Spirited Away

Let me start by saying that I originally thought I'd start this entry highlighting the director of this film, Hayao Miyazake, but then I figured I'd rather talk up his films one by one, since each is so amazing. First off, Miyazake is a true genius. He's taken a medium (Japanese Animated Film) and spun it into an unbelievable art form. Stay with me, Anime-Phobics and Film Snobs. "Spirited Away" is to, say, "Sailor Moon" or "Simba" what Kobe Beef is to a Whitecastle Slider...a totally different animal. Certainly lots of elements of Anime are interrelated, but Miyazake's films stand apart from the crowd...well, well apart. There's stunning beauty here, fantastic artwork, a film to take you outside of your world into a place you've always wanted to be but didn't know was there. Lots of drama, humor, interesting Japanese culture and folklore, a heroic plot to make Joseph Campbell proud, and a really magical film score as well. If you haven't seen any of Miyazake's work, please see it. Any good video store will have it, or that Netflix thing, or whatever. And once you see it, if you GET it, there's lots more films by the same director. And it's guaranteed to change the way you think about animated film!

Here's a little bit that I stole (O forgive me O copyright Gods) from Wikipedia:

Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi?, literally, Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away) is a 2001 Japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film follows a sullen ten-year-old girl who is in the process of moving to a new town (presumably in the countryside) with her family, and chronicles her adventures in a world of spirits and monsters.
The film received many awards, including the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Animated Feature, the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and the first (and so far only) non-English speaking animation to win. The film also won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (tied with Bloody Sunday) and is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Spirited Away overtook Titanic (At the time the top grossing film worldwide) in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history.

...In this case, the trailer doesn't do the film justice at all, but it's the best I can do...gotta just see this one...