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Kiki's fun, kinda the same track as Totoro in being a laid back thing in a nice setting, but with a bit more meat on its bones.
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Oct 24, 2023 03:34
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I finally rewatched Spirited Away, after not having seen it since I was a kid, and I have to say...it was kind of underwhelming! It felt like a lesser Makoto Shinkai film, and while it had some neat visuals, I feel like other Miyazaki films like Howl's Moving Castle have it beat in that department, and outside of chihiro and the good witch, none of the characters were remotely interesting or likeable. It gets a 6/10 from me.
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Oct 28, 2023 22:47
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I think it is fair to say that Shinkai is evolving on what works about Spirited Away but I do not feel the same way about it overall, at all.
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Oct 29, 2023 04:55
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https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1718580972206113245?t=98waGZVXlIzv3SBb09iSZQ&s=19 A timely entry in the yearly Mundane Halloween
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Oct 29, 2023 17:57
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theres actually a story behind that poster girl. when totoro was first being developed miyazaki was thinking of it as a book or short oneshot manga, he wanted to make something like that. at that stage, it was just one girl. but he needed to make a movie as a double feature with isao's grave of the fireflies, so he repurposed the concept into that. to expand it to a movie length he decided to split the one girl into two at slightly different ages so he could have a wider variety of scenes. miyazaki already had that concept art, so he just reused it as the poster, since fireflies was the main feature.
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Oct 29, 2023 18:32
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Julias posted:I finally rewatched Spirited Away, after not having seen it since I was a kid, and I have to say...it was kind of underwhelming! It felt like a lesser Makoto Shinkai film, and while it had some neat visuals, I feel like other Miyazaki films like Howl's Moving Castle have it beat in that department, and outside of chihiro and the good witch, none of the characters were remotely interesting or likeable. It gets a 6/10 from me. I respect your right to an opinion but you've made an enemy for life. Watched Kiki again a couple nights ago. Does anyone else have the blu ray and think the audio feels a bit crushed, especially at the beginning? I even checked the DVD and it's the same. I dunno, I ditched Netflix so I can't go back and compare. For me the Big 4 Miyazaki movies are Totoro, Kiki, Spirited Away, and Howl. (So already, I can tell you what I think: these 4 are my S+ tier.) On paper this seems like the least interesting of the 4. The only magic involved in it is that she can fly on a broom. So it creates this odd little world in which magic exists but is barely shown off at all. I think Waffleman's assessment "Kiki's fun, kinda the same track as Totoro in being a laid back thing in a nice setting, but with a bit more meat on its bones." is pretty perfect. Sometimes I want a movie that takes place in a completely chill world, has no villain, and, I dunno, the world isn't ending, nobody's gonna die, I don't need to be on the edge of my seat for two hours. It even follows the same structure as Totoro where it begins with our lead going to a new setting, some fun things happen, setbacks are minor at worst, and then all the dramatic tension happens in one scene at the end, it's quickly resolved, roll credits but you gotta watch em because the resolution of the movie plays out over them. Something the movie really doesn't beat you over the head with is how ordinary Kiki is. Aside from the obvious fact that she's a witch, but we see two other witches and we know there's a bunch of them so that doesn't make her unique amongst this set of people. Her only "talent" is something that appears to be an extremely basic skill among witches and she's shown to even not be particularly good at it, and it even leaves her when she loses confidence in herself. This isn't Harry Potter where he's the chosen one AND a celebrity in his world AND naturally gifted at magic; this movie kinda leads us to believe that if Kiki went to magic school she'd barely scrape by, and yet she uses this one "basic" skill she's average at best at and saves her friend. If Kiki wasn't there, the movie would have been "that time that boy died in a freak zeppelin accident". If I look back at my Big 4, obviously they have a lot of commonalities all being by the same director but one major one I don't think I ever stopped to think about before is they're all about pretty ordinary-rear end girls in extraordinary circumstances. Kiki is the least ordinary by virtue of being a witch, but also her circumstances are the least extraordinary. You could replace her flying broomstick with a bicycle and forget about her being a witch and still come up with nearly the same movie, though I dunno how you'd have her save Tombo at the end, the idea kinda falls apart there. I think I elevate this movie up with the other 3 because I really identify with Kiki. Okay I'm a middle aged guy but fuckin follow me here, I also think this movie is about social anxiety and depression. It really just comes out of nowhere: she's having a great time and then Tombo's friends show up and he wants her to hang out with them and she just fucks off because she has all these preconceived notions about these other kids, and this kicks off a spiral that causes her to lose the one thing that made her different, until exigent circumstances force her to pull herself together. So many times in my life I feel like what I really needed was a hillbilly artist girl to come and drag me back to her cabin in the woods so I could just forget life for a while. Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. PS: Phil Hartman could elevate absolutely any role. Phil Hartman could have been a talking phone book reading the phone book and he'd still be a highlight of whatever movie you put that into.
