“George, I wish you’d look at the nursery” begins Ray Bradbury’s cautionary tale of childhood imagination, The Veldt. In true Bradbury fashion, technology runs amok at the mercy of the children’s subconscious, manifesting virtually everything they wish for and horrifyingly, more than the parents bargained for.  Although the story left me a bit scarred and ironically, a sucker for Cronenberg films, it also reflected my more optimistic belief in the thin slip of reality where a blank bedroom wall could easily dissolve into a technicolor world of fantasy.

Artist and muralist, Ami Suma, also transforms blank canvases into candy-colored dimensions with her kawaii-style menagerie. Suma enlivens kids’ bedrooms with vibrant creatures that, thankfully would sooner cuddle with you than cobble you up under a hot, savannah sun. Ami is also a freelance fashion writer living in New York City. Inspired by the likes of animator, Hayao Miyazaki, Ami also assures me (and other children) that what lies beyond your walls is really a welcoming wonderland.

… just because I think this scene is magic. And the entire film as well, of course.

I love that he has a lily pad on his head for rain protection.  And the cat bus! Don’t get me started….

“It’s not really important what color your dress is. What matters is the heart inside it.” – Kokiri

Kiki’s Delivery Service is the story of a 13-year-old witch who, as part of tradition, must leave home and find a place to stay for her training. She eventually finds herself in the beautiful town of Koriko, Japan’s little London/Italy. As she struggles with her newfound independence, Kiki meets Osono, a kindly lady who owns a bakery. After helping Osono return a pacifier to her customer’s child, Kiki is offered a room in the attic. In return, Kiki offers to help her in the bakery. The pacifier incident gives Kiki the idea to put up a delivery business, and along the way she meets a couple of good friends – Ursula, the painter, and Tombo, a boy who develops a fancy for her.

This movie branches out into different themes. I have already mentioned one of these – independence. (I leave the rest of these themes for you to figure out as I go along with the review.) The idea of independence in the movie is very similar to the independence that we know, except that the one in the movie is taken more seriously. Tradition holds that when a witch turns 13, she must leave her home – no questions asked. Of course she is always given the option to return if something goes wrong. But it is compulsory that she leaves when she is of the right age, regardless of whether or not she has decided on what skill to master. (The movie is somewhat coming-of-age- and right-of-passage-ish.)

Kiki’s independence is put to the test the moment she jumps on her broom. She is faced with two tasks: find her town and think of a skill. The former is clearly depicted in the movie. As for the latter, Miyazaki manages to subtly accomplish this. On her first night of travel, Kiki bumps into a fellow witch who claims to have mastered the skill of fortune telling. She bids Kiki good luck in mastering whatever skill she decides on. When she puts up her delivery service, the viewer is led to think that it is this skill which Kiki is trying to master. Apparently it’s not.

The skill of which I’m talking about is the art of flying. Truly, something ordinary, since all witches are bound to fly anyway. But it is flying that Kiki is very passionate about, as she realizes later on. You don’t see it right away, especially after Kiki tells Ursula, “I don’t find flying much fun. It’s more of a job to me.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Also part of her newfound independence is meeting friends and making connections with other people. This appears to be her biggest challenge yet, because Kiki is your typical adolescent – she is drowning in insecurities. The quote above is uttered by Kiki’s mother, Kokiri, in response to Kiki when she expressed disgust over her black witch dress.

In another scene where Tombo invites Kiki to explore the dirigible (blimp), Kiki refuses to join him and his friends, and decides to walk home instead. In her room, Kiki tells her cat Jiji, “I think something’s wrong with me. I make friends, then suddenly I can’t seem to be with any of them.” This feeling of remoteness stems from the fact that she’s a witch, and being a witch makes her different from everybody else. Also, when she first arrives in town, people are taken aback by her presence, but eventually takes no notice of her. Moreover, she reminds me of Stargirl when she says, “It seems like the other me, the cheerful and honest me went elsewhere.” The moment she expresses this, she loses her witch powers.

Which brings me back to my previous point. The one about flying. In spite of what she tells Ursula, in truth flying is more than just a job to her. Flying is her life. And unless she recognizes this, she will not be able to tap into her witch’s spirit and see how special she really is.

The plot is simple and does not have an antagonist. But Miyazaki didn’t make it easy for little Kiki. If you think about it, the movie is actually a series of mishaps that a young witch encounters. But in the end, Kiki is able to be just herself and even pulls off a heroic act.

4 out of 5 Stars

-timmy

I had difficulty selecting a single film for some directors; therefore I selected more than one. These are all directors who have consecutively put out great films; I'm not going to list any directors who have only made a single good film (there are lots of those unfortunately).

Anyway, here are my favorite directors and their best film(s) (in my opinion):

Steven Spielberg:

Best film(s) – Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Martin Scorsese:

Best film(s) – Taxi Driver

Nicolas Roeg:

Best film(s) – Walkabout

Ridley Scott:

Best film(s) – Alien/Blade Runner

Gus Van Sant:

Best film – Drugstore Cowboy

Stanley Kubrick:

Best film(s) – A Clockwork Orange

Werner Herzog:

Best film(s) – Stroszek/Aguirre, the Wrath of God

George A. Romero:

Best film(s) – Martin

David Cronenberg:

Best film(s) – The Dead Zone/Videodrome

Krzysztof Kieslowski:

Best film(s) – Dekalog (TV series)

Tim Burton:

Best film(s) – Ed Wood/Edward Scissorhands

Quentin Tarantino:

Best film(s) – Reservoir Dogs

Jean-Pierre Melville:

Best film(s) – Le samouraï

Frank Darabont:

Best film(s) – The Shawshank Redemption

Hayao Miyazaki:

Best film(s) – Spirited Away

George Lucas:

Best film(s) – Star Wars (episodes IV, V and VI)

Roman Polanski:

Best film(s) – The Tenant

(*NOTE* This blog-post was extracted from this thread of mine on the HikiCulture forums.)

