What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

I've never been a Miyazaki fan. The man's chronic sentimentalism is too strong for me to handle and I've actively disliked many of his films. But I've now seen both My Neighbour Totoro and Näusicaa from the Valley of the Wind and they were both great.

It seems to me the man became less nuanced and much more forceful as time went on. He got more sentimental, more opinated and much more invested in its feminist and ecological themes at the cost of everything else. And yet, Naussica was the first film I've seen of his where the planes felt like a natural part of the world instead of a fetish he indulges in on every film.

Something I loved about both of these films is how they could have very easily gone down a predictable path yet didn't. For example, we have a steel Empress in Naussica with an older man acting as her second-in-hand. Yet, the man doesn't have the traditional Dragon personality, he actually acts more like a swordsman. Similarly, when the family moves to their new house in Totoro, it seems the porch is going to crumble, but they put the pillar together and it doesn't. It seems small but they are huge details.

I'll probaly watch Laputa next. Frankly, I liked Nausicaa a lot and I might read the manga, even.

Nausicaa is pretty damned good, especially now that we get the full version here instead of that "Warriors of the Wind" nonsense we had as kids. The manga is richer in every way, try to get the biggest print you can to enjoy all that detail.

I like Princess Mononoke quite a lot as well, I'd definitely recommend that one if you haven't seen it.

Thanks for the recommendation Jason. I don't know what releases the manga has or if it's available online.

I watched a bit of Princess Mononoke once but I didn't like it. I saw it as overly sentimental and I disliked the 3D-supported animation. There's something ugly about that style that I don't like. The waves in Ponyo and much of Moving Castle were like that. Still, I should give it a second chance.

That reminds me: After decades without an official release, I saw the Tex Avery shorts have been released on blu-ray. People complain about digital destruction in a few shorts and the lack of extras (The Looney Tunes DVDs had a massive amount of commentary tracks and documentaries) but it's Tex Avery and hopefully in good quality.

Only issue is that it seems it's an American Blu-ray only release. But I really want it.

Saw Love Hard on Netflix. I’d say it’s an above average rom com with an interesting premise and solid cast. I had enjoyed Jimmy O. Yang’s stand-up before, so no arm-twisting was required after I watched the trailers.

Nausicaa is the best of the early Miyazaki movies and arguably his best movie. Totoro, Kiki's, and Cagliostro are also really good. I like Mononoke and Spirited Away too but I feel they're in a different artistic period from his earlier stuff.

I like Kiki’s Delivery Service too. Saw The Secret Life of Arrietty recently too and enjoyed that.

Kiki's Delivery Service is great, but Erik might find it excessively sentimental.

Kiki's Delivery Service was such a pleasant surprise.

What Miyazaki would you recommend for pre-school or kindergarten-age kids, preferably very light on horror elements?

DarthJoJo wrote: What Miyazaki would you recommend for pre-school or kindergarten-age kids, preferably very light on horror elements?

My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

The Cat Returns would also be fine for young children. It isn't a Miyazaki work, but it is from Studio Ghibli.

Kate on Netflix. Its basically "John wick with a chick" mixed with the KITE anime minus all the graphic rape and sex. MEW does a fine job and with her lean physique is a startling doppelganger for Ellen Ripley should anyone want to reboot Alien.

Like all these type films the plot is just words between murder sprees. But the action is varied and different enough (cappuccino maker as a weapon was new to me) to keep it moving and sta interesting.

The girl in this, young woman maybe, walks that line between annoying brat and sympathetic macguffin well enough.

This flick is VERY Japanese, or at least a good westerners vision of Japanese Yakusa. Curious if any of it rings true.

One of the more re-watchable Netflix actioners for sure, though that is a pretty low bar TBH.

Shellhead wrote:

DarthJoJo wrote: What Miyazaki would you recommend for pre-school or kindergarten-age kids, preferably very light on horror elements?

My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

Ponyo fits this bill as well.

Lord of the Rings trilogy - I did some comparisons last night between the new remastered video releases and the old ones. It's like night and day difference. They removed all the color tinting so everything looks natural. Gandalf's actually wearing grey not green-grey. The grass in the Shire old version looks like dark green seagrass compared to the remastereds NZ-green grass. They did digitally clean the image a little but it didn't take away any fine detail. Not sure if these are streaming yet but I'm sure they will be.

I was testing out new speakers for the TV and noticed that at some point I had actually bought (a long time ago) a digital copy of Fellowship of the Rings on Youtube. I remember standing in line in Portland with my wife to watch the original at the mall in NE.

Last night we went to see The French Dispatch. Two hours of famous cameos and wry chuckles. Probably not worth $11, but a good movie to watch on bargain day. We didn't hate it, but the following phrases emerged when we discussed it afterwards:

• Not bad
  self-indulgent
  an homage to a world that exists only in Wes Andersen's head
  Why would you create a loving filter to the New Yorker set in an imaginary French town?
  A good movie to see with friends in a theater that demands your attention

Of course, the New Yorker loved it:

“The French Dispatch” is perhaps Anderson’s best film to date. It is certainly his most accomplished. And, for all its whimsical humor, it is an action film, a great one, although Anderson’s way of displaying action is unlike that of any other filmmaker. His movies often rest upon an apparent paradox between the refinement of his methods and the violence of his subject matter. In “The French Dispatch,” it is all the more central, given his literary focus: the title is also the name of a fictitious magazine that’s explicitly modelled on The New Yorker and some of its classic journalistic stars. Anderson sends writers out in search of stories, and what they find turns out to be a world of trouble, a world in which aesthetics and power are inseparable, with all the moral complications and ambivalences that this intersection entails.

www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/...st-freewheeling-film


Afterwards while walking to our cars my buddy asked if he should read all four Dune novels and I told him that's a question for a longer walk, and thought of some of the evisceratory comments on this site.