovakia underwent a coup amidst its government when the communist party gained power and effectively took over and thus Russia was brought in as sort of the ruling sovereign state. Basically, it's a a big land grab as everyone took sides in the Cold War.

The country's assets were nationalized: Heavy industrialization took place and farming wasn't forsaken, but it was severely mistreated as it was slowly weeded out as far as the country's vision was and what Russia needed.

This history is a big mess. There is no story here of millions of Czechs dying in the fields or Stalin doing away with its entire population. But, from 1948 to 1989, the Czech people probably felt a lot like the Oms, helpless against the giant Draags. I would gather that this settlement between the countries was a bit troubling because so many Czechs lost their lives in the two world wars and then to have Russia with their greedy paws in their cookie jar had to be a tad demeaning.

Following a reform in the 1960s, censorship was tightened up in Czechslovakia and thus the finishing of Fantastic Planet was moved to Paris to avoid the censors.

'Fantasia'

I wish I knew who Walt Disney really was. It's kind of a joke nowadays to paint the guy as something entirely different from his company's product: A racist, an anti-semite, a guy with questionable Christian ethics and someone that would rat out his own people in the business during the Communist witchhunt of the 1950s.

I tend to think the truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe he wasn't the sweetest man in the world, but he was by far nowhere near the worst.

However, in 1941, during the Academy Awards, he called Fantasia (having been released in 1940), Disney's third full-length animated feature, a "mistake."

Probably because it failed at the box office. In hindsight, he'd probably change his mind. Still, it makes me think that Disney was into making money more so than anything else. If he truly believed in the accomplishment of Fantasia, then he'd be able to seperate the commercial success with success as an artist.

With no doubt is Fantasia an unadulterated success, a masterpiece of modern storytelling, animation and the fusion of film and music.

It was a box-office failure (as were many of Disney's early ventures) because it's more than two hours long, includes a ton of talking from a music critic explaining the ins and outs of some classical pieces and, finally, it is a lot of classical music. You won't entertain adults (more or less children) with two hours of boring talking and classical music.

Still, it doesn't mean it's not important. It was released at a time when animation was all done by hand. Again, the intro piece alone probably took countless hours, tedious work of thousands of animators and employees to almost do something much harder than seven dwarfs: Animate music. Give the sounds a shape, color and form.

There's a lot of detail and color that make Fantasia special and the amount of effort (and faith) that went into making it along makes it worthwhile.

It's one thing to think Disney as a racist or bad person. But what disappoints me the most (because a lot of people in 1940 were bad people) is that he didn't always put as much faith and love into his work as much as his work made him a legend.

'Toy Story'

An easy movie to watch when your three-year-old is as into it as you are.

Toy Story was released in 1995 and at the time animated kids' films were a bit beyond my cinematic interest considering I was a bit more into girls and rock bands.

Of all the films on this 1,001 list, Toy Story probably deserves just as much as any other choice.

It was the first animated feature done entirely by computer and it set up a multi-trillion dollar industry of films that are not only entertaining to children, but very interesting for adults and regarded as generally good films with critics and the awards people.

Wall-E and Up getting Oscar buzz was no fluke; and it was all thanks to Toy Story.

I'd never seen Toy Story up until this weekend, even with the kid. It was one we didn't own and I'd never been around to catch it. It's good. Funny, clever with incredibly likable characters and a quality plot that meant something.

Interestingly, there's been two others, the third one released in 2010, 15 years after the original and, of course, the boy is 19 or so and going off to college. I can't wait to watch the other two.

'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'

Living in the middle of nowhere with limited movie-going opportunities, getting to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was an extreme joy. I still remember it vividly despite it being 21 years ago (shit, I'm old).

I also remember well not understanding the film. I didn't know what "framed" meant. Much of the 1940s lingo and culture was lost on me. The plot was a little too much for my eight-year-old brain.

I just liked the cartoons. And I especially loved the end with all the cartoons together.

I'd eventually understand everything about the film as I grew up, especially all of the sexual innuendoes.

I recently interviewed Max Howard, an animation administrator with the film. He talked about the dozens of really dirty things the animators put in the film, in honor of the old animators who would purposely draw Betty Boop's dress to high to show her goods.

Rumors were that the Laserdisc of Roger Rabbit shows Jessica Rabbit's junk. If this were entirely true, then we would have all seen it by now.

