my first exposure to ghibli was with the cinema release of mononoke. they showed all the films at the local art house building up to mononoke, so i saw most of them that way. when it got to mononoke it was the dubbed version and i just thought it was horrible.

Persepolis - Animated cross between an autobiography and a documentary about Iran. Amazing animation, good writing in general but it just kind of shuddered to a halt at the end with me feeling like there should be another 20 minutes of wrap-up or something. I wouldn't let that stop you from adding it to your queue though!

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Originally posted by colin:

quote:

Originally posted by remotepush:

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Originally posted by colin:
Laputa, Castle in the Sky

It's been a long time, but damn that is a nearly perfect film. I'm going to binge on Miyazaki over the weekend.

its one of the few that i've never actually seen. maybe i'll pick it up over the weekend.

Laputa has always been my favorite, but I'm not sure that's a common feeling. I might have odd tastes. (I was non-plussed by Mononoke Hime, but I loved Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) and Howl's Moving Castle.)

Last night, Nausica of the Valley of the Wind. More sprawling than Laputa in scope, but oddly a shorter film. Less humor, and perhaps because of that, less charming, for me. I'm less engaged by the superhumanly conscientious Nausica than with the similar but toned down (and more human) Sheeta. And Nausica's relationship with her maybe-beau is a bit uneven (e.g. why doesn't she seem to mind he blew up three planes full of people?).

Still Nausica is good. It's certainly an impressive feat of imagination.

Remaining lineup:
Majo no Takkyuubin (Kiki's Delivery Service)
Castle of Cagliostro
Porco Rosso

Edit: I remember seeing a dub of Nausica by Animego, I think, which was just awful. It tried to inject humor where there was none in the original script, and failed, badly. It's a shame a good film can be wrecked by poor translation.

No Tonari no Totoro in the line-up? That was my first Miyazaki.

i think nausica was my first.
though totoro is probably my favourite, most watched, most laughed out loud.

Nausica was definitely my first, as I saw the excrable Warriors of the Wind dub on TV, and still thought it amazing enough to want to see it again.

Tonari no Totoro (and Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi and Hauru no Ugoku Shiro) aren't on the list because I don't own copies. Actually what I'm doing is digitizing my old fansubs before the tapes deteriorate any further. I also watched Super Cat Girl Nuku Nuku for the same reason, but it didn't seem worth mentioning.

Tonari no Totoro is probably number three on my list of favorites, after Laputa and Kiki's. (Edit: no forth: Laputa, Porco Rosso, Kiki's and then Totoro.) Anyway, it's up there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: colin,

Incidentally, a post on Drawn! pointed me at this teaser clip from Japanese TV for Ghibli's latest Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Clifftop?) which looks to be closer to Totoro than anything else.

Just saw The Visitor, an excellently acted movie about immigration in New York City that, while ultimately hopeful about the value of people being kind to each other, has no answers.

That is not a criticism. Sometimes, when a movie tries to give answers, it fails to be a good movie.

quote:

Originally posted by Justy:
Just saw The Visitor, an excellently acted movie about immigration in New York City that, while ultimately hopeful about the value of people being kind to each other, has no answers.

That is not a criticism. Sometimes, when a movie tries to give answers, it fails to be a good movie.

Here is a random tangent: Do you think that part of the function of narrative is to order the universe? To impose a teleologic template on that which appears without meaning?

It occurs to me that when Bill was talking over at B&N about those happy endings (or maybe it was the IO9 interview) he was saying that those endings prevent novels from becoming too hypperreal, to PoMO for their own good.

If that is the case, then is not a central function of literature not to simply "ask questions" but to immerse one in a world which makes sense at the end?

From a philosophical point of view doesn't literature function as a kind of religious surrogate (however fleeting) in which we become part of a world that is Lapalckian and welcomely so?

Weeee....

Mini Noah Baumbach fest:

The Squid and the Whale-I liked this. I cared about the characters even though they were assholes. Jeff Daniels is hilariously pathetic. Laura Linney is uber hot as usual. Nice 80's literati backdrop.

Kicking and Screaming-This one was my favorite. It reminded me of Slacker. Post graduation insecurity.

Margot at the Wedding-My least favorite. Nicole Kidman is totally unlikable. Jack Black was funny, but I couldn't get myself to care about any of these weirdos.

quote:

Originally posted by Justy:
Just saw The Visitor, an excellently acted movie about immigration in New York City that, while ultimately hopeful about the value of people being kind to each other, has no answers.