Posted via email from HikiCulture – A Forum For Reclusive People (and Hikikomori) {HikiCulture.Com Site Blog}

天空の城ラピュタ (Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta)
9/10 — A classic for a reason.

Castle in the Sky is without a doubt one of the more well-known anime. While many series and movies come and go like passing fads, young kids in Japan today still know Laputa, and so do their parents. The reason for this is the many talented Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. This movie originally came out the year I was born, and I am very happy to have the opportunity to watch it and bring the review to you now. I do feel it is a timeless classic that is suited to a wide variety of audiences.

First the basics:

Voice Acting: 9/10 — a diversity of characters with distinct personalities
(This pertains to the American Disney cast.)
The voice acting in the movie is quite exceptional. There are a number of big names, such as Mandy Patinkin, Mark Hamill, James Van Der Beek, Anna Paquin, and Andy Dick, among others. They deliver an exceptional performance in spite of occasionally awkward dialogue. They make the moments where you kinda wonder why the character said that seem much more natural than other voice actors would, and it makes it that much easier to slip into the realm of the story. Now, the characters do sound awfully stereotypical throughout, from Dola the boisterous pirate mother to Muska, who always sounds evil and sinister even when he’s faking being genuine in order to be persuasive. Pazu and Sheeta are less cliched, which is nice, but there are points where you start to like the secondary characters and they don’t always come through as unique.

Animation: 9/10 — Beautiful scenery and smooth, clear character action.
The backgrounds for this movie are amazingly well-painted; they’re simply beautiful. And while some people don’t particularly care for the Ghibli style of animation that is so recognizable in their films, it is still done very professionally. The actions are clear and recognizable — even some of the more complicated events in the movie you can readily discern what is occurring. The art aptly conveys what’s going on and the choices in camera angles and scene changes are also handled extraordinarily well. We get a lot of playing with distances and layering of various foregrounds with a number of things going on in the background — there’re no audiences of people standing still while things happen at the forefront. It really is about as good as it gets, and it sucks you right into the plot.

Music/Sound Effects: 10/10 — Exceptional.
Joe Hisaishi, a regular composer for Ghibli and also “Beat” Takeshi, is responsible for the music in Laputa. His style has that epic fantasy story feel, which is very appropriate for this film. There are moments that jog my memory of old Final Fantasy games and Chrono Trigger. Given the story, I think Hisaishi’s style fits right in, and it brings emotional emphasis to many of the scenes. There are also a variety of sound effects that play key roles in the action of Castle in the Sky. Everything from steam engines, to the organic sounds in the Laputian garden, to the many many explosions and gun battles — it’s all handled masterfully, and never do you think that either a sound has gone missing or feels misplaced with what’s going on; rather, the world is more fully fleshed out by the circumambient noises that’re included.

Story/Script: 8/10 — An epic tale, especially in the original Japanese
The Japanese script for the film is quite good; although, a little dated. The American rewrite for the dub is sort of crappy in that characters randomly use and dispose of information in jokes that they would not be privy to, and some of the line changes dumb down the original script and story. I for one think there’s a number of extra interesting details to Sheeta’s backstory that she reveals that get trimmed out of the American version. It is unfortunate. Still, the story is magnificent; it has a moral buried deep enough that you can recognize it, but it doesn’t get in the way; and it’s simply an enjoyable story to follow. You want to know what happens next, and I think that says a lot about the quality of the writing. Also, in spite of some changes in the English script, the dialogue is actually quite good, and the characters tend to come off as pretty natural, rather than forced or substituting for a narrator, etc.

The Technicals:
Produced by Isao Takahata and Studio Ghibli, and written and directed, of course, by Hayao Miyazaki. It was originally released on April 2nd, 1986, and has an approx. runtime of 126 minutes. It was also the first film created and released by Studio Ghibli.

Summary:
So the movie starts with a young girl, Sheeta, on an airship being attacked by a group of air pirates known as the Dola gang/clan.

It quickly becomes apparent that she is there against her will, and she uses the opportunity of the pirate attack to try and escape. And anyone who’s watched this movie that it was pretty sweet when the girl brained the government-looking official with a wine bottle. I know that’s when I fell in love with Sheeta, anyway. Castle in the Sky is often compared to Disney films, but show me where Dumbo takes matters so capably into his own trunk — I think the bravery already displayed by Sheeta is way more impressive and admirable than the more general morals displayed in Disney films.

However, Sheeta ends up falling off the airship, and is miraculously saved by the power of a crystal, which is clearly what the pirates were after. She falls down to earth, where a boy named Pazu catches her as she slowly descends towards the mine where he is working.

Pazu has to get back to work, but he takes Sheeta home with him — he’s looking after her, do you remember people ever being this good natured? That’s what I thought. No awkward moments while she’s asleep ensue — thank God this wasn’t a Shonen Jump manga first because you KNOW that he would of groped her by mistake or something. The next morning she wakes up to him blowing his horn — literally plays a trumpet atop his house for God knows what reason. And they have some cutesy conversation getting to know one another, while he explains to her what happened. So, in the dub there’s a line that comes out “if my head were any harder it’d be a cannonball” but in the Japanese it’s definitely closer to “my head is harder than the boss’s fists.” Oh how times change! This conversation comes about because Pazu thinks he knows how the crystal works, puts it on, and jumps off his house, only to crash down through the brick roof of the lower story. At least he had something to hit, he does live overlooking a giant canyon. We also find out that Pazu’s father once took a picture of Laputa, but no one believed it was real. A literary reference is cut from the American script here — for shame! — as Laputa is from Gulliver’s Travels by Swift, and Pazu mentions it in the Japanese.

