In 2012 I decided to sit down and definitively rank my 100 favorite movies, to coincide with, the once a decade Sight and Sound poll, of the 100 Greatest Films. The plan was, and still is, to do update this list every ten years. This was a lot of fun, but was not as simple as I had imagined it would be. It took me most of the year and at times made me unreasonably grumpy. I hadn’t anticipated anything close to this.
By competing movies I loved against one another I was forced to nit-pick and find “flaws” with movies I didn’t really have any issues with. It was unpleasant trying to find warts in things that gave me nothing but pleasure prior to this silly exorcise.
First I narrowed it to about 350 films that I would be okay putting on the list. Great. Narrowing those down to 100 from the 350 is where shit got sticky. And above all, it was tiring. So I’d pack it in early most nights, without making decisions. This is why the project moved along like a tortoise with a hang over.
Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro placed 54th on this inaugural list in 2012. In 2022 it cracked the top 20, landing as my 16th favorite film. It was the highest ranked an animated picture on the list. Essentially making it my favorite animated film.
I was childless at the time. Now, I’m a parent of a 2 year old. And for the allotted screen-time she gets everyday, she has become obsessed to the point of mania with a certain animated TV show that pretty much bores me. No, I will not name said show in this space.
In a selfish attempt to get her to watch something I actually like, I’ve started to introduce her to my favorite animated films. Most haven’t taken. She hated The Triplets of Belville, for instance. She didn’t really respond to most of the Miyazaki pictures except for Kiki’s Delivery Service. Running around the house with her tiny little broom pretending to talk to a cat that we don’t have, is a favorite past time with her.
My Neighbor Totoro, however, she fell for. She fell hard. Head over heels. She screams “CAT BUSSSSS!!!” anytime she sees any bus in public or even when someone start sing “The Wheels On Bus”. The wheels on the cat-bus go meow, meow, meow…meow, meow, meow.
This was great. I can actually watch the movie with her and not fall asleep or be on my phone the whole time. But, she’s now asking for it over and over and over again.
Because of this, a depressing revelation has come to me. Be careful what you wish for because it turns out, watching a beloved movie 3 times a week for a solid month, kind of makes it boring. The shine is dulling and I’m more than a little pissed off at this turn of events. It’s not the movies fault, its still a masterwork, but I am bored with it.
This movie’s spell on me has lifted and I’m afraid it won’t return. I just hope I don’t end up resenting it.
I’m always fascinated by the ways movies age. Nothing changes in the picture. But, as a viewer, I change. The world changes, societies and cultures morph and move. Something I thought was hysterical as a teenager can be straight offensive to me now, as an example. This is one of the great things about art and aging. The movies, or books or painting or music or whatever, keep on changing if you watch them with enough space between viewings. They grow along with us.
I never saw this kind of evolution coming. Just getting worn out by a movie.
A cool footnote to this has been that I’ve watched several Miyazaki pictures for only the second time, trying to introduce them to my daughter. And almost all of them have improved. Especially Ponyo and Castle in the Sky. I was awed and moved in ways I wasn’t upon first viewing of these films.
I’m very curious where My Neighbor Totoro will rank on my top 100 in 2032. It won’t be the highest ranked animated film, I’m certain of this. Will it even crack the top 100? I’m thinking it probably won’t. Unless of coarse all of the animated films I love start to fall along with Totoro, because I’m over watching them with my kid. We’ll see.
As of today, these are my ten favorite animated films:
1. Grave of the Fireflies
2. The Triplets of Belville
3. South Park; Bigger, Longer and Uncut
4. Pinocchio
5. Watership Down
6. Ponyo
7. Anomolisa
8. Inside Out
9. The Adventures of Prince Achmed
10. The Pied Piper
BEST THING I SAW THIS WEEK: After Hours
I saw Martin Scorsese’s After Hours on 35mm at The Egyptian in Hollywood as a 40 year anniversary screening. The first time I’d seen this movie with a crowd. It killed. Huge laughs throughout. The movie seems to be getting better the older it gets. I’d like to write a post about Martin Scorsese’s 80’s movies. Such and interesting run of movies that feels very different from the rest of his filmography and yet, I can tell they are Scorsese films from the opening frame or title or needle drop.
Honestly, a deeper dive might be to do a piece on all of the Movie Brats 80’s movie. Its pretty fascinating to see what they all did after the decade where the changed the cinema-scape for all time. They had it all and then lost it and had to feel their way around the 80’s to find there new place in the system. Could be fun to examine.
BEST THING I READ THIS WEEK: A Complicated Passion; The Life and Times of Agnes Varda by Carrie Rickey
BEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK: Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by the Wu-Tang Clan
I saw them in concert on Sunday and have been listening to this album exclusively ever since. Some of the members are showing their age, but the RZA and Method Man have not. They have the energy and sound like they are 25. I’ve never made a list of my favorite Albums, but this would no doubt be in the top 10, with a real chance at number 1.