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Oct 29, 2023 21:34
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Diet Poison posted:I respect your right to an opinion but you've made an enemy for life. This.
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Oct 29, 2023 22:21
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Caught a Spirited Away showing last night. Still an incredible movie but I don't fully connect with it emotionally as much as my other favorite Miyazaki movies. But that's just some quibbling, merely saying that I don't like this 5 star film as much as his other 5 star films. Though I do wanna say that in the time since I last watched it, I have seen a decent number of anime movies that very much wanted to follow in Spirited Away's footsteps to middling results, and in seeing some pale imitators* it really makes it easier for me to appreciate Spirited Away. Just goes to show that there's so much care in developing Spirited Away's world that Miyazaki merely makes it look easy. *A specific roast that has been stuck in my mind ever since I read it is the time Indiewire critic David Ehrlich said that the anime movie Okko's Inn "unfolds like a Kidz Bop cover of Spirited Away".
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Oct 30, 2023 14:48
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I skipped last week because I'm also doing the Haunted Clubhouse's October Challenge, so I did a double feature of Kiki's Delivery Service and Porco Rosso to catch up. Kiki was absolutely charming but I really loved Porco, and I think it's probably my favorite Miyazaki so far. It's just so much fun.
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Oct 30, 2023 18:17
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Part of me knows Oda was inspired in some way by Porco Rosso because its world feels like One Piece with the endless sea, a bunch of islands, pirates E: lmao this movie got jokes, huh? Waffleman_ fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Oct 31, 2023 |
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Oct 31, 2023 01:15
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S tier What the hell How had I never seen this before So good
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Oct 31, 2023 02:38
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Better a pig than a fascist.
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Oct 31, 2023 02:45
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I fell off on the rewatch  . Gonna be doing double features to try and catch up on the filmsWarriors of the Wind: Watched this one with the japanese dub because I've never done so before. Visually the film is stunning and I love the sequences within the toxic forest because it's the kind of place I'd like to visit despite how hostile everything is. The music during the first Ohm chase is straight out of Chrono Trigger which is definitely my jam and the soundtrack overall is decent. Standout characters for me are Lady Kushana and Lord Yupa; the former because Miyazaki knows how to write badass women and the latter because I'm a sucker for old roaming swordsmen who hold honor and virtue in high regard. I wish the film had excuses to let him fight people a bit more or just travel around but this isn't his story nor that kind of film. The manga gives him his dues though. Nausicaa herself isn't bad but I do find her to be a bit flat at times, but she can carry the role as the main character just fine. This movie used to be my favorite Ghibli film but time has gone on, others came out, and I think around the time I learned there was a manga and read it I started to put the film a bit lower on my ranking. At this point in rewatching the Ghibli catalog; it's the movie with Miyazaki's messages on environmentalism and the folly of humanity on full display. The manga itself greatly expands the world in the ways the film needed but didn't have the time to, and gives greater context to the various empires and the war that has been brewing. It also gives Nausicaa a boost as a character early on, and I can better see what Miyazaki really wanted to do with her character. Take for instance; rather than Just batting aside soldiers after the death of her father, she straight up killed a guy in a duel and everyone had to play it off like she didn't after Lord Yupa intervenes. This makes her more comparable to the Ohmu because her rage is very dangerous to match the calm she normally exudes. The manga also adds something I did wonder at times which is can people live within the toxic forest if Nausicaa herself is able to glean the true nature of it on her own But by the end of the later volumes I didn't mesh with Nausicaa as a messiah character nor the story at large. I think it's hard to reconcile the state of the world with the struggle of the cast because in the end people are still doomed even if the threat is generations away. Ultimately it's a film I can't separate from the source material and both are great spectacles but have endings that leave me a bit sour. The manga also drags on too long. Still a nice film watch. Castle in the Sky This movie is a much lighter affair and one I consistently enjoy. It feels less serious despite the gravity of the premise and the goals of the antagonists. Mostly because Sheeta and Pazu are such lovable children and Pazu himself is pure shonen with how he deals with things. The world might have suffered under the tyranny of one man but it's not like I ever believed he would succeed. Standout characters are Dola and our deuteragonists Pazu and Sheeta. My reasons for loving Dola are self evident, she's a badass sky pirate that tard-wrangles her bumbling sons and the scene where she just casually slips Pazu a grenade launcher she squirreled away in her trousers always makes me