Of course, the pirates come looking for Sheeta and the crystal, and somehow they end up at Pazu’s place rather fast. Sheeta and Pazu make a break for it with some of the town’s people helping out, only to run into the military and the government official, Colonel Muska, who Sheeta conked out with the wine bottle. Now, there’s a battle between the pirates and the military as they both try to capture Sheeta and Pazu, who are desperately trying to make their escape aided by the townspeople (take a deeeeeep breath).

In the chase, Pazu and Sheeta fall into the canyon and are saved by the crystal. Deep in an old mine Sheeta tells Pazu about her homeland, Gondoa, far to the north. Both her parents had died, and she worked the farm alone. Now, we notice a sort of common trend with characters. Sheeta was a hard-working farmgirl (doing a job that actually she probably couldn’t have done on her own, but we can overlook that, I suppose), and Pazu is a miner from a mining town.

Sheeta was abducted from her farm by Colonel Muska and his associates. Wandering around in the old mine, they run into Uncle Pom, who is crazy.

I burst out laughing when Uncle Pom said he doesn’t get lonely traversing the mines alone because the rocks talk to him. Of course, the story validates him because all the rocks glow in a sort of way. Apparently glowing means speaking. Uncle Pom would go deaf in Vegas. Uncle Pom, upon seeing Sheeta’s crystal, warns them that misuse of such power will only bring misery, and the crystal should remind us all that we come from the earth and it is to the earth that we will return — very heavy-handed, and it seems a little random; the ominous foreshadowing is a bit overdone, and while the moral message is clear, I’m not sure how you quite get that out of glowy, powerful crystal, ooh-aah. For some reason the Japanese call the crystal something like Volucite, and the American version is Aetherium (it’s probably wordplay in the Japanese similar to that in the American, I just don’t get it, ah well).

Once out of the cave, the pair is immediately cornered by the military, captured and brought to the military’s island of doom!

Therein, Pazu is tossed into an oubliette-like spot, and Sheeta is taken to a normal bedchamber. Apparently the national past time has become hauling around unconscious little girls. A strange bit of translation goes on here too: in the American script Muska lies and tells Sheeta that Pazu is being treated very well, and in the Japanese he tells her not to worry because Pazu is more stubborn than he is. Also, the second omitted literary reference is here. In the Japanese, Muska asks, sarcastically, if Sheeta thinks that Laputa is like Treasure Island — for shame! why cut so many lit references? Makes me sad. And Muska shows Sheeta a mechanical soldier that fell from Laputa, and seems to be the reason the government has taken such a strong interest in what was, until recently, considered a myth.

We shortly find out that Sheeta is the true heir to the throne of the kingdom of Laputa, and in order to save Pazu she agrees to help the military. She then gets weepy because Pazu was such a cutie, and she let him get away. Also Pazu tries to scale the wall of his prison to no avail, but he still scales halfway up the damn wall! What is this? Uncharted?!

When Pazu gets home the pirates are waiting for him, but after a heart to heart with the mother of the pirates and their leader/captain/etc., Pazu teams up with them to try and save Sheeta (the pirates of course are still after the crystal).

Meanwhile, Sheeta remembers the words to awaken the crystal from when she was young, and this in turn brings the giant robot man back to life. Chaos ensues. The military thinks they’ve killed the robot, and this happens:

The military is continuing to try to destroy the robot just as the pirates show up.

They manage to rescue Sheeta, but not the crystal. The crystal is mysteriously left on, so to speak, pointing the way to Laputa.

Pazu and Sheeta join up with the pirates as members of the crew. Pazu becomes the engineer’s, Pops, assistant, and Sheeta becomes the cleaning lady/cook.

Many of the pirates become attracted to Sheeta because she starts wearing Mom’s old clothes; though, the age difference is somewhat disturbing, it’s more funny than creepy. The pirates, of course, are also heading for Laputa.

Pazu and Sheeta manage to spend some time together when it’s Pazu’s turn to go on watch; they share a cloak; it’s cute. Sheeta confesses her feelings about not wanting to actually find Laputa because of the dangers: the bit here is a bit better fleshed out in Japanese, as in the writing is more thought out and convincing than the dumbed down version that Disney created in their English dub. Both Dola and the pirates overhear this conversation. Of course Dola thinks it’s sweet, and the pirates are grief stricken because it’s obvious Sheeta only has eyes for Pazu. The conversations comes to an abrupt halt when Pazu and Sheeta realize they’ve caught up with the military’s air destroyer, Goliath, and are flying above it.

The pirates manage to escape the Goliath in the cloud cover, but they have to follow it in order to track it to Laputa. Sheeta and Pazu go up in a glider attached to the pirate’s airship to keep watch. They see a massive cloud coming up ahead, which appears to be a hurricane.

It sucks them in and detaches the glider that Sheeta and Pazu are on, but Pazu is fairly certain that inside the giant cloud lies Laputa.

They manage to get through the storm and discover an amazing garden with robot remaining to tend it; all the others have broken down over the years. Various animals roam the area.

Then there’s an explosion, and it becomes apparent that the Goliath and its crew of several hundred soldiers has managed to land on Laputa as well. Sheeta and Pazu investigate and realize that the pirates have survived, but were taken prisoner.

Meanwhile, the army begins to loot the city, and Muska heads off on his own, looking for something else.

He captures Sheeta, but Pazu gets away. Pazu frees the pirates, and Muska finds what he was looking for — the heart of Laputa. It turns out Muska is also of noble blood from the kingdom of Laputa.
According to him Laputa has been without a king for 700 years, and Laputa is the source of several ancient myths: in Hinduism, Ramayana’s arrow, and in the Christian/Jewish Old Testament, the fire from Heaven that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Muska then proclaims his sovereignty and uses the power of Laputa to kill most of the military present.

