The Iron Giant

This is easily one of the best movies in the past decade. If not the best.
As an early birthday present to myself I finally grabbed The Iron Giant special edition DVD. While I'm not nearly as interested in bonus features and such on DVDs as I used to be, I'm super happy just to have this film in my collection.
Brad Bird, the visionary behind Pixar's The Incredibles, brings Ted Hughes book to life as a visual and narrative masterwork. Its a simple tale of a robot who fell from the sky and is taken in by a young boy and taught wrong from right and bad from good. Cold War hysteria rears its ugly head and the Giant becomes the target of a government investigation with the aim of destroying him.
It sounds awfully simple and the kind of thing you'd expect from televised animation, but it really isn't. Its a well plotted and well executed film with many layers. And unlike a lot of animated movies that drop in jokes intended to fly over the kids heads for the parents, The Iron Giant never dips that low and instead treats all viewers the same and allows them to understand the characters intents and morality in a very natural way. Theres no sexist humor, no brutal violence, and certainly not sugar coated or dumbed down.
This is the thinking man's children's movie. Its a magnificent example of how fantastic a child's imagination and perception can really be. If kids really do pick up on all the bad media they take in, then its certainly possible for them to learn about being good and kind and accepting others and not jumping to conclusions from The Iron Giant.
I don't know who might read this blog entry, but I feel strongly that if you've never seen this movie, at least rent it. And watch it with a kid. Its got ET, Bambi, and Superman all wrapped up into one and has enough heart to touch a viewer of any age or background.