David Paritsky's Sailor Moon:The Movie was apparently made on a whim, with no money and to learn the basics of filmmaking and editing. And, slap me silly, the final package is pretty darn good. Fitting but condensing the Dark Kingdom arc of the manga/anime into a two-hour movie, the film keeps a fair pace but spends enough time fleshing out most of the characters. The film adapts the English version of the anime, setting it in New York, though beyond names and altering Rei's backstory (from shrine maiden to working in her grandpa's magic shop), it follows the manga's story.
Admittedly, I spent the first twenty minutes laughing my head off at how much effort had gone into the film. Mary Beth Schroeder just nails Sailor Moon as a character, and does a wonderful job bringing the character to life. She also plays Sailor Venus, though she gets a little less screen time than the others due to Schroeder's dual-acting. The rest of the cast do quite well, and I love that they cast actual cats as Luna and Artemis, and how they are green-screened into most scenes (because they are cats after all) is hilarious. The use of the show's music is grand, and while the film was done on a tight budget, most effects are quite good, though most of the dialogue has been re-recorded in a studio.