And awakens a ton of extra robot dudes. Pazu has managed to cling to the underside of Laputa this whole time and finally gets back in to find his way to Sheeta.

Meanwhile, Sheeta has managed to take the crystal from Muska and is hectically trying to escape. She gets the crystal to Pazu through a crack in the wall, and Muska chases her into the throne room, where he proceeds to shoot off her pigtails — I know, WTF?! Pazu arrives and bargains the stone in exchange for a chance to talk with Sheeta. Muska of course is an idiot and says ok, I can’t possibly see any harm in letting you speak to the girl who can apparently cast spells. And then they cast the spell of destruction because Pazu has the stone.

Oddly enough, the spell to activate the stone was some four obscure sounding words, and the spell of destruction is hardly even a syllable. Muska randomly goes blind, the kids appear dead, and just like every Indiana Jones movie, the legendary structure that has gone on for hundreds to thousands of years a-okay collapses into itty bitty rock bits.

Even though the technology center of Laputa is destroyed, the roots of the giant tree at the center of the city catch the giant crystal that was holding the city aloft, and Laputa takes off!

And NO, Sheeta and Pazu aren’t dead. They find the glider they came in on and glide down to the pirates. In a hilarious moment of characters knowing things they could have no way of knowing (which happens a lot, especially in the English dub; this error for instance, doesn’t happen in the Japanese), Dola comments to Sheeta that there’s nothing worse than having your pigtails shot off. The pirates actually managed to secure a good deal of treasure, and Sheeta and Pazu glide off together. The End.

E’ufficiale. Mi sono innamorata di Miyazaki. Della sua poesia, del suo uso del colore, dei suoi personaggi innocenti e puri. 

Brunilde, pesciolina figlia di uno stregone degli abissi, è una piccola ribelle a cui i fondali vanno stretti. Con l’aiuto delle sorelle riesce a liberarsi e, lasciandosi trasportare da una soffice medusa, a raggiungere la superficie. Rimasta intrappolata in un barattolo, viene soccorsa e salvata da Sosuke, un bambino di 5 anni, della quale si innamora di quell’amore innocente che solo i bambini sanno manifestare. Sosuke la chiama Ponyo perchè “è soffice e spugnosa” e le promette che si prenderà cura di lei. Ma la neonata amicizia tra i due sarà ostacolata dal padre di lei, deciso a proteggerla dalla cattiveria degli umani e a riportarla nelle profondità marine. Tra prosciutto, navi, anziane in carrozzina e tsunami, facciamo il tifo per Brunilde-Ponyo, decisa a diventare una bambina a tutti gli effetti per restare per sempre con Sosuke.

Questa fiaba, che ricorda Pinocchio e la Sirenetta, non è solo sentimenti. Lancia anche un messaggio ecologista a favore del mare. Un mare in cui galleggiano rifiuti e di cui l’uomo non si prende sufficientemente cura, tanto da creare una frattura che solo un cucciolo d’uomo, con la sua purezza, potrà risanare.

Amore, ecologia e rapporti interpersonali: irresistibili le vecchiette della casa di riposo dei Girasoli e Risa (madre di Sosuke), che non si lascia fermare nemmeno da un maremoto.

Da vedere perchè: per riscoprire il mondo con gli occhi dei bambini. E se, sotto sotto, è piaciuto anche a due “duri” tutti intenti a programmare due settimane di serenità in una dacia…potete fidarvi

Andy and I love Miyazaki films. We own “Spirited Away”, “Nausicaa”, and “Howl’s Moving Castle”. They’re just so cute and funny. This week at the library I saw that they had “The Cat Returns” and had to pick it up.

So far my favorite thing about this is that Cary Elwes is The Baron. His entire demeanor reminds me of his character from “The Princess Bride” which just makes me love it more!

10. Toy Story (1995)

To be honest, most of the reason that Toy Story is in this top ten is its status as a milestone of animation. Toy Story truly is the most influential animated film since Snow White, ringing in the new trend of computer animation. However, that is not the only reason it made the list. Toy Story is really a delightful movie with colourful characters and a timeless essence which I believe will preserve this movie as a classic for kids of all ages.

9. Spirited Away (2001)

Hayao Miyazaki is the master of animation, and Spirited Away is one of his masterpieces. Spirited Away proves that there are things that can be done with animation which probably could never be pulled off in live-action movie making. Spirited away is pure, unadulterated child’s imagination laid out for us on screen, and it blew audiences away, even becoming the highest grossing film in Japanese history.

8. The Iron Giant (1999)

Over the past decade, non-Disney animated films have really taken hold and found a niche of their own. However, before this explosion of new animation, non-Disney cartoon movies were few and far between. And really good non-Disney animated movies were even harder to find. However, hidden between the Toy Storys and Lion Kings and Shreks is a wonderful little movie called The Iron Giant.
The Iron Giant may seem like a simple tale, but it is handled brilliantly, complete with real character relationships, themes which may be a little hard-edged, and a wonderful emotional core. If you have not yet seen The Iron Giant, do yourself a favour and watch it.

7. Shrek (2001)

Now, lets be straight here: I am not talking about the ridiculously over-commercialized sequels. I truly believe that the very name of Shrek has been muddied by the greed of the studio and filmmakers involved, and that the magic of this original first movie has been hidden from view.
Shrek was a movie which defied the regular story tale approach that most animated movies (Disney especially) had been taking. The computer animation itself was very refreshing at the time, and the sharp humour mixed with the emotional impact made for one fantastic film. Its too bad that when we see the lovable green ogre we no longer see this great movie, but instead we see the dollar signs of greed, the Burger King promotions, and the terrible sequels riddled with pop culture junk. Just don’t forget; Shrek at one time did mean something.

