The GHZ Forum

Crowbar wrote:I'm not really going to argue it too much though, because to be honest I just can't fathom the mind of somebody who likes Howl but not Totoro.

I haven't actually seen it yet.

One time I took this huge shit, but then I looked in the toilet and it was actually Totoro. It was pretty embarrassing.

Crowbar wrote:I just can't fathom the mind of somebody who likes Howl but not Totoro.

I haven't seen Totoro, but I can understand ambivalence toward Howl. Howl is Miyazaki being way too Miyazaki. It's like, you know, ease up on the Miyazaki-ness a little, Miyazaki. Seeing Howl is admittedly an effective way to get a general idea for what a Miyazaki movie entails, but it's shallow compared to the films before it and far from his best work. It's pretty as hell, though.

Radrappy wrote:Wasn't she just looking for the witch of the waste?

Maybe, but it wasn't made clear at all. In fact, as far as I can remember, no reasoning or motivation was given at all. She just left the house and went walking.

Radrappy wrote:Just because it's for kids doesn't mean it can't be a good film too. Totoro had no problem with this.

And I thought it was a good film! It's just that whereas Totoro is made to appeal to anybody whos name isn't Ritz, I feel Ponyo was meant to appeal exclusively to small children (or animation/Ghibli nerds). With the right mindset I was able to enjoy it, but the same cannot be said of my experience with Howl.

Locit wrote:Howl is Miyazaki being way too Miyazaki.

Oh! That actually reminds me of a handy quote from somebody I worked with who said that he felt that it was "Miyazaki on autopilot". Kind of sums up how it felt for me.

The only Miyazaki movie I've watched is Spirited Away, which I thought was excellent. I've been trying to decide which of his movies to watch next, but it sounds like everyone's kind of divided on the rest of his stuff.

Ritz wrote:Did you actually read this? Is your love for your genitalia really the source of your power?

Of course I read it, it has CUNT on the cover. It was a good intro to feminism, but looking back there were a lot of problems with it.

And no, the source of my power is proper nutrition and hydration, just like everyone else. Dumbass.

Mononoke was pretty good; it had lepers and Billy Bob Thorton.

Howl's Moving Castle would have been excellent if it had an ending that wasn't thrown together at the last minute.

Segaholic2 wrote:The only Miyazaki movie I've watched is Spirited Away, which I thought was excellent. I've been trying to decide which of his movies to watch next, but it sounds like everyone's kind of divided on the rest of his stuff.

I'd suggest Laputa: Casstle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. And yeah, Totoro. They're the essentials.

Depends on what you want. If you'd like a sweeping epic, Castle in the Sky or Princess Mononoke. For something lighthearted and nostalgic, My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki's Delivery Service. For pure masculinity, Porco Rosso. Those are the essentials; Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea, and Nausicca of the Valley of the Wind are for enthusiasts.

Note that Miyazaki's stuff composes only about half of Studio Ghibli's works. The others are generally excellent in their own right, but are unfortunately overshadowed by Miyazaki's masterpieces. I haven't seen a lot of them, and the only one I can truly recommend is Grave of the Fireflies, which is generally considered the saddest movie ever.

Segaholic2 wrote:The only Miyazaki movie I've watched is Spirited Away, which I thought was excellent. I've been trying to decide which of his movies to watch next, but it sounds like everyone's kind of divided on the rest of his stuff.

I'd say if you want to watch what are generally considered to be his best films check out

Mononoke
Kiki's delivery service
totoro
Porco rosso

Laputa, while revolutionary in its imagery, is a real snoozer story wise by today's standards. It's the only miyazaki film to date with an antagonist who is just evil for evil's sakes.

Dr. BUGMAN wrote:Mononoke was pretty good; it had lepers and Billy Bob Thorton.

The latter of which wasn't really a miayazaki thing.

Senbei wrote: Note that Miyazaki's stuff composes only about half of Studio Ghibli's works. The others are generally excellent in their own right, but are unfortunately overshadowed by Miyazaki's masterpieces. I haven't seen a lot of them, and the only one I can truly recommend is Grave of the Fireflies, which is generally considered the saddest movie ever.

Only yesterday and My Neighbors the yamadas are both wonderful.

Delphine wrote:And no, the source of my power is proper nutrition and hydration, just like everyone else. Dumbass.

Touchy! You're not on the sea cucumber right now, are you?