laugh. Or just sitting in his house eating his food because "gently caress this kid, I want treasure". She is great, every scene with her is a treat. For our main duo it's because how they interact and the purity of their joy and willingness to go as hard as possible to stop Muska that sits well with me. The scene in the end where Pazu reveals he still has the stone and both are willing to die to destroy Laputa goes so hard. They had no way to know they would survive but went through with it anyways. For me, I wish we had more time than just a handful of minutes to really appreciate the tranquility of Laputa and explore it's ruins. We're only there for about half an hour but everything about it fills me with a sense of awe. I think the film uses the robots incredibly effectively to convey what Laputa is and can be. Our first robot on the surface world is just trying to protect Sheeta while crating a very bombastic scene, but the gardener robot we first encounter making sure the birds are safe is the one I always remember. He's just a really nice little robot and I'd like to think he's still operational even after the film ends. Muska is a fine villain as are the vaguely German military he uses for his purposes for how greedy they all are. Pazu channels his inner Solid Snake as well as John McClane in the later parts of the movie quite well with his grip strength and lack of shoes. I felt my sphincter clench as both kids navigate the roots and underside of the castle while suspended hundreds of meters above the ocean. I think the film has a much more optimistic ending because humanity may yet re-discover the technology of the ancients but only after they achieve a level of technological advancement that allows them to enter at least high orbit. And with Laputa functionally disarmed I'd like to think it would delay humanity rediscovering the means of creating weapons like the ring of fire.
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Oct 31, 2023 14:53
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I always forget how good Porco Rosso is. Similar to Kiki, we're put into a basically normal world where the one magical element is our main character and the movie simultaneously hinges on it and doesn't even need it. Dude got turned into a pig. Movie's not about how he got turned into a pig, it's not about him trying to get turned back into a person, and if he wasn't turned into a pig it would have made nearly zero difference to the movie, but nevertheless the movie is about a Pig-man who flies a plane. We got anti-war/anti-fascism, we got a not-at-all problematic or even romantic relationship between the male and female lead, and we got an absolute shitload of flight. We got completely unexplained magic. We don't really have a clear villain (we have a guy who gets in the way, is how I see it). Pity there's no real environmental message, or we coulda filled the Ghibli bingo card. Oh well. It's not as enchanting as my Big 4 Ghibli movies but it's definitely just as fun. It's funny that we retread some ground from Laputa with a pirate crew that are only sort-of villains and in the end become sort-of allies, with a very clear overbearing boss voiced by a fairly big name, and a bunch of dunderhead underlings he has to keep in line. It is hilarious how they managed to make a scene about pirates kidnapping little kids charming and hilarious. You never really believe the tots are in any danger despite, you know, all the gunfire and such.
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Nov 1, 2023 00:53
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Worst is Ponyo. Turn that thing sushi rolls
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Nov 1, 2023 04:35
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GateOfD posted:Worst is Ponyo. Turn that thing sushi rolls gently caress you
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Nov 1, 2023 08:52
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Just watched Princess Mononoke and it's another stunning looking film, but it didn't grab me like the other films so far. It's still really good though.
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Nov 6, 2023 06:23
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Princess Mononoke: Retreads a fair bit of the same ground as Nausicaa (and Pom Poko, which is a much more fun movie) but more gritty, with violence and body horror featuring heavily. I'm pretty sure it's the most violent Miyazaki movie, isn't it? Like there's shooting in Porco Rosso but nobody gets decapitated in that one. That makes it sit in a weird place in the Miyazaki canon as "the violent one" but also I'm not gonna say any director should be forced into a kid-friendly box just because they made a Totoro. It's also pretty pessimistic, with I think all the animal gods of the forest dying (though it's deliberately ambiguous as to the fate of the main forest spirit) and what feels to me like a message of well, humans are just gonna destroy everything I guess, and probably can't be stopped. (Also true of Pom Poko) Which is true but still kinda sucky. I feel like it's also a bit overlong- I found myself getting distracted quite a bit. Just like Nausicaa, I dig its message, and wish there was a higher human bodycount even, but in execution I think it sits with Nausicaa on the lowest tier of the Miyazaki movies. Which isn't the lowest Ghibli tier, though; it still sits above Ocean Waves and Tales from Earthsea and a couple others. I said Porco Rosso wasn't "enchanting", and neither is this one, despite being more fantastical in nature. But Mononoke's nowhere near as fun as Porco. And I guess it's not really supposed to be, I mean, it is all about environmental destruction in pursuit of profit, and the few who fight against it. It's a movie I appreciate more than I like.