6. Wall*E (2008)

It may seem presumptuous to put a movie which is still so new onto this list. However, Pixar has been the powerhouse of animation over this last decade, and this story of a funny little robot who would find the lost human race is their absolute masterpiece. Fro the nearly-silent and brilliant opening to the exciting conclusion, WallE has some really deep themes sinking in, which remaining very light-hearted at its center. An absolutely brilliant piece of work.

5. Fantasia (1940)

Fantasia seems like it was really an experiment on the blending of animation with music, with audio and visual swirling together in one harmoniously package. Well, it worked. And now Disney’s cartoon opera has a firm hold in the history of film-making and is a landmark in animated feature films.

4. Princess Mononoke (1997)

Perhaps the most inventive country in animation is Japan, and there is none greater than Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki hand draws each frame by himself, an incredible feat in this age of production-lines. Princess Mononoke is Miyazaki’s masterpiece; an epic full of adventure, romance, fantasy, heroes and villains. It has a heavy theme involving the conflict of the industrial age and the need for ecological balance with nature. It is a brilliant film in almost every regard, and perhaps the greatest from the most imaginative and daring country in animation today.

3. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938)

Snow White is the Birth of a Nation for animated films. Walt Disney’s landmark film brought full-scale, feature-length animation to the forefront, and he then reigned on the animation throne for many decades to come. Snow White is beloved by many and has a unique place in the annals of film history. It was a spectacular achievement of its time, opening to doors to what animation can truly do to the movies.

2. Beauty and the Beat (1991)

In the late 80s/ early 90s, Disney was undergoing a new renaissance. They had found new life in a series of high quality stories amidst great-looking animation. The Little Mermaid kicked off this new golden era, but it was Beauty and the Beast where it hit its peak. The art in this movie looked amazing, while the characters were fully realized and the story flowed perfectly. Beauty and the Beast was the first, and so far still the only, animated movie to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and for good reason.

1. Pinocchio (1940)

Snow White may have started off Disney’s reign on the throne of animation, but Pinocchio was his crowning achievement. Many film critics around the world recognize this movie as the best that animated feature films has to offer. It was able to take what worked from Snow White and fix everything that didn’t work. And think about how iconic some of the themes and parts of that movie are now, especially the song “When you wish upon a star” and Jiminy Cricket, the physical representation of Pinocchio’s conscience which has become a song of inspiration for many people over the years. The tale is a classic morality tale played out through wonderful storytelling and fantasy.

Photographer: Kevin J. Miyazaki

Title: The Shutters in Cheryl’s Room, 2007

Description: This photograph is taken from an ongoing series, Early Places, in which I document unchanged spaces from my childhood.

Size: 8×10″ borderless print

Media: Digital c-print

Edition size: 20

Price: $40

To Benefit: Growing Power, Inc. is a national non-profit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live.  The group works to provide equal access to healthy, high quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities.  Growing Power’s co-founder, Will Allen, was awarded 2008 a MacArthur Fellowship in 2008 for his work with the organization. For more information: growingpower.org

Kevin’s Pledge: 100% of print sales. $800 total if the edition sells out.

Read more about Kevin J. Miyazaki on the photographers page.

I’m reading Pluto, a manga serie by Naoki Urasawa and I’ve just bought the first 4 numbers of the serie.
I’ve also finally found “Reset” by Tetsuya Tsutsui and I’m very happy.
I read “Manhunt” some months ago and it’s amazing.
Then I’ve found an issue of Xmen drawn by Milo Manara and Claremont.
And I’m collecting Nausicaa of Hayao Miyazaki too.
Lots of things to read in the next days.
And lots of inspirations too:-)

Anyway.
Here’s a preview of the MEI poster, one colour left and it’s comine out very very nice

There’ll also be a variant on brown paper, we’ll put  some pics online very soon.

We’re also working at a poster for the italian gig of the Melvins in Milano.
Here’s a small video.



As You can see there’ll be a lot of circles…
More coming soon.

———————————————–
Listening to the new tracks we’re working at with ufomammut

Detective Holmes (Sherlock Hound)

First let me say, THIS IS NOT WHAT THE PICTURE TO THE LEFT IS. That is the Blu-ray cover from the “movie-ized” version of a few episodes from the series. If anyone knows where I would be able to find a rip and/or would like to help TL it please leave a comment. It’s by Hayao Miyazaki, so why wouldn’t you.

Anyway, about Detective Holmes. This is a series from the early 80s. It was a joint project between some Italian company and TMS. It follows Holmes, Watson, Moriarty, Lestrade, and the whole London crew — except as dogs. Yep. It’s overall, a pretty decent series. Outside of Japan, this series is known as Sherlock Hound because of it. In America,  Pioneer (Geneon) released the series back in 2001-ish, but are now long out of print… But, if you fancy yourself the dub, waltz on over to Youtube and you can watch the English dub here. Just to let you know though, the episodes are out of order in that list. For the correct order (as well as more info), I would advise you to check out the wikipedia page.

Release stuff:

Used an R2 DVD for the video and audio. Because the R1 dvds are out-of-print, and I didn’t feel like using streaming quality audio for the dub, there is only Japanese audio and English subs in this release. Some noise was left in the encode… Most is gone, but in some scenes, it’s noticable. I didn’t feel like blurring and crap more than I needed to. Preview TL is shot too… so don’t take it srsly. Encode and subtitles by James Black. Give this a shot!

Detective Holmes – 01 [FBI][x264-vorbis][E0975B64].mkv

Ils sont là, déversés sur mon plancher.

A ma gauche, mon addiction pour les choses inutiles donc indispensables, kawaii ( かわいい pour les intimes ), inédites, félines, en tissu, en polymachintrucylène ou que sais-je.

