THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993)

Jack Skellington is the most popular, the most handsome and the tallest citizen of Halloween Town.  Notice I didn’t say smartest.  Cuz dat motherfucker is dmub!  One day, Halloween, to be exact, Jack is super sad and goes for a stroll in the woods.  Being a simpleton, Jack gets lost and comes across some strange looking trees.  Each one has a differently decorated door on it.  Jack investigates the tree decorated with the image of a decorated tree on it.  Soon, Jack is in Christmas Town and totally losing his shit over the snow and bright colours.  Back in Halloween Town, he devises a plan to bring the joy of Christmas Town to Halloween Town…by kidnapping Sandy Claws.  I told you he was an idiot.

The story might be silly, but the presentation of the story is fucking amazing!  I love the unholy reindeer baby mice out of this movie and have seen it around 14 million times.  Probably doesn’t hurt that I identify as Goth and I love the fuck out of Oingo Boingo.  And Tim Burton and Catherine O’Hara and Halloween and Chris Sarandon and Musicals and stop-motion animation.  Fuuuuck, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS is awesome.  The only legitimate complaint I have about it, is it’s too short.  76 minutes just isn’t long enough.

My two favorite songs are "What's This?" and "This Is Halloween".

CHILDREN WHO CHASE LOST VOICES FROM DEEP BELOW (2011)

Makoto Shinkai's next film after the wonderful 5 CENTIMETERS PER SECOND concerns a young girl, Asuna, who spends her spare time climbing a hill near her house so she can listen to a strange musical sound on her crystal radio.  One day while walking towards the hill she encounters a mysterious creature that kinda looks like a bear.  She's saved my an equally mysterious boy.  They spend the afternoon together and he mentions a place called Agartha.  Stuff happens and before you know it Asuna has traveled to the strange world of Agartha.  All of things that happen there might not be exciting, but they're all beautiful thanks to the animation. 

Not as good as 5CPS, but it's still a nice story and the animation is so breathtaking that honestly I could've watched it with the subtitles turned off and liked it just as well.