Who Framed Roger Rabbit
d. Robert Zemeckis, 1988
I'm not exactly sure why it took me so long to get around to watching Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Thankfully, the film lived up to its hype. It's terribly fun to watch, the way the filmmakers blend animations with live action scenes is quite astonishing. The film, for those of you who don't know, is a detective story that draws from elements of both Raymond Chandler and from films like Chinatown. The wonderful opening sequence shows Roger Rabbit (one of the craziest characters in the history of movies) rehearsing a scene from his later cartoon. His boss thinks the reason why Roger keeps messing up during the scene has to do with problems at home. He hires a detective, played by Bob Hoskins, to spy on Jessica Rabbit so he can convince Roger that she's cheating on him. Hoskins gets the evidence and Roger goes crazy. By the next morning, Marvin Acme - the guy who was allegedly having an affair with Jessica - is dead, and Roger is the prime suspect. The film then follows an intricate plot through a series of magnificent scenes which all come together in the end. The opening scene and the extended Toontown sequence are reasons to enough to watch the film. On any level, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is an awesome movie.