A ma droite, mon jeune âge mental qui me fait aimer les gentils animaux, les légumes qui ont une bouille, les papiers à lettres (alors que je n’écris qu’une fois tous les dix ans), les produits dérivés des studios Ghibli et l’année du tigre. Le prétexte pour le serre-tête à oreilles tigrées étant d’éventuels jeux d’adultes… sans commentaires !

La groupie du Japon, qui ne s’était pas exprimée depuis huit ans a fait un carnage, mais le cambriolage s’est fait avec une grande complice, donc je plaide mi-coupable (coup bas, hé hé). Sauf que c’est moi qui avais les adresses … Et j’assume tout, na! Même les “hiiii” dans les boutiques, les gloussements, et le “Totoro for ever”.

Envoyez le conglomérat !

Je précise que évidemment, les objets destinés à être offerts ne figurent pas sur les photos… Et j’en ai ramené un paquet ! (cadeau, of course)

Alors quand même, j’ai aussi shoppé un peu moins frivole.

Comment ça, les choses en haut à gauche devraient être sur l’image du dessus ?

Alors ça, c’est taquin comme remarque ! Puisque c’est ça, j’y vais : je dois trouver de la place dans les placards.

Gake no Ue no Ponyo, Ponyo sobre el acantilado o con el lamentable titulo que se encuentra ahora mismo en las salas de cine mexicanas: El secreto de la sirenita. Hoy por fin vi Ponyo sobre el acantilado, después de contenerme una vez que la descargue, después de dos retrasos de su estreno, al fin pude entrar al cine a ver la película más reciente de Studio Ghibli y de Hayao Miyazaki.

Ponyo nos narra la historia de una pececita (no es una sirena) que es hija de un hechicero del fondo del mar y la madre naturaleza, por mero azar Ponyo conoce a Sosuke, un chico de cinco años que vive en la casa justo encima de un acantilado, El chico y Ponyo se encariñaran, a partir del encuentro con su nuevo amigo, Ponyo querrá dejar de ser pez y convertirse en humana.

Ella es Ponyo

La historia definitivamente se parece al cuento de la sirenita que después se convirtió en la película de La sirenita de Disney, sin embargo Ponyo sobre el acantilado es más una historia de la fuerte amistad que se da entre los niños, ancianos y adultos, unos seres maravillosos sacados más de la cabeza de Miyazaki que del fondo marino y de la fuerza que llega a tener la naturaleza.

El arte es muy destacable, muy parecida a las anteriores obras de Studio Ghibli, pero esta vez con una animación, pienso, muy artesanal, me refiero a que no se ve que se haya abusado de la computadora, más bien parce que todo fue dibujado cuadro por cuadro, coloreado y al fin animado para que lo veamos en pantalla.

El papá de Ponyo al inicio de la película

Mi opinión y porque cuando he hablado de películas siempre pongo un número es 10/10, pero nunca perdiendo de vista que es una película dirigida a niños muy pequeños.

Aprovechen que pocas veces hay la oportunidad de disfrutar una película animada japonesa en nuestros cines, además no creo que dure mucho en las salas de cine, si ya de por sí solo está en una y de las más pequeñas.

El acantilado

Buena parte del incesante y creciente flujo de turistas que llega a Japón lo hace empujado por su pasión por el manga o el anime. Y si de anime se trata, no hay duda de que Hayao Miyazaki, el gran creador de joyas cinematográficas como Nausicaa y el valle del viento, Mi vecino Totoro o la oscarizada El viaje de Chihiro es el responsable primero de la propagación de la filia por el anime en todo occidente.

Escondido en una pequeña localidad a las afueras de la todopoderosa capital, el museo de los estudios dirigidos por el gran Miyazaki se acurruca entre la maleza y algunos jardines con su arquitectura fantástica coronada, a modo de King Kong, por el robot de una de sus mejores películas, El castillo de Laputa.

El museo, como tal, no tiene un recorrido prefijado, sino que sus limitadas dimensiones, divididas en diferentes estancias temáticas, se deja visitar libremente, sin más brújula que la que guía nuestra curiosidad. Desde habitaciones que recrean el estudio de trabajo del maestro, hasta otras dedicadas a sus últimas producciones, todas ellas ofrecen pistas claras sobre el proceso creativo de una obra de anime de la envergadura de los largometrajes de la Ghibli. Y sin duda es esta la mejor baza de un museo más coqueto que enorme, más humilde que pretencioso, más rendido al homenaje a la animación que al universo mágico de Ghibli. Muestras de escenas y de su elaborada composición, ejemplos palpables de técnicas de filmación de la animación, fotogramas por doquier y abundantes retazos de personajes, escenarios y momentos inolvidables, adornan cada rincón de los entresijos de una casa-museo deliberadamente desordenada, caótica y que fantasea con la imaginación desde sus escaleras espirales hasta los vitrales, desde los pomos de las puertas hasta las lámparas.

Unos pocos pasos en el interior del museo y un@ ya se encuentra totalmente imbuido de la magia y la ternura de la animación de Ghibli, muy en particular en su estancia más impactante, la más cercana a la entrada del mismo, que es todo un homenaje a la animación artesanal, mostrando didácticamente las bases de la misma y la mecánica esencial de un proceso complejo y ciertamente mágico. Aunque la magia, en realidad, está condensada en la instalación giratoria que, con centenares de reproducciones en miniatura de los personajes de Mi vecino Totoro en múltiples posturas ligeramente diferentes las unas de las otras, muestra de manera palpable y evidente la magia de la animación como un servidor jamás había visto. Cíclicamente, la instalación empieza a girar y con ella todos los muñequitos y cuando una luz estroboscópica empieza a tomar cartas en el asunto, los personajes súbitamente cobran vida correteando por el escenario mientras l@s asistentes no salen de su asombro, especialmente al detenerse de nuevo el mecanismo y comprobar, sin atisbo de duda, que aquello que se movía no eran más que pequeños muñecos inanimados de plástico repartidos por un decorado inicialmente estático e inmóvil. Sencillo pero efectivo, emocionante y ilusionante.

