Ponyo

A bright, playful animated tale brimming with youthful exuberance, Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo finds the renowned Japanese writer/director happily returning to the realm of early childhood, an area he previously explored in his beloved 1988 film, My Neighbor Totoro. While the earlier movie featured children finding magic in a forest setting, Ponyo, which is very loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Mermaid, brings the fantastical from the sea to the shore in the form of the gleeful title character, a shape-shifting aquatic girl, and her enchanted ocean-dwelling family. When Ponyo befriends Sosuke, a five-year-old human boy who lives near the water, their two worlds collide in strange and amusing ways. (It turns out that she really likes ham.) Lifted by its light and innocent spirit, Ponyo is perfect for kids ages 4-6, but anyone with an appreciation for unfettered imagination will likely falls under its charming spell. (Oh, and for those wary of the English dub of the film due to its strategic celebrity-sibling voice casting--namely Noah Cyrus, sister of Miley, and Frankie Jonas, the fourth Jonas brother--fear not, the kids are excellent in their roles.)