Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
I don't know about you, but when a separate Oscar category for Best Animated Feature was inaugurated, I welcomed it as a chance to open audiences up to the rich world of cartoons, CGI and stop-motion that exists outside of the usual Disney/DreamWorks axis of evil. (Plus, I like to think that advancements in animation will mean fewer live-action cinema - meaning fewer borderline-psycho actors employed in our midst - and that can't be a bad thing). So, perhaps thanks to the Academy, more viewers are turned on to stuff like
SONG OF THE SEA and the output of Studio Ghibli than would have been otherwise.
Still, there are some major animated features that take some time to get here. I'm still curious about
FELIDAE, the German cartoon based on a best-selling thriller novel (that never broke big with American readers) about a cat version of Sherlock Holmes. Then there's
NOCTURNA, a Franco-Spanish epic that was completed all of eight years ago. Now it's finally shown up here on disc.
