Favourite Miyazaki film

Howl's Moving Castle gets better with each re-run. I've even started to allow the incredibly abrupt ending which I now see as a very neat way of pulling together all the threads. Although I still think it's a bit of a cop out, the scarecrow suddenly transforming and saying "Hi! I'm that one guy who was being talked about very briefly by two bit-roles right near the beginning of the film. I'm going to go and end this war and make everything go back to normal". I do love the film though.

Still need to see Totoro. Had no idea it was so highly rated.

No way is Kiki better than Laputa. :-(

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20011223/REVIEWS08/112230301/1023

mononoke is pretty boring.

I am totally appalled that cagliostro only got one vote but I suppose Lupin fans aren't really the same as Miyazaki fans, much

e.g. Me

There's a chapter in Peter Carey's Wrong about Japan where he watches Totoro with a Japanese friend who clues him into the hundreds of details of cultural and personal reference embedded in the story. My favorite bit is still the wonderful night dance of the three totoros with Mei and Satsuki, getting the plants to sprout.

haha wtf I totally missed this.

I am in the midst of a Neil Gaiman fanboy freakout and discovered that (apparently?) he did the American translation of P. Mononononononoke(?).

Castle In The Sky/Laputa has the best dub of all the dubbed ones. I probably would've voted for Totoro, the most infinitely rewatchable of his movies, or Nausicaa, which (for me at least) was the most jaw-dropping with the wow gosh bang craaaaazy anime stuff.

Oddly the only Miyazaki movie to make my mom visibly squirm in her seat is Cagliostro (Lupin's crazy rooftop escapade).

Nausicaa is beautiful. Wasn't that his first film?

> Castle In The Sky/Laputa has the best dub of all the dubbed ones.

but which Laputa dub, the newish one with dawson o'leary's voice? i found that worse than the previous version i had, more fake, trying too hard.

gaiman did mononoke script, yes. just a pity they got claire danes to do the voice. gag me with a spoon.

I love Claire Danes! And yeah it was the new one with Dawson & Rogue from X-Men when they were cute little youngsters. Also Cloris Leachman as the pirate mom. I guess it's a matter of taste really.

I think Cagliostro was technically first but Nausicaa was his first writing/directing/production venture, and maybe the first Studio Ghibli film?

I watched some documentary on his career once upon a time, probably high.

I watched Kiki's Delivery Service last night and found it really touching. It's not epic like Spirited Away or even Laputa, but there's so much attention to detail; plotwise, character-wise and animation-wise. Really beautiful and melancholy.

Did you guys hear about his next film, Ponyo On a Cliff, yet?

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/ponyo/faq.html

It's being done in watercolor with completely analog equipment as kind of a last hurrah for Ghibli's traditional animation style. To me the plot sounds like a remake of Totoro (kid in rural setting pals around with magical friend) w/ more emphasis on the parent-child relationship and a potentially sadder ending. Which means it's basically a shoe-in to become one of my favorite movies of all time.

The movie was half finished as of a weeks ago, it's due out next summer. Here's some concept art:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/spir7u/gake20no20ue20no20ponyo_1b.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/spir7u/ponyo3b.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a175/spir7u/ponyo2b.jpg

The creepy Howl-looking guy is the boy's dad, btw.

WOW, holy crap. That looks great.

Looks very aquatic, awesome - check out the kid swimming with the jar over her head. Also all the stuff with what is either some kind of underwater dome or a jellyfish.

the scene in Kiki at the beginning when she is lying on the hillside and all the animated grass is blowing in the wind around her is the single most incredible moment of animation I have ever seen.

When are we going to get Tales of Earthsea over here? It was released almost a year ago in Japan.

Oh here we go:

Licensing problems are in the way of a North American release of Gedo Senki, with the Sci-Fi Channel, which released the miniseries Legend of Earthsea in 2004, currently holding the rights to the property. Under the current situation, the film cannot be released earlier than 2009, when Sci-Fi's rights expire.

GODDAMIT! That adaptation ws really, truly balls, and now it's holding up my Ghibli fix.

Gedo Senki is better than the Sci-Fi version, but not by much, which makes sense considering it was storyboarded and directed by a former landscaper with virtually no animation or writing experience who just happens to be Hayao Miyazaki's son. It's disappointing because if you read his production blog he seems to know what he's talking about (and he also reveals some really depressing childhood memories; Hayao was so absent from his son's life that Goro studied his dad's movies as a desperate substitute for face-to-face interaction) but he just wasn't cut out for directing. As an adaptation it's severely jumbled and as a Ghibli movie it's uncharacteristically violent, mean-spirited, and cliche.

That said, the R2 DVD will have subs and even a Disney dub done in anticipation of the eventual R1 release and I'm sure there will be rips of it a day or two after it comes out.

I saw Miyazaki once. Standing outside a downtown hotel, by himself, smoking. It was surreal. I decided it couldn't really be him, this not being Japan or even a major city. Later, I found out he'd been in town to talk to Ursula K. Le Guin about the earthsea rights. I wouldn't have bothered him but it still makes me mad, I owed him a smile at least, not a confused gawk.

Don't fret it, I don't think he speaks a word of english anyway!

Oh, and if I'd been here for the poll, it would've been a toss-up between Totoro and Spirited Away.

fucking hate this shit

I'm surprised Totoro got such a high rating. Saw it the other night and wasn't really that moved. For a gentle narrative-lite Miyazaki movie I much preferred Kiki's Delivery Service.

