—
Larry
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Hello.
With my HBO dish subscription, I receive plenty of animation...none of the Disney product but all of Dreamworks and the Bluth films...plus a fair amount of made for HBO product...with it's limited animation.
The other day, as I watched ANATASIA, I was pleased to see how well the film has held up. The underworld scenes slow done the story a bit too much but still, except for the 2D/3D visual blending - the film is still very striking.
It was fun to look back...
Thanks.
Anastasia is one of my favourite Bluth films. I like how it blends material appealing to kids (cute aninmal sidekicks, feisty princess) with elements that are potentially attractive to older audiences (atmospheric, historical setting, decent love story and dialog, mild horror elements).
I am quite fond of the underworld segements. First of all, Rasputin is not a bad villain in my opinion, made all the more interesting by the fact that he's based on a real person who still is surrounded by a certain mystique. Plus, however scary they may be, there's some comedy relieve, too. I have a thing for the macabre and a guy wringing his own neck to have his head sink down into his ribcage - priceless!
What I don't like about it is how much the live action referencing shows through sometimes. For example, in the scene where the orphanage's manageress drags Anya along by her scarf it's almost like they're characters from two different movies, one moving conspicuously "real", the other decidedly more cartoony.