Now, this probably won't count for much when I've been actively making an effort to attenuate my credibility (One more for the road: I've been a bit hard on Totoro, haven't I? To be fair, the sequel looks to be a marked improvement), but Mononoke is every bit as mind-blowing as Spirited Away. Those two and Pom Poko are the only Ghibli films I've seen up until now, so you can see why I'm struggling with the concept of bad Ghibli films.

For the past decade, Miyazaki's films have been moving away from solidity toward randomness, and while they are as imaginative as ever and more beautiful than ever, they really aren't as engaging as his earlier stuff. Howl is kind of the epitome of the "new" Miyazaki style, along with all that is good and bad about it. It's so creative and gorgeous, it's just innately mesmerizing but at the same time, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Not one damn thing about it makes sense. The story doesn't make sense, the character motives don't make sense (when they even exist), and scenes are jumbled together with no apparent narrative structure. I've even managed to make sense out of 8 1/2 in ways I can't with Howl even after the 7 or 8 times I watched it. Reading the book didn't help, either.

Ponyo is more solidly structured, but still a bit fanciful (especially toward the ending) without managing to capture the same subtlety or poignance of y'know, Totoro or Kiki.

Mind you, I do like both movies.


Anyway, Laputa to Mononoke were definitely Miyazaki's golden years, and those movies should be seen by everyone. The only other Ghibli films I've seen are Grave of the Fireflies - which is excellent and remains the single most depressing movie I've ever seen in my life - and some more recent thing about a cat in a top hat that I only saw once and deemed it once too many. I want to see Takahata's other films, particularly Pompoko. He's working on a new Kaguya-hime film, isn't he?

Radrappy wrote:Only yesterday and My Neighbors the yamadas are both wonderful.

YES YES YES, these are amongst my favourite films ever.
Incidentally, Yamadas is one of about 2 or 3 japanese things I prefer watching with the English dub.

Grave of the Fireflies didn't do so much for me, but I just seem to respond poorly to WW2 films in general for reasons I can't fathom.

For my views on other films not by Miyazaki:
Pom Poko (Takahata) is great fun, though there's a fair bit of preaching about the environment you'll have to look past.
Ocean Waves (Tomomi Mochizuki) is very different, since it's practically a straight romance story, but it's very well observed and worth seeing.
Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo) felt a bit naive in its ending, but is wonderful overall (also the guy who directed it was expected to succeed Miyazaki and Takahata, but he died of an aneurysm three years after his directorial debut with this film, apparently caused by work-related stress)
The Cat Returns (Hiroyuki Morita) wasn't terrible, I thought, but not fantastic either. To be honest I don't remember much of what I thought of it.
Tales from Earthsea (Goro Miyazaki) I haven't seen yet. All reports indicate it was a trainwreck, however. I want to read the books before watching this one anyway.

Crowbar wrote:Tales from Earthsea (Goro Miyazaki) I haven't seen yet. All reports indicate it was a trainwreck, however. I want to read the books before watching this one anyway.

Confirmed.

Crowbar wrote:Grave of the Fireflies didn't do so much for me, but I just seem to respond poorly to WW2 films in general for reasons I can't fathom.

I'm under the impression that almost every japanese film that's not a samurai film is subtly or not so subtly a WW2 film. They're justifiably obsessed with it.

I mean things like Astro boy, Akira, and even the environmental slant of ghibli films are the fallout(pun intended) of WW2.

Well duh, but I mean films that are literally set during World War 2 and deal directly with its events.

The only film of that sort that I can say I really got into was The Downfall (and maybe Barefoot Gen to a lesser extent).

Well, America has Captain America and Wonder Woman, comic book icons who have their origins in World War 2.

Anyway, my favorite Ghibli movies are Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Howl did feel really random, and I reiterate what everyone says by saying it makes absolutely no sense, though it is very gorgeous. When it comes to non-Miyazaki Ghibli works, I'm a big fan of Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies. Ponyo was okay, I liked it but I don't feel it stacks up to Miyazaki's previous works.

The Cat Returns is great if you're a 14 year old girl. I loved it.

Crazy Penguin wrote:The Cat Returns is great if you're a 14 year old girl. I loved it.

...so you're a 14-year-old girl now?

Well, that, or a "14-year-old girl", by which I mean FBI agent. Despite being British.

Nobody's mentioned Castle of Cagliostro yet. This saddens me.

Ah dammit, I was just about to. Let's both of us mention it now.

Castle of Cagliostro. Top stuff. It's the kind of Lupin III story you can watch under a blanket with your lady friend on a winter's eve, the rest of them being more suitable for watching alone in your underpants, with one hand on your dick and the other in a bag of Cheetos.

