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Jumping into this late, starting with Cagliostro because I'd never seen it before: Really fun. Just a good old-school cartoon where the rules of physics don't always apply and the bad guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Loved the supporting characters, too. I guess this isn't the first Lupin movie; it really did feel like being dropped into a story already in progress but not like you were missing anything, just that these guys had already had plenty of other adventures. Sure didn't expect the Count to go out like that. Definitely worth watching again. I had to, uh, borrow this copy from the internet and it only had subtitles. With luck one of the stores nearby with anime will have a physical copy so I can watch a dub- I get a little ADD with movies and miss things, especially if I have to be watching the entire time because of subs. Skipping Nausicaa because I watched it again a few months ago and frankly don't love it. If we're just going by the Hayao Miyazaki movies, I'd put it on the bottom of my list. Hell, something has to be on the bottom, right? Literally can't have a list without ends. Castle in the Sky: about this one I have the conflicting opinions that it's too long by about half an hour, and that I love the film's various settings so much I want to spend more time in them. Like this could have been broken up into several episodes and then expanded: that fantastic opening scene and everything in the lovely canyon mining town that's all smokestacks and tunnels and train tracks that'll take years to repair goddamnit, and buildings on cliff walls which is such a Ghibli thing, then the underground and Sheeta being imprisoned in the fortress ending with their busting her out of there, then an episode on the airship, and finally an entire episode on Laputa itself. Like if anyone had the fuckin audacity to remake a Miyazaki movie, that's how I'd do this one, turning it into a miniseries. I probably should have rewatched Nausicaa because I think there's a ton of commonalities between that movie and this one, though as far as I'm concerned this is still superior to Nausicaa in most ways if not every way. We got a ton of Miyazaki hallmarks in this one, starting with the totally innocent relationship between the two leads that I think any other studio would have turned into something more romantic (especially considering the level of violence in the movie makes it definitely not for young kids- even if we rarely if at all explicitly see anyone get hurt, I'm sure there's more explosions in this one than any other Ghibli joint except probably Fireflies which I don't have a good memory of), nature overtaking technology on the abandoned and semi-ruined Laputa, and even if it's not explicitly anti-war in that there isn't a war going on to denounce, it's obviously anti-weaponry and the military are the bad guys. And, of course, plenty of flight. Diet Poison fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Oct 15, 2023 |
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Oct 13, 2023 04:34
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Waffleman_ posted:Boy Totoro is a breezy movie Yeah, what can I say about Totoro. Totoro is comfort. It is a big fluffy blanket of a movie that, nearly 30 years after the first time I saw it, I still love to wrap myself in. I suppose the first time you see it, there might be a little tension as you're not sure if May is okay near the end there (sidebar: especially if you were watching it just after Grave of the Fireflies, jfc. I actually did just watch Fireflies for the first time in maybe 10 years the other day and I'm happy to report: still fuckin devastating!) but on the hundredth rewatch it's like, you know she's gonna be fine, and so is their mom, and Totoro is their big ol pal that will watch over them even after they stop being able to see him, and why can't the stupid real world be more like this movie.
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Oct 22, 2023 01:24
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Waffleman_ posted:Oh, Ponyo has good backgrounds Dunno if you're watching on streaming or not, but the Blu-Ray has (among a whole poo poo-ton of stuff, more than most of these movies) a featurette where they talk fairly extensively about the backgrounds of Ponyo, how they were nervous that they were such a departure from the standard Ghibli style, and how there's no straight lines to be found among the background elements. At least, that's what I recall. I'm not about to watch all of these again, I did that the last time I watched the movie which was only a few months ago. Anyway, I love this one, probably not quite as much as Totoro, which is the obvious most direct comparison being the ones most overtly for younger kids, but it's certainly got more of a plot than Totoro. I can see little kids liking this more than Totoro; it's brighter, there's more going on, you've got your funny looking not-really-threatening antagonist, who's not really a villain by any stretch of the word (I identify with him; he has a healthy disgust with humankind). He just wants his kid back, and is willing to let her go when it's clear she knows what she wants and he's satisfied she'll be in good hands. I also think Sosuke's mom is the most fleshed-out mom character yet in these movies. She's more of a person than a plot device, for once.
