Touches You

That was an excellent one.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Astro Boy style animation meets disturbing, incoherent surrealism in this odd project from a Japanese music duo called toL. I'm ready to try animation experiments anytime (most seem to come from Japan these days) so I was very interested in this film once I had heard of it.The danger with artistic experiments is that the creators sometimes confuse self-indulgence with creativity and that seems to be on display here. Or perhaps the need to complete a 90 minute movie caused them to stretch out an hour of material past the breaking point. Regardless, I found between the snooze inducing boredom was a lot of brilliance . The perpetual grayness doesn't help as it (and the disjointed narrative) successfully simulates a disturbing dream.If all was indeed created by only one animator, this person is due a reward. Visually excellent. The music and soundtrack are very good. The basic story, well, lets say it's been done before by Tezuka and other anime creators.Worth a look if you are interested in the outer reaches of animation or a fan of trippy movies.

Forget plot. Dispel any notions of linear progression. This is animation simply for the purpose of animation, and it sort of works. This does have a few problems however--I felt it was about ten minutes too long. And the shades of black and white do become a little tedious after awhile (though there is alleviation in the strategic use of colors throughout).One of the attributes of the movie, the one that could either draw viewers in or send them running, is its tendency to drift in a kind of dream-logic (I feel that animation works well with that sort of surrealistic play) with no regard towards traditional structure. The character design is simple, yet oddly emotive, and the music is dreamy enough to get lost in.This movie makes me wonder what the next step in these kinds of animation projects is going to be.

I went to this movie with no expectations of any kind, except that it was Japanese and animated. What I saw was perplexing and at times disturbing, but completely engaging from beginning to end.If you consider satire comic exaggeration with a moral punch, then this might be satire, though it's difficult to figure out what the moral is. The connections between the title character, Catty & Co., the Fritz Lang style 3-D artificial world, and Minerva are spotty. It would probably help to take notes during the rotting old professor cat's lecture, both at his slide show presentation, and during his confrontation with Michelangelo. For those who haven't seen it or read it elsewhere, these are all cartoon cats.But this is a movie, and you shouldn't need to take notes to enjoy it, and I enjoyed it thoroughly as it was presented. I love the black and white, sharply detailed designs, the splashes of vivid color, especially that painting Tamala discovers in the basement of the museum. The violence gets pretty intense in places, but it works very well and doesn't seem gratuitous.Tamala is worth a second look, but seems to be strictly short-run in most venues here in the U.S. DVDs are available from their website, but they're Region 2. It will probably be a long while before I see it again, but I anxiously await that chance.

While cute and enjoyable, the movie is no walk in the park. The art is fabulous and the plot can be challenging at times. Like most existential movies it will take some time and further viewings to get the most out of it. But the pleasure is all ours as watching this is both moving and entertaining. The best parts are areas where the music melds perfectly with the visuals and the plot. Luckily this happens often. I respect this movie most of all because it isn't lazy. The artists and crew come up with original stuff but they don't hide behind endless wierdness and confusion. This is up there with 2001 in terms of nearly towing the line perfectly between chaos and good old fashioned wierdness. There is a good backbone here, not just a cloud of ideas.