The story behind the making of the film is fascinating. The pre-production with getting funding for a half-cartoon, half-real preson movie. Getting all of the companies to "lend" their characters to Disney for them to make even more money.

The film is overly original itself. The interaction between the cartoons (and their world) with real people is an interesting concept. Where giant hammers or anvils are accessible in the cartoon world, they're not what humans typically carry around. These being corporeal things to humans seems like the natural thing if some "cartoon world" existed.

This is a very, very good film. But it's better with a little age.

'Animal Farm'

My friend Rajesh and I had a discussion after I watched the 1951 animated feature "Animal Farm" as to how children would interpret the cartoon reproduction of socialist novelist George Orwell.

"Animal Farm," of course, is a thinly-veiled allegory of communism and inherent flaws within the system (we assume, the USSR) once leadership is poisoned with power and lose the vision of Karl Marx and socialism.

My three-year-old daughter would watch it and be entertained by the talking animals. On a very basic level, she would understand that Napoleon the pig was bad and, generally, the other animals were good.

We also determined that a nine-year-old kid would watch it and not necessarily connect the dots to communist Russia, but realize that the farmer mistreated the animals and this is not right. And that the animals taking over and making everything equal is good. Then the pigs making everything unequal was just as bad as the farmer, the power the animals ousted in order to makes things equal in the first place.

Without really knowing it, the nine year old would be a socialist (if, say, socialism was wholly practical not only on paper or in cartoons).

Furthermore, we concluded that as a kid, you're inherently a socialist because you go (mostly) to public schools where you're taught to share and that every is equal and good. And that there is no such thing as a dumb question. Bad kids are put in timeout: a less harsh version of iberian gulags.

Then in college these kids become real socialist. Then they turn 40 and they become Republicans.

'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves'

Have a kid and you'll run through the Disney anthology pretty quickly.

I honestly don't mind most of the Disney films. "Fox and the Hound" did not age well. However, "Peter Pan," "The Jungle Book" and "Robin Hood" are all fantastic films.

I don't dig "Snow White" very much. For one, it's incredibly violent. Killing Snow White and carving out her heart. It is crazy how it's an 88 minute movie and yet it takes about 60 of those minutes to set the film up (Snow White running away; finding the dwarves home; dwarves coming home; dwarves befriending Snow White). It just takes forever.

Reading about it more, it was pretty monumental in terms of filmmaking and animation. Maybe it sucks, but we'd have no "Spirited Away" or "Up" without it.

'Persepolis'

Probably one of the best films I've seen all year. Probably one of the best films I've seen the last 10 years.

There is very little wrong with it. It's funny, charming, it builds characters and connects these small twists and plot lines into a very complete and interesting story.

Furthermore, it's about something. Unlike most animated films, it doesn't beat around the bush. It's a very different animation in that the filmmaking helps with simplifying a very tragic and unsimple country during a very unsimple time.

The filmmaker took a very tense subject and essentially dumbed it down and made it incredibly accessible for everyone, and yet it comes off entirely more poignant by not casting a bunch of Hollywood actors or Iranian nobodies to fill the parts.

'Princess Mononoke'

My threshold for the animated Japanese films is not very high. I can probably handle the top three percent of the genre and no more.

"Spirited Away" was fantastic. "Grave of the Fireflies" was really, really good. And "Princess Mononoke" was pretty good. But I feel I've reached my limit.

The final film was not as visually stunning, the characters weren't nearly as well developed and, thus, I never truly connected with them as much as I did the other films.

Even in animation, you need some sort of buy-in or connection or the audience is lost.

'Grave of the Fireflies'

Several years back, I had no real issue with seeing children in film, books or whatever be injured or killed.

God, you write it and it sounds 100 times more callous. But it's how I felt. I could read a book about the Holocaust or watch a film and not get too caught up in it.

Now, I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and it makes me sick to my stomach to see harm done to a child. Sometimes I can't even watch it.

"Grave of the Fireflies" is tough. It's extremely sad and you're just hoping and waiting for the war to be over so they can get back to some normalcy and live. Then it falls apart and it haunts you for the rest of the week.

'Spirited Away'

I'm going to be honest: I put little credence or hope in animated films and probably less in Japanese animated films. It's a prejudice that I may never, ever get over.

However, I completely enjoyed "Spirited Away." If I were to create a list of the best 10 films I've seen the last five years, "Spirited Away" would make the top six.