En otra estancia, una versión enorme del gato-bús de la misma película, de peluche, hace las delicias de l@s más pequeñ@s, que se encaraman a sus lomos afelpados mientras sus padres les observan con ganas reprimidas de subirse.

En la planta superior, una tienda convenientemente embutida de todo tipo de memorabilia remata las ilusiones de l@s visitantes, que se acaban llevando camisetas, fotogramas, tazas, juegos, imanes y postales de sus imaginarios preferidos.

Y como cúlmen de la visita, una sesión cinematográfica de una pieza corta inédita del maestro Miyazaki, de un catálogo amplio de cortos nunca xhibida o editada en DVD, que redondea la visita del más exigente de los fans.

Es, en definitiva, un museo que sabe jugar como nadie su gran baza, la fantasía acumulada de l@s asistentes, esa ternura reprimida con el paso de los años a la que las películas de Miyazaki tan hábilmente consigue despertar, cinta tras cinta, fantasía tras fantasía.

NOTA: El Museo Ghibli limita el número de visitas por día, con lo que un@ no puede presentarse en el museo y esperar que le dejen acceder. Cada primero de mes, el museo pone a la venta las entradas disponibles para el resto del mes y estas tan sólo pueden comprarse en algunas máquinas de vending que se encuentran en las tiendas “combini” de 24 horas. Si queréis comprarlas, pedid ayuda a algún dependiente, puesto que las instrucciones están completamente en japonés.

I love the film My Neighbour Totoro.

As assignments have started piling up with the semester nearing its end, I have started stress knitting, as always. This time around there is a strict theme to what I’m knitting, it is all Totoro related. First I tried to knit this Totoro hat, but I ran out of yarn at the very end. It was a yarn from my stash, that I had bought a long time ago and couldn’t get any more of.

After that failed, I made the mistake of typing Totoro into the pattern search in Ravelry. First I contemplated knitting these Totoro mittens, because mittens are one of my absolute favourite things to knit, but then while going through the rest of the pattern designer, Brella,’s patterns I saw her Chibi Totoro pattern. I had the right yarn in my stash, and the right needles, the only logical thing to do was knit two in one day and completely neglect the big projects I should be working on.

First I made one on a set of 4mm DPNs.

Unstuffed 4mm Totoro

Then I stuffed him with polyester fluff.

4mm Totoro after stuffing

Then I gave him a face. His eyes are lopsided, but I somehow like them. He reminds me of the Totoros in the border of the opening titles of the film.

4mm Totoro with eyes

I think the reason he’s such a strange, but somehow lovely, shape is because I think I skipped the part of the pattern where rows 8-13 were supposed to be knit all stitches. I’m not sure though.

I also made one on 2.25mm needles. Here he is.

Smaller Chibi Totoro

I had never made a bobble while knitting before this pattern, and I’m quite impressed with the method. It’s a bit magic-y.

Bobble tail on the 2.25mm Totoro

Any other fans of the film who want to be mildly traumatised should look at this theory on the meaning of the film.

Il secondo albo di Greystorm “Il gigante dei cieli” ha confermato la mia delusione, pessimo sotto tutti i punti di vista (a parte i disegni). Quindi penso proprio che non ne comprerò altri.

La situazione di Caravan non è brillante, ancora un altro albo incentrato sul passato (seppur più interessante degli altri, qui c’è anche una velata critica all’italia degli anni ‘70). Quello che mi preoccupa sono i personaggi, davvero troppo stereotipati e non si perde mai occasione per aggiungere altri clichè.

Ieri sono andato al Fnac, reparto fumetti, ho sfogliato Eisner, Miyazaki (belli i volumi di Nausicaa), altri autori meno conosciuti, beh, siamo lontani anni luce dal meccanismo Bonelliano, ormai davvero “ingabbiato” nella riproposizione di personaggi scontati ma soprattutto senz’anima.

I just re-watched Miyazaki’s version of Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle, and it’s churning up this strange and unwilling fondness for anime in me. (It did the first time too, but I dismissed it as an aberration.) Even though Miyazaki changed vast chunks of the plot, even though the characters have the giant eyes and tiny noses of anime that normally annoy me so much, and even though strange airships blimped around the entire time, I can think of few other book-based films which I actually liked enough to watch again. Certainly no comic or fantasy-based film has ever left me anything except indignant and nit-picking: there were always a million small things, and often some huge things, that rang clangily hollow. The only exception (Even movie-Watchmen’s slavish adherence to all things except the giant squid seemed, somehow, to lack the intense hysteria of the comic) is Sin City, which exactly replicated the filthy noir quality that I loved in the comics, where what you couldn’t see in the heavy darkness loomed large over what you did see.

As with Sin City, the implication by enshrouding that there is an entire world that is new and strange to the reader seems to work very neatly in Howl’s Moving Castle. What happens, I suspect, is that animation has an abstract quality that makes it so much easier to watch and re-imagine in the watching than an actual film. So even though Calcifer the fire demon (for instance) didn’t look like the Calcifer in my head, he was an excellent abstract of said Calcifer-in-my-head.