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Nov 7, 2023 04:50
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Lady Eboshi.....please call me.....
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Nov 7, 2023 05:02
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Mononoke will always sit high on a lot of people's lists just because it was the first one with a really big push in the West, so it was the first to really get on a lot of people's radar. It is heavy handed and a bit of a retread of his favored themes, sure, but it still holds together really well. Still sits above Howl for me.
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Nov 7, 2023 17:56
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It's carried a lot by its soundtrack, which is a big standout among the collection of Hisaishi standouts.
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Nov 7, 2023 17:59
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Haku is like the perfect early 2000s anime heartthrob
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Nov 11, 2023 03:37
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Waffleman_ posted:Haku is like the perfect early 2000s anime heartthrob the best bishie to ever do it
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Nov 11, 2023 03:40
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Wtf he did Lady Eboshi twice
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Nov 11, 2023 03:45
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God Chihiro is so expressive. There's definitely a tangible shift in the vibe of these movies at this point
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Nov 11, 2023 04:19
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This movie animates sludge and gunk and slime so well it's disgusting
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Nov 11, 2023 04:51
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Watched Spirited Away last night and drat that was amazing. So far it's tied for #1 with Porco Rosso for me.
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Nov 13, 2023 22:18
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audiences agree: spirited away is one of the greatest films of all time
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Nov 13, 2023 22:21
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Just started Spirited Away (for possibly the 50th time) and just about choked on my muffin at the mom yelling "slow down, you're gonna kill us" at the dad's driving because I'm pretty sure my own mom said that exact thing to my dad about an hour ago when they gave me a lift from my sister's place back to mine.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:01
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usenet celeb 1992 posted:Mononoke will always sit high on a lot of people's lists just because it was the first one with a really big push in the West, so it was the first to really get on a lot of people's radar. It is heavy handed and a bit of a retread of his favored themes, sure, but it still holds together really well. Still sits above Howl for me. Naussica was that for me and to be honest I've ranked it lower among the Ghibli catalog than I did many years ago. Mononoke gained some stock since I first saw it as it used to be below Howl's moving castle but it's similarly overtaken that film. It's a gorgeous film and I dig the conflict but the ending is way too clean given the gravity of the scenario.
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Nov 14, 2023 00:19
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I don't know if there's even anything left to say about Spirited Away that hasn't been said before. It's definitely my favorite animated movie, and a strong contender for favorite movie, period. It's industrial-strength enchanting. I think I identify so strongly with this movie because I, too, am really three green heads disguised as a gigantic baby. Miyazaki really shines with his environments and this is one of the best movies for that. The abandoned theme park, the bath house, the rail line all the way to Swamp Bottom, I mean, that's basically all the settings in the movie, not counting the small amount of time spent in the normal world at the beginning, and all of them make me desperately wish I could crawl through my tv and spend days exploring them. It's the sort of movie I wish I had seen at... how old was I when this came out? 13, I think? I didn't see it til much later. I wish I'd been able to see it at 10, I would have been constantly on the look for an entrance to this world of spirits and witches and big blobby fuckers. Gonna definitely make sure my nieces see it at around that age. I wouldn't call it the most Miyazaki movie since it has nothing to say about the environment, war, or flight, but in my opinion it's still the best Miyazaki movie. It has more of a plot than Totoro or Kiki, even though it's a relatively simple one; like those two most of what I like about it is the characters and the setting. Speaking of Totoro, I like the couple of callbacks it has to that movie- the soot sprites, the kindly old "Granny", and magical public transit. Chihiro and Haku falling through the sky also definitely makes me think of Laputa. And I think in Howl, the circular thing with the four colors that shows you which place the front door opens to is a callback to the 4-colored circular stained glass window the camera dwells on for a couple seconds in the abandoned park near the beginning of the movie before the parents get turned into pigs. Waffleman_ posted:This movie animates sludge and gunk and slime so well it's disgusting
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Nov 14, 2023 02:45
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first of all, bitch, there are sequences of magical transformation-based flight and drone warfare
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Nov 14, 2023 02:53
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usenet celeb 1992 posted:Mononoke will always sit high on a lot of people's lists just because it was the first one with a really big push in the West, so it was the first to really get on a lot of people's radar. It is heavy handed and a bit of a retread of his favored themes, sure, but it still holds together really well. Still sits above Howl for me. Yeah mononoke sits at the top for me. I remember my mom telling me it was playing at a theater, I was 15 I think. This during the small run it had in 99 or 2000, and I loved it. For me, I'm always wondering why people like spirited away more (jk I know it's a great movie).