How is it that animators can create these extremely likable, deep, empathetic characters that 90 percent of all live-action films or TV can not do no matter how hard they try. If they made Anne Frank into a cartoon, the sympathy level for Holocaust victims would go through the roof.

Maybe the key is not having to deal with real people, who generally mess up feelings -- fake or otherwise -- no matter what. People are the worst.

'Slumdog Millionaire' & 'Wall-E' & 'Milk'

Saturday the day before the Academy Awards, I had the opportunity to watch all five best picture nominees in a row.

It was the first time ever that I had seen all the nominees before the awards and it was a pretty crazy day because I didn't think I could stand 14 straight hours of movie watching.

In addition, Sunday, I had the opportunity to see the animated film "Wall-E." I had a very busy weekend. Anyway, I'm placing these three films on the 1,001 films I should see before I die because there probably won't be an updated list for another two years or so.

So with the Academy Awards in mind, I present another set of honors that may or may not have anything to do with these films:

Most Overrated
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Too long. The plot was inconsistent and pretty dumb. It's basically a "Forrest Gump" for the Gen Y. Brad Pitt isn't very good. Plus, he's not even in the film for 65 percent of the film, which meandered hither and thither. Cate Blanchett is hot. It's a good thing she didn't age until she was 80.

Biggest Surprise
Frost/Nixon
Thought it would be drier. It was funny and beyond interesting. The chemistry between Michael Sheen and Frank Langella was captivating.

Best 45 Seconds
Frost/Nixon
Near the end of the final interview in "Frost/Nixon" when Frost corners Nixon on apologizing to the American public. Just an intense half minute.

Hottest Babe
Kate Winslet
All apologies to the cutie from "Slumdog," Blanchett, the white robot from "Wall-E" and the chick from "Frost/Nixon," Winslet is soooo doable.

Best Chemistry
Sean Penn-Josh Brolin
Penn deserves whatever awards or kudos you want to heap on him. The scenes between him and Brolin are fantastic. There's a ton that's unsaid that makes the film.

Best Supporting Cast
"Milk"
"Frost/Nixon" brings it with Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell. But it's hard to beat a motivated Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, James Franco and a handful of other actors (including the blonde kid from "High School Musical") that absolutely make this film.

Best Suicide By Hanging
Kate Winslet
It took 40 years, but she finally understood that killing 300 Jews in the Holocaust wasn't cool. By the way, the other hanging was Diego Luna's character in "Milk." At the time, Harvey Milk and Luna's character were gay lovers. Luna's character kills himself in Milk's apartment right as he was becoming a high flyer in city and state politics. How does that not become a tabloid news story destorying Milk's political career?

'Ratatouille'

Animated films are really not my thing. And yet, I'll end up watching them and enjoying them.

So why don't I seek them out earlier? Probably because there are so many non-animated, great movies that I've never seen and would like to that animated films get the shaft.

Except "Ratatouille." Too many adults said this was a good film so I sought it out and I really liked it. Nevermind that it's about cooking or Paris -- two things I like reading about or watching. But it's smart and funny. It has a really good message.

Plus, I like that they didn't try to get the big names to come in and do voices. Watching the film, I had no idea who was doing the voices and then you look at hte line-up and you're slightly blown away: Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehy, Peter O'Toole, Brad Garrett, Will Arnett and Janeane Garofalo. Understated and perfect.

'The Jungle Book'

I'm basically re-watching all of these old Disney films because my 2-year-old is into them.

And rightly so. They're only 70-odd minutes long and they're intriguing.

Mostly, they hold so much value to an adult. "The Jungle Book" for example is a gigantic comment on society and the balance of all the pieces and how when those are disturbed, the entire thing can crumble.

Then the characters are interesting. You have the lazy bear. The seemingly organized, progressive and prosperous monkeys.

Maybe it's just a semi-dumb cartoon about human's encroachment on our wild friends, but I see it more as an allegory for society and roles therein.

'Dumbo'

Reading all these books and watching all these movies, you run into a lot of opposition and hatred. Americans have been pissed off at a lot of people for a long time often times for no good reason.

Yet, some 50 odd years ago, knee deep in Dwight Eisenhower, McCarthyism, segregation and the Cold War, Walt Disney released "Dumbo, which includes an entire scene built around the two main protagonists (Dumbo and the mouse) getting drunk and hallucinating about a bazillion empty-eyed pink elephants performing a song and dance number.

Ten of the creepiest moments in animation history.

And our missiles were aimed at the Communists?