My Neighbor Totoro

I wrote a lot about how I never really watched animated films in my post about Grave of the Fireflies. I don't want to restate that, but I feel like it needs to be said, because I am really starting to become a convert. I am so happy that Ebert picks such a wide variety of films, and I'm able to see such different and new genres. I probably would have never rented today's movie on my own, but I am in awe.

Today I watched My Neighbor Totoro, directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 1988. After I saw the whole movie, I was upset that I never saw it as a kid. I hoped that it had been directed when I was "older". Nope. The year I was born, of course. This is the kind of movie I would have loved when I was little. It is also still an incredible movie, and by far, more than any other film that tends to make people nostalgic for childhood, made me nostalgic. I loved the beautiful animation in this film, the plot, the characters, and the whole tone of it. I feel like every (American) animated film I've seen, I write about how scary it is and awful for children. Not this. This is a children's movie I would actually show to kids...and to all adults that I know.