The Last Movie I Saw

I have a terrible admission to make (though several readers of this blog are aware of my secret): animated films always put me to sleep. I know that we are in some kind of late golden age of feature length cartoons, what with Pixar and Disney, and all their imitators, constantly striving to top each other with movies that will appeal equally to adults and children, but when I go to see one in a theater (or try to watch one on video), it's almost a dead certainty that my eyelids will be drooping before the thing is half over. I don't understand this, since it almost never happens with live action films, and I assume that at least some of the movies that knock me out (not in the positive sense) are actually pretty good. But the fact is that over the past fifteen years or so, the only animated feature I've managed to see all the way through without catching a few winks is the first Shrek (you knew there had to be one exception, right? To prove the rule). Despicable Me, which I went to see last week, was no different (though my nephew Nik's regular gleeful laughter made it impossible for me to do anything more than doze for a few moments at a time). Under those circumstances, I'm disinclined to render any judgment on the movie-- which seemed very much of a type with things like Toy Story and WALL-E and Cars and Ice Age and, you get the idea. I never had this problem with the 7-10 minute classics of my youth, but then maybe deep in my subconscious I'm casting a vote on the whole computerization of the craft (though I hasten to add that I recognize there are talented people operating those computers). I wish I could enjoy these films like everyone else seems to do, but at this point I'm close to casting modern animated films into the category of things I just don't get.