Favourite Miyazaki film

catbus otm

skip the first two-thirds and just watch the bit with Totoro and the Catbus in imo

(I am sort of kidding, or am I? I can't tell any more)

So how is the Earthsea film? I liked the books as a kid but I read that Le Guin was not pleased with it so I didn't bother with it at the time. But the talk on this thread is not overwhelmingly negative. Not positive either, mind...

my thoughts on it, as i recall, were that it was so ghibli-by-numbers that there wasn't very much space for earthsea-- but tbh the experience of watching the film is such a rage blackout i can't remember many details

catbus otm

agree

Loved: Spirited Away, Castle In the Sky, Princess Mononoke
Liked a Lot: My Neighbor Totoro, Castle of Cagliostro, Porco Rosso, Ponyo
Liked Okay: Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, Nausicaä
Disliked: uh...

wish someone would put out a comp of miyazaki/ghibli shorts

I really liked Arrietty, I saw it on Saturday and 2 days later it's still gently floating into my consciousness, which imo means it's fabulous.

the disney-created trailers for arrietty made it look kind of insipid, so i was really happy with how beautiful + engaging it ended up being. also, there were three little 5-year-old girls seated directly behind me in theater, and at first i was like "oh man they are going to get bored and noisy halfway through." but they ended up being equally enthralled! and when they did talk it was pretty funny. they couldn't figure out if the housekeeper character was good or bad for a while, and the ambiguity REALLY troubled them.

ha yes a girl behind me said, "I think she's bad" when the housekeeper had uprooted the boards.

The voice casting for Arietty (English dub) was so weird, though – Will Arnett as the strong but gentle, levelheaded, pragmatic Borrower dad. He sounded pretty sedate most of the time but every once in a while it was jarringly Gob Bluthy.

I got the UK edition, which has Mark Strong as Arrietty's dad with a gruff but caring approach. It seems odd that the UK dub (in this instance) might have more starpower than the US one; Saoirse Ronan plays Arrietty, vs Bridgit Mendler - is she a star over there? I've genuinely never heard of her.

Howls is on UK TV now. Definitely my favourite Ghibli now, and for ages Spirited Away was my alltime favourite film.

Caught the 2nd half; I've got the dvd, but there is something about a favourite film being on telly that makes me want to watch it even more. It is just superb, enormous rewatching value and there's something new every time I see it. Showing it on Saturday afternoon tv is excellent scheduling, I bet loads of children saw it for the first time - I envy those kids :)

Arietty was good except for the stupid stupid voice of the stupid boy with his breathless DYING RASP, and the terrible terrible coda at the end because I AM STRONG SINCE YOU ARE IN MY HEART. What the hell? Arietty could probably just climb inside his actual malfunctioning heart with a long-ass snorkle and keep it beating by kicking at the inside of left ventricle. I think I will love a dubbed vers, but everything done to translate/Disnify the film made it ∞ times worse.

What, you think the boy should have died at the end?

xpost You think? In my experience, Disney has done a great job (often with Lasseter) doing Ghibli dubbing and voice casting. I'm sure the boy was no better in the inevitably breathless Japanese language version.

Also, want to say from memory that Miyazaki (et all) have trouble with endings, a la Hitchcock and Spielberg.

Only ones that have stuck out as being bad choices to me were Arnett in Arietty and Billy Crystal in Howl's ––– both of whom were really subdued but I just had too strong of previous associations w/them. I can grouch with the best of them about celebrity voicecasting but Josh in Chicago is basically OTM.

Also I loved that dying boy so much, more kids movies should have a character who is just a walking, talking memento mori.

I also liked that he was kind of an ass and put his foot in his mouth constantly.

Ehh, I didn't mean to imply that the kid should have died, just that the line 'strong because you are in my heart' was morbidly sentimental and undermined any potential poignancy of the parting.

i will never forgive disney's dub team for making the cat in kiki talk at the end. kills the entire metaphor.

Billy Bob Thornton's voice casting in Princess Mononoke was particularly jarring for me

billy bob in mononoke was inspired!

I don't like Miyazaki still.

huh?

Also, want to say from memory that Miyazaki (et all) have trouble with endings, a la Hitchcock and Spielberg.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, February 25, 2012 8:58 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah, maybe, but howl is the only miyazaki flick that i think is seriously undermined by its ending. the rest i'm good with. haven't seen arrietty (wtf is up w that name).

english voice acting has never bothered me, cuz i mostly watch these in japanese. did like bbt in mononoke.

Arietty is the actual name of Mary Norton's main character –– a corruption of Harriet, if I remember rightly.

lol, never read the borrowers. okay then.

except i think i actually did, but have forgotten most of it

i watched ponyo with a friend the other week and a few minutes in we had a little cynical lol about how obvious the impending environmental theme was, and then... it kind of disappeared? i guess that showed us, but as much as i enjoyed it at the end i kinda felt i didn't know what it was about.

it's about ponyo, who is a girl fish with magical adventures, duh

i get you though. it's p nonsensical. i like that about it, tbh.

who are you awful awful people that you watch the dubbed versions

just finished watch arrietty - everybody otm, felt like a miyazaki film. things I loved:

-the fluid dynamics. when they pour tea, it comes out a drop at a time.
-the tall big person boy is so weak and going to die and can't do any physical exercise but the borrowers are on some ninja warrior shit 24/7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oco3lPfokaU

I hated "Ponyo."

Also, dubbing is a non-issue when it comes to most cartoons. I mean, they're all dubbed!

not that it's miyazaki, but i watched pom poko the other night (studio ghibli flick abt raccoon balls). was weird.

Nausicää is my favorite, followed by Castle in the Sky, then Kiki's Delivery Service. Still need to see the Lupin movie, Totoro and Princess Mononoke, though.

Also: really disliked Ponyo when I saw it in theatres, but that could've been due in part to the English dub.

ponyo didn't really grab me

it isn't directed by miyazaki, but the secret world of arrietty is fucking a plus. amazing movie. much more conventional narratively than ponyo (whose plot really irritated me despite all the beautiful animation of water and such) but no worse for that. just amazing.

for the voice of the dad will arnett seemed to be channeling christian bale's batman.

Ponyo's ending is even worse than Howl's. Miyazaki's never been too good at endings - the few I can think of off the top of my head tend to involve some hurried deus ex machina thing, but it doesn't usually matter because it's the ride that counts.

Just realised Josh In Chicago said the same thing.

for the voice of the dad will arnett seemed to be channeling christian bale's batman.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 12:40 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

I watched the japanese audio version and the dad was voiced by a gruff dude

so so so glad that I didn't have to think about gob at all during my viewing

pom poko is great

greatness tempered constant raccoon balls

*tempered by