A number of award-winning and critically acclaimed animated movies raked in millions of dollars at the box office in 2009. These include the Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated offerings “Up,” “The Princess and the Frog,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” and “Coraline.” Other successful animated blockbuster hits of the year include “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” and “Monsters vs. Aliens.”
Amid these popular offerings, there were also some underrated animated films that found their ways to U.S. theaters. They won the hearts of audiences across America and competed side-by-side with big Hollywood flicks at prestigious award-giving bodies and film festivals.
“9”
“9,” a computer-animated sci-fi fantasy piece by Shane Acker, was originally his Oscar-nominated thesis short film from the University of California, Los Angeles. It was expanded into a full-length feature with visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov producing the project. “9” showcased an all-star voice cast featuring Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover, Christopher Plummer, and Martin Landau.
This visually spectacular post-apocalyptic movie tells the story of a world dominated by machines with mankind struggling to survive. A group of small rag doll creations by a scientist in a devastated world becomes the key to humanity’s salvation. One of these rag dolls is called 9. This newly awakened hand-stitched doll, along with the others of his kind he convinces to go with him, becomes the last hope for humanity’s salvation.
“Ponyo“
Hayao Miyazaki’s “Ponyo” became a box office success in the United States and was considered by far the widest release for Japan’s Studio Ghibli in America. Prior to its official U.S. theatrical release, “Ponyo” was already a popular motion picture among art-house and anime audiences around the world and in the film festival circuit. It won major accolades at the Tokyo Anime Awards, Awards of the Japanese Academy, and the Venice Film Festival. It also received a number of nominations from other award-giving bodies like the Annie Awards.
This Japanese anime’s U.S. offering provided an English dub directed by John Lasseter, Brad Lewis, and Peter Sohn. “Ponyo” was featured at the 2009 Comic-Con, Miyazaki traveling to the United States to promote the film. This visually breathtaking opus is a poetic film about the friendship of a child and a goldfish princess who magically turns into his playmate. This leads them to a dreamlike journey in a tsunami-stricken seaside where their friendship further grows.
“Waltz With Bashir”
“Waltz With Bashir” is a landmark animated documentary that made waves in different parts of the world during its release. Although it premiered in its home country Israel and was shown in a couple of film festivals in 2008, it rose to popularity in the United States by 2009.
This 2D-animated film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the same year. It became the first animated picture to ever be nominated for that award.
Aside from becoming a pioneering work for a documentary film in animation format, its striking storytelling effectively reconstructed the events that happened during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. This war film tells of the mass murder of Palestinian refugees by the Christian militia through the first-hand descriptions of those involved in the war. Using the interview format, director Ari Folman infuses the fragmented memories of key witnesses and soldiers of the tragic event to create this animated masterpiece.
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