You have no soul.

no? well i do enjoy a lot of the miyazaki films, but this one i felt was a bit thin on the ground. Good points - loved the architecture of the house and a lot of the animation is as breathtaking as any other Ghibli film. The catbus was cool... The two little girls were pretty sweet and well acted (I watched the dub - I hate reading subtitles, I'd rather be watching the film).

Downsides? Well really there's naff all plot to speak of. They find the Totoros but they're really a bit rubbish, just lying around and sleeping and waiting for buses and doing silly dances. Call me soulless, but if you're going to have mystical creatures, at least make them do SOMETHING interesting or tied in with the plot.

I preferred Kiki's because it felt like there was a bit more going on, despite a lack of conflict (which is why I'm comparing the two films). There are some excellent lessons going on in Kiki, about growing up and stuff, whereas Totoro felt like it just meandered around not really revealing itself too much.

Is it because it's one of the last few Miyazaki's I've yet to see that I'm not that impressed? Maybe I've grown used to the style, whereas when I first saw Spirited Away, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Is it because I watched the dub? I don't know. I might watch it again, but am I totally mistaken? What should I watch out for when I rewatch?

heresy

We had polls back in May ?

Mind you, there is something very fucked up about Howl's Moving Castle getting one vote and Mononoke getting 11. Seriously, I demand a recount.

I think I voted for Mononoke. Howl's is probably my third least favourite of his films, after Cagliostro and Nausicca. I've only seen it once, but I remember the plot being a bit of a muddle.

Saw Porco Rosso for the second time recently, and it's FANTASTIC. It might get my vote now.

Totoro has the greatest theme music ever.

Read Peter Carey's Not Wrong About Japan before you watch Totoro again, grozart.

howl's sucked, sorry

What should I watch out for when I rewatch?

A desire to have a huge fat Totoro of your own that you can lie down and go to sleep on on the middle of the day.

Fuck that almost makes me sound like a furry.

Seriously just the idea of standing waiting for a bus in the rain with a huge fat furry forest spirit next to you is pretty magical. Especially if you're a kid I'm sure.

Yeah it mostly does just meander but really that's one of the great things about it. It's subtle. Doesn't require too much brainpower, just something to curl up on the sofa with.

i have a feeling that my enjoyment was skewed by circumstance and the people i watched it with, who quite openly didn't enjoy it, and i think that might have ruined it for me. While I realise Totoro came out earlier, creatures like the radish spirit in SA are very similar.

howl's sucked, sorry

-- bell_labs, Friday, 11 January 2008 16:07 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Some days it's my favourite. Definitely the one I have had to come back to the most - seen it umpteen times now and I still need my Howl's fix now and again. The only problem with it is that some very important details (like the missing prince) are skimmed over with such speed, you'd be forgiven for getting a bit lost plotwise. It's also got quite a misleading title since not a lot actually happens inside the castle. It's just a couple of rooms as far as the viewer knows, but I first expected it to be set in an enormous haunted castle. I love it though.

I just watched Kiki's Delivery Service, and it is pretty much the most adorable movie ever. It's charming, and sweet, and makes you actually feel optimistic about humanity. Plus every moment with Jiji was hilarious.

I'm still mad pissed at you lunatics that I was the ONLY person who voted for cagliostro

I still don't think i've seen the ending for Cagliostro yet, having had to leave the campus screening early 10-12 years ago.

I love Cagliostro. Not my favourite by any stretch, but those rooftop scenes alone are enough to give me vertigo.

I love Porco Rosso but Cagliostro is the one I'd enjoy seeing again most so it gets the win.

Also Lupin is a great argument for casual suit wearing.

So I watched Totoro again on my own with the Japanese language on. I must say I enjoyed it a lot more this time round. I think the first time I was getting too anticipatory - "Ok they've found these creatures - what you're just going to fall asleep?!!". I was expecting a lot more to actually HAPPEN and I spent most of the film waiting for this. The second time though, I knew what was going to happen and ended up enjoying it a lot more. The attention to detail, the smallest references. It's like going for a lovely stroll in the park, as opposed to running full pelt around a funfair.

Just finished watching Earthsea now it's available in the UK on DVD. Wonderfully animated, breathtaking in parts - probably the best drawn of all the Ghibli films, no doubt due to Goro Miyazaki's previous role as a head animator (or something similar - not sure).

However the plot felt a bit aimless in points and I felt, particularly for the first half, that I was watching Tom Bombadil the movie. There's an awful lot of the main characters just pottering around doing chores or eating food and you do end up when they're going to get on with it.

I guess it suffers from being a book adaptation, and like the Golden Compass film, it feels a bit potted and lacking flesh.

Once the plot does pick up again, it gets very good. The Cob character is especially well done.

So his latest Ponyo On the Cliff By the Sea has been out for a month in Japan and is raking in the cash once again, etc. Anyone know anything about it?

Here's the official site at least:

http://www.ghibli.jp/ponyo/

it looks kinda childish from all the previews I've seen. like totoro or kiki's delivery service childish.

by the way
Porco Rosso 5
Laputa: Castle in the Sky 4
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind 2

are better than
Spirited Away 20
My Neighbour Totoro 15
Princess Mononoke 11
Kiki's Delivery Service 6

especially Nausicaa

challops!

sad that howl's moving castle only got one vote. it's my second favourite.