Jeff James
The dancing in An American in Paris is gorgeous.
We saw it at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic playing the score, and we were lucky to have pretty great seats dead center. If you come away with nothing from this movie but the dancing and, to a lesser degree, the singing, then I think you’ll have a wonderful time.
If you pay any attention to the story, however, you’ll probably raise a few eyebrows. The woman sitting behind me kept hmmm-ing at all of the many problematic elements.
I remember watching the first Ghost in the Shell movie and being confused and mildly disappointed. up until that point, my only exposure to anime was Akira, which – although it was confusing as well – seemed far more epic in scope. I remember wondering if there were that many full-length anime features that were as good as I thought Akira was, and for a few years, I didn’t think so.
I was, of course, wrong. there were a hell of a lot of really excellent full-length anime features out there, I just hadn’t found them yet.
Now, in my personal continuum of anime features, nothing will probably ever top Spirited Away. That would just be heresy; I’d say that and Akira are on equal footing in my realm.