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Nov 27, 2023 01:49
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The Wind Rises: Interesting that Miyazaki of all people wanted to retire on his most down to earth movie yet. While I think every other Miyazaki Ghibli movie can be categorized as "fantastical character in a normal setting" or "normal(ish) character/s in a fantastical setting", there's extremely little fantasy here. I would have thought he'd have done more with the idea of shared dreams but looking at the wiki page for more background, it's a (fictionalized, though it doesn't say to what extent) biopic of a real person, so that tracks, it's not what the movie's really about. Also totally wild tidbit from the wiki page: Apparently Miyazaki wanted to do Ponyo 2 but was talked out of it. That just seems so off-brand to me; he seems like the kind of guy who would spit at the very idea of a sequel. Anyway. It's also odd that it's very much not a movie for kids. Not so much that there's anything not suitable for kids- depending on your views on the portrayal of smoking in a period piece- but that I can't see anybody under the age of say 16 being at all able to hold interest through the whole movie. It still manages to hold onto the Miyazaki tenet of being anti-war (I'd have had the main character take an actual stand against having to design war planes, but again: biopic.) through the protagonist's words if not his actions. It's actually kinda fitting that the most grounded Miyazaki film has the most blunt lessons to teach: You will have to make compromises, and things don't always turn out in the end. Even though they tried to spin it less negative with the last brief fantasy/dream sequence, I mean, the guy falls in love with a dying woman and she does not pull through. He made his masterpiece but it was a weapon and none of them made it back home fighting a senseless war for a government that had lost its drat mind. On a positive note I loved the boss character (lol that the boss was such a good guy despite being a grumpy prick; what are you trying to say, Mr. Miyazaki, hm?). In the end: I dunno. I can appreciate elements of it but it does not spark joy in me to watch a movie about the world kicking a guy in the rear end, and finding success through making a pretty big moral compromise. And I come to Studio Ghibli to be swept away into a world of wonder, but this does not do that at all. My Rankings: (within category these aren't ranked, just sorted chronologically) S: My Neighbor Totoro // Kiki’s Delivery Service // Spirited Away // Howl’s Moving Castle I could have told you beforehand that these 4 would stand on top, and my opinion did not change. A: Castle in the Sky // Porco Rosso I would probably have not guessed that I'd place Porco Rosso this high. These two are thoroughly excellent just imo not on the same level as the movies I called S-tier. B: The Castle of Cagliostro // Ponyo Still enjoyed the heck out of these two. I'd be interested to see what Cagliostro would be like had he made it 10 years later. I am extremely not the target demographic for Ponyo but it's still charming as gently caress. C: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind// Princess Mononoke // The Wind Rises I think I "appreciate" these movies more than I "enjoy" them. Probably won't watch them again until the next time I do a Ghibli marathon.
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Dec 2, 2023 09:46
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Greekonomics posted:Also, got my ticket for the Boy and the Heron this weekend! Same! Also since I'm not fortunate enough to live in Tokyo or London, I got the Blu-Ray to the stage play adaptation of Spirited Away. It comes with two versions (different woman playing Chihiro, not sure about the rest of the cast) and I've only watched one because I can't imagine watching anything back to back and enjoying it, but it is really good. It's got this big fuckoff rotating setpiece that functions as different parts of the bathhouse depending on which way it's pointing. There's a little bit of "use your imagination" required that I wondered if anyone who hadn't seen the movie would be confused as to what was happening but I think anyone who's seen the movie would understand and appreciate how they managed to pull some things off, like Kumaji being an actor and a couple stagehands in one costume, the stagehands operating the extra arms. Yubaba is just a normal woman in makeup most of the time but when she gets pissed off they pull out this giant like ten piece face piece that various stagehands manipulate to move the mouth and eyes. Really liked how they did No-Face in his various forms as well. Strong recommend to anyone who loves the movie.
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Dec 7, 2023 20:55
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Arc Hammer posted:I think I'm going to try the dubbed version tomorrow for a matinee. The godzilla Minus One showing had a preview for the English release and the dub sounded pretty impressive. Is the dub already out? Only one theater in my city was showing it and it was the subbed version. Loved it. It was exactly as surreal as I'd want it to be. Leaves a lot of stuff open to interpretation. The animation was so beautiful I caught myself thinking about the CG kids' movies in the previews and thinking "holy poo poo why would anyone do that when they could do this?" As far as his fantasy movies go this is no exception in giving me such a strong desire to step through the screen and explore the hell out of these amazing places, though this world definitely feels more dangerous than most of Miyazaki's other ones. I mean, you knew the kid wasn't gonna die, but anyone else could have. Also, I loved going into this with absolute gently caress all knowledge of what it was about beyond "there's a boy, he goes into another world, and an rear end in a top hat heron is there". I'm not gonna rank it after one late night viewing, but I'd probably pay to see it in theater again. Maybe one of the newer theaters with the nicer seats will get the dub in eventually.
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Dec 9, 2023 23:56
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I think multiple reads on it are valid. Miyazaki might see himself as both Mahito and the Parakeet King, and the Granduncle as the mentor he felt like he couldn't live up to, but I definitely think the more popular interpretation is gonna be that Miyazaki is the guy holding the pocket universe together and Mahito is Goro, who refuses an overture to be his successor and this is Miyazaki saying that even if that means the death of Ghibli (or the death of Ghibli as something respectable), well, the real world just keeps on going, doesn't it? And the fact that the Granduncle and Mahito had no relationship at all before this, well, I don't know all the details but I get the impression Miyazaki the elder wasn't much of a father. I say I think that's going to be the popular reading because who doesn't like the idea of the distant father who only ever expressed himself through his movies making his final (maybe) film be a message to his son essentially "it's fine, you don't have to be me, live your own life". And if his own read on the movie is it's himself as the child hero just doing his best muddling through a confusing world and also the autocrat villain who wants to run his own universe, I can respect that self-awareness too.
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Dec 10, 2023 07:37
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Sourdough Sam posted:I watched Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns , the latter being a lighthearted side adventure featuring the cats from the former. Whisper of the Heart wasn't directed by Miyazaki but it was written and storyboarded by him. I gotta say, I don't know why people don't talk about this one as much. I thought it was incredible. What the gently caress is up with their respective movie posters, though? (Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns, I mean) They're like... they should be switched, right?
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Jan 4, 2024 02:03
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