Wonderful! So enjoyed reading your takes from this marvelous film. My brother, who lives in Japan, gave us a VHS of My Neighbor Totoro way back when. I’ve lost count of how many times we watched it. Never gets old. The art in that, and all the films, is magnificent. Our local art house had a Ghibli fest recently and it’s been such a crazy summer I missed every one. (What am I doing wrong in my life???) 😊🥰 Thabks for a great read.
A Ghibli fest sounds delightful! I need to watch Whisper of the Heart and Only Yesterday again. I wasn't that thrilled with The Wind Rises, The World of Arrietty was good, and I'm looking forward to Miyazaki's "last" film, The Boy and the Heron.
Did you like Ponyo or Mr Howl’s Moving Castle? I think those are the only others I’ve seen besides Totoro and Spirited Away. I wish they were available streaming w/o having to pay for yet another service.
Ponyo is cute and the closest to Totoro; Howl has a lot of good moments but I read the book and don't like how it veers from it. I also loathe how they made the Witch of the Wastes very fat and focus on it as a visual sense of her evil, when she isn't big the book. Just evil. I would recommend Nausicaä, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and the Tale of Princess Kaguya, as well as Arrietty if you like a fantastical element. If you want realism, Only Yesterday, From Up on Poppy Hill, Whisper of the Heart (and its fantastic spinoff, The Cat Returns). Pom Poko and Porco Rosso are for completists in my opinion. Not awful but less accessible. (Tales from Earthsea is just plain awful, in my opinion, and disrespects Le Guin's work).
As a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones, I found HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE to be one of Miyazaki's lesser works; it's too much Miyazaki (on the visual end) and not enough Jones.
Adaptations are tough; they can inspire a weird genius of their own, but I think Miyazaki's at his best working with his own stuff.
(I say this shamefacedly, as I will relentlessly defend Verhoeven's STARSHIP TROOPERS and Cronenberg's NAKED LUNCH as film adaptations that stray relentlessly from their source material.)
Oooo! Thanks for the advice. By coincidence, I’m zooming with my brother so I might put an order in with him for some copies. Although we no longer have a DVD player.
Really enjoyed this. I presume you've read Sam Anderson's piece about Ghibli Park?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/magazine/hayao-miyazaki-ghibli-park.html
I'll read it! When I visited, it was much smaller. I need to get back there.
Wonderful! So enjoyed reading your takes from this marvelous film. My brother, who lives in Japan, gave us a VHS of My Neighbor Totoro way back when. I’ve lost count of how many times we watched it. Never gets old. The art in that, and all the films, is magnificent. Our local art house had a Ghibli fest recently and it’s been such a crazy summer I missed every one. (What am I doing wrong in my life???) 😊🥰 Thabks for a great read.
A Ghibli fest sounds delightful! I need to watch Whisper of the Heart and Only Yesterday again. I wasn't that thrilled with The Wind Rises, The World of Arrietty was good, and I'm looking forward to Miyazaki's "last" film, The Boy and the Heron.
Did you like Ponyo or Mr Howl’s Moving Castle? I think those are the only others I’ve seen besides Totoro and Spirited Away. I wish they were available streaming w/o having to pay for yet another service.
Ponyo is cute and the closest to Totoro; Howl has a lot of good moments but I read the book and don't like how it veers from it. I also loathe how they made the Witch of the Wastes very fat and focus on it as a visual sense of her evil, when she isn't big the book. Just evil. I would recommend Nausicaä, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and the Tale of Princess Kaguya, as well as Arrietty if you like a fantastical element. If you want realism, Only Yesterday, From Up on Poppy Hill, Whisper of the Heart (and its fantastic spinoff, The Cat Returns). Pom Poko and Porco Rosso are for completists in my opinion. Not awful but less accessible. (Tales from Earthsea is just plain awful, in my opinion, and disrespects Le Guin's work).
As a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones, I found HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE to be one of Miyazaki's lesser works; it's too much Miyazaki (on the visual end) and not enough Jones.
Adaptations are tough; they can inspire a weird genius of their own, but I think Miyazaki's at his best working with his own stuff.
(I say this shamefacedly, as I will relentlessly defend Verhoeven's STARSHIP TROOPERS and Cronenberg's NAKED LUNCH as film adaptations that stray relentlessly from their source material.)
I agree with all you say here. I also love Altman's The Long Goodbye. Howl's Moving Castle loses a lot, and Earthsea is unrecognizable as Le Guin's.
Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE is a great work, perhaps his greatest.
Hot take: Elliott Gould is the best cinematic Marlowe. I know he's up against Bogart and Mitchum. I don't care.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geTIE4f1NOk
"He's got a girl and I got a cat."
Oooo! Thanks for the advice. By coincidence, I’m zooming with my brother so I might put an order in with him for some copies. Although we no longer have a DVD player.
I THINK many of these are on Disney+ streaming, but I'm not sure.