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Cephas posted:i've already watched like half of these this year already but frick it, im in.
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Sep 20, 2023 22:41
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Castle of Cagliostro rewatch is done. This movie has served as my only real exposure to Lupin III unless you count that one episode of Samurai jack but it remains a fun movie. Just going to throw another comment praising the soundtrack because the music is all around pretty good and well placed. The car chase theme has the perfect punch to it when it kicks in. Also ironic that the Count dies to a giant clock.
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Sep 23, 2023 14:36
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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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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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Forgot to make this post weeks ago but I managed to finish the watches and had The Boy and the Heron the last day it was in my area. Before this thread, I had never seen 'The Wind Rises' and watched that before heading to the theater. The Wind Rises TWR isn't a bad movie but it felt the least "ghibli" to me as the only really fantastical elements were the dream sequences. Beyond that it was a very straightforward biographical film, lots of time skipping without any signposts but it never felt jarring or confusing either. I know nothing about the actual life of Jiro Horikishi to compare to the film and I don't have a whole lot else to say. Decent movie but I don't feel bad I never gave it a shot back when it first premiered. The Boy and the Heron. I have to echo that the movie is visually stunning. It had all the "ghibli-isms" that were otherwise lacking in TWR. The scene where Mahito enters the Manor and sees the old crones all huddled around the father's suitcase gave me instant flashes of the Daruma heads from Spirited away. That's when I knew we were back to business. As for the story to borrow a word from Julius it felt underbaked. I know the movie isn't an adaptation but it has that same kind of feel that Howl's Moving Castle does. Where you get that idea there's whole chapters of stuff that got left out or the movie is missing internal monologues from other characters. Like I didn't understand why the Aunt went into the tower. It can't be because the Great Uncle wanted her child to be a successor because he knew his time was limited and there's no implied time dilation that would have sped up the maturation of a baby that still wasn't even born. And it's not like Mahito's presence rekindled some old curiosity in her, at least not from what I remember in the film. I also don't know what the point was for the Old maid to come along if she was going to be replaced by her past self immediately and relegated to a doll that the story forgets about until it's time to wrap things up. I don't even recall it being said that the maid went missing in the past during that one year, just the mother was spirited away Mahito gets this as well. The first act he's very engaging but once we get to the adventure He's never truly tempted to sacrifice anything to get his mother back or restrain her past self. He acknowledges the Heron's trap as such and for the rest of the movie he is more concerned about finding his aunt and leaving. He's also never interested in the power of the tower nor the alien rock so the Great Uncle feels even more detached from the story when he poses a quandary the MC is not going to engage with. The kid is just this unflinching force of good. It's also weird the story would outright tell us that the mother went to the tower but left a year later. Since like with the aunt the time fuckery isn't really present I couldn't even pretend that Mahito or the Uncle would do anything to keep the young mother bound to the tower. I'll definitely give it a rewatch when it's out on blu-ray. And I think analysis like the one from Cephas are good for understanding the metaphysics of the setting and some of the subtext. But the story itself is very straightforward and I think some of the spiritual components are more window dressing than actually important to the overall moral and message. Thanks for this challenge OP. Below is my tier list.  Maybe in a few more years we'll have another Miyazaki directed film to add to it. Happy New Years everyone!
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Jan 1, 2024 18:00
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