NEVER CONFUSE THE TWO.

Am I the only one who liked The Cat Returns? You should check out the manga, Green Gibbon! - it explains some things a bit better, in my opinion.

My favorite Miyazaki film is still Kiki's Delivery Service, followed by Castle in the Sky and then Spirited Away. Everything else of his falls between great (Castle of Cagliostro, Porco Rosso) to average (Ponyo) to me.

Pom Poko is pretentious and heavy-handed as hell, with environmental messages on the level of Captain Planet in preachiness. I wouldn't go out of your way to see it unless you have the urge to see everything Ghibli related.

Whisper of the Heart is a cute little love story. Miyazaki wrote it, if that means anything. It features a very small appearance from The Baron, the top-wearing cat from The Cat Returns. He appears mainly as a doll and only talks in a brief dream sequence near the end of the film. (Both Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns were based on manga from the same author. Whisper's was done in 1988, and The Cat Returns in 2001.) The director of Whisper of the Heart, Yoshifumi Kondou, was at one point supposed to become a chief director of Ghibli films, but he died a few years later.

My Neighbors the Yamadas is a funny movie based on a Japanese comic about a typical Japanese family. The film is divided into several small segment a la Azumanga Daioh, which may or may not be your cup of tea. It also flopped in Japan, which is a shame.

I haven't see Ocean Waves or Only Yesterday, so I can't comment on them. Tales from Earthsea comes out in the U.S. finally next month, so I'll see it then.

Pom Poko is pretentious and heavy-handed as hell, with environmental messages on the level of Captain Planet in preachiness.

Ok, I let the "heavy-handed" comment slide earlier but any comparison with Captain Planet is utter bullshit. Maybe it's just my own upbringing with a steady stream of Ranger Rick Magazine that's turned me into a tree-humpin' hippie and therefore I am "the choir" when one preaches this sort of thing (though I'd argue that it doesn't), I can't fault Pom Poko for its topic. It's smart, touching, steeped in Japanese culture, and down-to-earth, unlike Captain Planet, Ferngully, or goddamn Avatar.

The tone of the show is more like "here is something that happened," or simply that life goes on, and animals will adapt to whatever environment you put them in (even if the movie is about the tanuki's fictional resistance). Although the "message" is clear, it never points a finger or demonizes mankind (compare with Mononoke Hime, or say, Who Killed the Electric Car). As with other examples of "man and nature," the Japanese consider the urban environment just another part of the landscape, even when it's eliminating space for other animals. It has some wonderful sequences but its major weakness imo is that it's very slow paced and set up like a Japanese documentary so it's a little hard to get into the rhythm of it. The first time I saw it I felt that it was too slow and boring in places but I ended up seeing it more than once and I've liked it more every time, it's one of those movies that's more fun when you know what's coming up.

But then if you actually are one of those made up "eco-villains" from Captain Planet then I could see how you might find the message offensive.

Maybe I was being a bit harsh on the Captain Planet comparison, but that still doesn't make Pom Poko even in the top 10 Ghibli films. I just can't identify with the "heroes" in the story when they're just as violent, if not more so, than the people threatening their homes. There were a few scenes I liked (the meeting with the foxes, the festival scene, the ending), but overall it's not something I will ever watch again, similar to Green Gibbon!'s stance on The Cat Returns.

Also, I love how we diss on Avatar here on this forum. I still don't understand the hype train of that movie.

Tsuyoshi-kun wrote:I just can't identify with the "heroes" in the story when they're just as violent, if not more so, than the people threatening their homes.

I have yet to see this movie, but that's probably the whole point. Maybe I just consume too much media, but that idea is hardly new. See: real life.

I just can't identify with the "heroes" in the story when they're just as violent, if not more so, than the people threatening their homes.

Hah! I don't consider the violent characters (I think there are maybe two of them, from a very large cast) to have been "heroes" in that movie. The main character--if there is one--tries to minimize violence as much as possible, and the majority of the tanukis seem to feel the same way. The violent faction (the one that does stuff like jump onto moving vehicles and cover the windshields with their enlarged scrotums) is only one very small part of their overall campaign. Unless you consider "haunting" to be violence, it doesn't really sound like we watched the same movie.

It's definitely not among their best movies but I think it's conceptually very interesting (and well-executed, for the mockumentary format) and for that reason it's worth checking out. That and the giant testicles.

By the way, a movie I would definitely not recommend is EarthSea. If it had any parts that were even a little bit worth watching for then I have forgotten them.