Don Bluth

A guy who started off with Disney, then made a cool film, then seemed to taper out (though I can't say for sure, since I've only seen bits and pieces of things from the latter days).

The Rescuers (1977) -- Co-directed with Milt Kahl, John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reithermann, Art Stevens, and Frank Thomas. From Don Bluth's work when he worked for Disney. Not too bad, not too good. I might need to see it again. (See Hendel Butoy for the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under.)

The Secret of NIMH (1982) -- This is what a good non-Disney animated feature should be like. It has the same professional quality as Disney, but it doesn't look exactly like Disney, which is what so-called "competitors" tend to do. If you want to really compete with Disney, offer something different, not just more of the same. Of course, in this case, it looked better than Disney at the time, and the quality of the story, characters, etc. was significantly better. Comparisons aside, this movie has something special going on. It's one of those movies where you're forced to ask "Where's the magic coming from?" (the rats, especially Nicodemus, seem to have magic, but there's no explanation as to where it comes from--one might guess that since it's seen through Mrs. Brisby's eyes that the technology just looks like magic, but I don't think that's it... and, besides, the amulet is nothing but magic, no explanation for that). I like movies where the magic is just there... most of the time at least. Mary Poppins is another good example. This movie is pretty interesting to me throughout, one of the best animated features ever.

An American Tale (1986) -- Though not, to me, as interesting as The Secret of NIMH, it's still pretty good and I imagine that most people would like this even better. Another good Bluth effort.