That is not a criticism. Sometimes, when a movie tries to give answers, it fails to be a good movie.

Just watched the trailer. Looks very good.

Gavin and Stacey series 02, ep 01-05

Seriously funny sitcom. Love, food, Essex, homosexuality, marriage and Wales.

Definitely, Maybe - It looked kind of sappy (and there are indeed a few way sappy moments) but overall, this is quite good in an About a Boy meets Father of the Bride kind of way.

Glastonbury

Enjoyed The Fratellisand We Are Scientists sets on Friday, yet to see The Kings of Leon. Amy Winehousemanaged to pull it off; cracking set, stage presence and backing band. She's a national treasure - Classic festival moments.

Battles without Honor or Humanity. The box set.

The boys, with the big toys, are back!

'nuff said

Кин-Дза-Дза (1986)

Skiffy/Satire. I normally don't like Russian films. I find them to be opaque. The first half of Kin-Dza-Dza was incomprehensible to me. And then 'I got it' in the second reel.

Which reminds me a Russian women I dated for awhile. I initially thought she was whacked. Eventually I concluded she's just Russian.

The film is a Brazil-like dark comedy Russian-style. (Silly me.) Some scenes are pretty funny. ("How can I brake after you've drunken all the brake fluid? Drunkard!") Other scenes, the joke was on me.

Technically well filmed. Many Russian films use a different color method than typically used in the west. Its similar in characteristics to the old Technicolor process. The colors were actually great for skiffy.

Subtitles were adequate. However, if they had been more comprehensive, I would have enjoyed the film more.

Cast I have never seen before. Lyubshin is obviously a professional from his presence.

Masked and Anonymous

I thought this was great. If you like Dylan's music this movie is basically a film shot like a Dylan song. It is full of various characters and is ripe with metaphor.

Set in an alternate history it takes place sometime in the 80's judging from the references in an North American country that includes Canada, the US and Mexico. Run by a corrupt military dictator it feels more like Haiti.

The soundtrack is excellent, especially the cover of One More Cup of Coffee, one of my favorite Dylan songs ever.

@ Uber:

I have more developed answers to your questions, but what I have time for is:

I see fiction / art / representational narrative as only sometimes being about ordering the world. The other times, it's about experimentation, asking what if questions, posing possible solutions, and then trying to trace where those actions take you. I rather like what Gilles Deleuze had to say about the French imprint La Serie Noire (it published detective novels, most famously in the US those of Chester Himes): he suggests that they present a new philosophy developed out of mistakes and misapprehensions, but also, ultimately, out of a spirit of experiment. Make a supposition, see if you're right, but even if you're wrong, you've learned something, you may even come out ahead.

Or, you may have screwed yourself. It's what they call freedom, to paraphrase Pynchon.

I have come to this conclusion because reading (seeing, otherwise apprehending a work of art) requires participation on the reader's part. My own attempts to order the world go along with the author's, or they don't. I may attempt to order differently the world the author represents, and that may break the structures the author has made.

Tonight the center of europe is Vienna!
Germany vs Spain 0-1 so far.
[61:45 when posting this]

I just love watching all those babes on the green. Torres looks pretty cute!
LOL, it's a cock-fight.

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Originally posted by UberDog:

quote:

Originally posted by Justy:
Sometimes, when a movie tries to give answers, it fails to be a good movie.

Here is a random tangent: Do you think that part of the function of narrative is to order the universe? To impose a teleologic template on that which appears without meaning?

[...]

If that is the case, then is not a central function of literature not to simply "ask questions" but to immerse one in a world which makes sense at the end?

From a philosophical point of view doesn't literature function as a kind of religious surrogate (however fleeting) in which we become part of a world that is Lapalckian and welcomely so?

I don't even know what Lapalckian means, but I will comment. I don't think literature has a single function. (Yes, you didn't say that, but I just wanted to be clear.) Some authors, I believe, go out of their way to avoid serving the perceived function of literature, because people are like that: bloody-minded contrarian bastards.

Still, one can reasonably talk about what purposes literature serves for people. I think, aside from simple escapism, you've touched two of the main ones in that post: asking questions, or being thought provoking, and providing, though narrative, a feeling that the world does make sense at some level. I suppose the second one could be related to escapism, but I think it might be worth separating out.

So anyway. Yes.