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Nov 14, 2023 03:43
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Spirited Away was the one that got a MASSIVE push in the west, because it had John Lasseter and Disney behind it.
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Nov 14, 2023 04:08
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Diet Poison posted:And I think in Howl, the circular thing with the four colors that shows you which place the front door opens to is a callback to the 4-colored circular stained glass window the camera dwells on for a couple seconds in the abandoned park near the beginning of the movie before the parents get turned into pigs. I'm pretty sure this is straight out of the novel.
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Nov 14, 2023 04:32
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Rand Brittain posted:I'm pretty sure this is straight out of the novel. Fair enough, I haven't read the novel. Because of that, I had to read the Wikipedia page for Howl's Moving Castle to see what I could and couldn't ascribe to Miyazaki. Despite being an adaptation, somehow I think this might be the most Miyazaki Miyazaki movie. The relationship between the two leads is still quite innocent despite being more romantic than Kiki's or Chihiro's but a) Sophie isn't a child and b)It's one of the main points of the movie. We've got an otherwise normal girl being thrown into a fantasy world, we've got man's destructive effects on the environment, an extremely explicit anti-war message, and flight. In regards to the last point, I didn't even need the Wiki page to tell me about how the war planes are depicted as weird and ugly whereas something like Howl's glider is simple and nice looking. Lmao at how the warships basically poop out the flying baddies. It doesn't say whether this is from the book or not, and I don't know how it would be given it's a non-visual medium but nevertheless, I absolutely love how Sophie's appearance changes so often during the movie based on her emotions. And of course she doesn't seem to notice. Another thing I don't know whether is a Miyazaki thing or not is the ring Howl gives Sophie that points her way and ultimately saves him- it reminds me very much of Sheeta's pendant that points the way to Laputa. I love that at the end Turnip Head turns back into a prince thanks to true love's kiss but the love isn't mutual so he just frigs off. I don't even recall being told there was a missing prince, even though that was apparently the major plot of the book. Which leads into my only real criticism: everything just wraps up in a neat little package. The prince says he's going to end the war, Suliman sees this and says it's time to end the war and that's it, we're done. It's way more plot-heavy than the other 3 movies I call the Miyazaki S+ tier, but what keeps it from being, for me, the best one is that so much is unexplained and not in a "Wow, makes you think" way but in a "Why weren't we even told there was a missing prince? Who cursed him? Why is the war able to be ended with just him and or Suliman saying so?" way. According to Wikipedia the war isn't even ongoing in the original novel, it's incipient, so Miyazaki added it as the backdrop of the entire movie and the thing that drives Howl's actions, but doesn't offer any explanation. Now, I think this is intentional for reasons I don't feel like arguing about, but to me it's unsatisfying to just be told there's a war going on and because war is bad the circumstances are unimportant. I think there's so much more to be expanded on that this could be a whole series in its own right, about a war and the magicians that shape it through taking a side or not, and how it impacts the lives of normal people. But I'm such a pessimist the only thing I can think is "yeah but whoever made it would just gently caress it up".
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Nov 19, 2023 22:11
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i agree that Howl would make an excellent 13 or 26 episodes but i also kinda like how it dodges neat cliches and wraps itself with a little bow nevertheless. the turnip head true love's kiss is such a good bit. i mentioned way upthread how miyazaki works with knightly figures a lot and that's such a properly knightly thing to do!!!
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Nov 19, 2023 22:31
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My impression was that Suliman cursed the prince so that she could carry on a war without him interfering, and that once the curse is broken, she accepts the ending of the war as a fait accompli.
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Nov 20, 2023 22:25
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Sophie went to the beach that makes you old
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Nov 24, 2023 00:50
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Oh, Ponyo has good backgrounds E: Oh, this is actually a beautiful-rear end movie Waffleman_ fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Nov 25, 2023 |
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Nov 25, 2023 02:27
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