Favorite Non-Disney Movies | DreamWorks

Howdy!

So last February I published a blog post about my favorite non-Disney movies and I thought it was very well received! There are actually a lot of people who think every animated film is automatically made by Disney and this is not true by any means! In my last post, I talked about the ones made by Don Bultch and it was a fun experience to write about my favorites and now I’m back with another post, this time it’s about DreamWorks, so I hope you all like the four films I decided to highlight today.

Spirit: Stallion of a Cimarron (2002) Matt Damon, James Cromwell, and Daniel Studi

This is one of my favorite movies ever! This was also the first movie I ever saw in theaters. I was planning on doing a whole post about it, but I figured I didn’t want to repeat what I said on here again on a later date, so screw it, I’m doing it right now! I went with my church, my mom and Blondie went to see it too! It was so sad but I must not had cared that much to those sections because I still love to watch it to this day. However, I will still cry to the scene when Spirit is captured again and on the train after losing Rain. The song “Sound The Bugle” gets me every single time!

I feel like this was still very much a silent film, at least it has the essence of what that era brought to its audience. The animals were “real” in every sense of the word, as they didn’t have voices like majority of the animated films out there. We had Matt Damon, who was both narrator to the story and the voice of Spirit, but he didn’t act out all of his scenes, you heard the real sounds of a horse instead. Now just because I say that, doesn’t mean that the human characters were quiet, that’s where James and Daniel come in. So it was very interesting to say the least!

They also allowed the music to set the mood of each scene as well! Bryan Adams actually came up with the majority of the soundtrack while Hans Zimmer did the rest. It’s one of my most played albums on my iPod, I love it so much!

Shrek (2001) Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz,  and Eddie Murphy

Shrek is another film that is very close to my heart too, because I actually got this as a gift while going over to my grandma’s when I was younger. I don’t remember if it was ever on my radar at that time, but honestly I didn’t have that much of a movie radar at that time, so who knows!

I know they’ve had quite a few sequels come out after this one, but I haven’t watched them as much as the original. I thought it was so funny! I remember when I came home from my grandma’s a few days later, I ended up losing the actual tape for a few months because my dad was into it too! Unfortunately, he has yet to stop that, because we’re missing both of Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen movies!

Shark Tale (2004) Will Smith, Renee Zelleweger, and Jack Black

This was another movie that wasn’t really on my movie radar at the time, but I’m glad I made myself watch it one day. Even though this movie came out in 2004, I’m pretty sure I saw it about four years later on ABC Family (or what it’s now called Freeform) and I will add, I still really have a “movie radar” even at that time either! I think I was starting to create one though.

I’ve always thought it was a cute movie! When you’re a kid, especially a young child, there were quite a few life lessons you can learn after watching this, like don’t lie to fit in to the wrong crowd but be yourself, don’t let somebody say you have to do this or that. Don’t pull an Oscar or a Lenny, let’s just say that! I also liked the fact that these characters looked like some of the actors, like the jellyfish had a Jamaican look to them and they were played by Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug. I still think the lionfish named “Lola” was probably the best, as she looked exactly like Angelina Jolie in the face!

Chicken Run (2000) Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, and Miranda Richardson

Chicken Run is an older movie that I sort of see off and on airing on different channels. I think I used to be really into it when I was younger, but I don’t necessarily remember it, I do know that my dad was obsessed with it though!

What freaks me out the most I think, is the fact that this is the second film where Mel Gibson is the lead male character and I never really noticed it as a kid. My mom and I enjoyed the movie What Women Want and I just thought it was hilarious to see him react to the thoughts of every women he came into contact with in that time frame. I never knew that he played John Smith on Pocahontas  until a few years ago (and then I found out about Christian Bale played “Thomas” a little bit after that) so to know he played this cocky (no pun intended) bird just went over my head!

So what do you think of this mini list? Are there other DreamWorks films that you think I should watch soon?