The whole realism thing is, of course, inherent to (non-cartoon) cinema, and perhaps I should stop watching altogether. Films are obsessed with maintaining the appearance of reality*. Any self-respecting film would try to show you what a Calcifer would look like if Calcifers existed in our world, bound by its optical laws. Except, in doing so, it misses the entire point of fantasy which is this: Calcifer does not and cannot exist in our reality. This is why he is a fantastic character. The only place where Calcifer exists and should exist, is elsewhere. This is why however magnificent FilmAslan is, he is still just a regular, if largeish lion, prancing around on screen. In making him realistic, most of the abstract qualities that hover around BookAslan (Aslan as stand-in for god, Aslan as inherently just, and Aslan as inherently unknowable) are obliged to go away, because there is no visual way to portray them realistically, and even swelling orchestral soundtracks can only do so much. Animation is, for me, particularly suited for rendering fantasy, because of the fact that it works with symbols and metaphors, rather than representations of reality: it gives you rough ideas, but the actual work happens in your head – as it should, to be truly fantastic.

Anyway. Back to Miyazaki. The characters are all very nicely distinguished, in the way they speak and move and hold themselves. Howl himself was completely unlike the way I’d imagined him, with his strange air of vulnerability. I liked, too, the way that it was his body that was the site of desire, not hers: both YoungSophie and OldSophie are more or less shapeless, wrapped up in stout shoes, layers of petticoats and voluminous gowns, while Howl’s body is depicted in slim, delicate lines. It’s Howl who is so obsessed with his own attractiveness that he sobs himself into a pool of green snot when his hair turns orange; later, he wanders around in a towel that slips coyly off, and it’s Sophie who determinedly does not to ogle. Howl’s vulnerability is constantly in play, in his repeated exhaustion, and the increasing frailty of his bird-form. In contrast, Sophie, even when aged, is satisfyingly solid. She is bursting with determination and stamina: she stomps determinedly up the very long and steep palace steps carrying a dog, even taking the trouble to pep-talk the Witch of the Waste through the climb; she cleans constantly, and she looks after all the other characters. Though Sophie’s degree of agedness careens wildly, and though she is voiced by two separate actresses (one for young and one for old Sophie) she is somehow tangibly always the same person: its her persistent vitality that holds the whole story together.

The war scenes combine just the right amount of realism (the blimps and the images of burning buildings are realistic in content, though not in form) and pure comic-ness (by comic-ness I do not mean comedy: I mean the quality of being a comic) as when the blimps have wings and let loose strange annoying giant insects, along with their bombs. The fact that none of this is actually in the book, made little difference: it is still a beautiful, intuitive and thoroughly original film which somehow manages to be Howl’s Moving Castle, in addition to all the other things it is.

So yes, I take back many of the uncharitable things I may have said about anime in the not-so-distant past. It can pretend to be as cutesy as it wants:  now that I know that it’s secretly all sharp steel and strange flourishes underneath, I won’t be fooled again. Sometimes, anyway.

*Even Bunuel and co could only manage to show us what would happen if our reality was a bit more fluid and random than it is. It was still, quite clearly, our reality – our pebbles and eyes and people and scorpions. Sometimes dreamlike, but never entirely other.

Time Out’s list of the 50 greatest animated films, curated by Terry Gilliam, shows a large number of films from Studio Ghibli, including the top film! These are good times fo Ghibli, at least in Spain:

• Ponyo on the cliff was broadly played during the summer an has just been released on DVD, as is Whisper of the Heart (#21).
• Totoro (#1) is being shown in some cinemas (ok, only two in the city of Madrid), and the DVD is due on December 9th.

Ghibli movies in the list:

• 1. My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
• 6. Spirited Away (2001)
• 12. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
• 21. Whisper of the Heart (1995)
• 26. Princess Mononoke (1997)
• 30. Porco Rosso (1992)

You can find the complete list below, with links to Time Out reviews (when provided by them).

This is the list. As all lists, it can be quite controversial. Nevertheless, I think all of the films belong to the list, except the ones with [*]. For these, I strongly disagree their placement (remember, it’s the best 50 animated movies ever!).

1. My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
2. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) (1937!!!)
3. The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)
4. Fantasia (1940)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Spirited Away (2001)
7. Yellow Submarine (1968)
8. Belleville Rendez-vouz (2003)
9. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
10. Robin Hood (1973)
11. Bambi (1942)
12. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
13. Dumbo (1941)
14. Gandahar (1988)
15. The Iron Giant (1999)
16. Akira (1988)
17. The Brave Little Toaster (1987)
18. The Jungle Book (1967)
19. When the Wind Blows (1988)
20. Pinocchio (1940)
21. Whisper of the Heart (1995)
22. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) & Coraline (2009)
23. Perfect Blue (1997)
24. The Incredibles (2004) [*]
25. Watership Down (1978)
26. Princess Mononoke (1997)
27. ‘Antz‘ v ‘A Bug’s Life’ (both 1998)
28. Persepolis
29. The Secret of NIMH (1982)
30. Porco Rosso (1992)
31. WALL-E (2008)
32. Kirikou and the Sorceress
33. Aladdin (1992)
34. Ghost in the Shell (1995)
35. Beavis and Butt-head Do America (1996)
36. The Lord of the Rings (1978)
37. A Soldier’s Tale (1984)
38. Ratatouille (2007)
39. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres
40. Animal Farm (1954)
41. FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)
42. Fritz the Cat (1972)
43. Happy Feet (2006)
44. Waking Life (2001) / A Scanner Darkly (2006)
45. Transformers – The Movie (1986)
46. Paprika
47. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
48. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within [*]
49. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
50. Heavy Metal (1981)

Some films missing, in my opinion:

• Vampiros en la Habana, the best animated movie in Spanish I’ve ever watched.
• Ghibli’s Kiki’s delivery service, Castle in the sky, at least (perhaps, Nausicaä, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo).
• Disney/Pixar’s Monsters Inc, Lilo & Stitch

Avant de partir (je jure sur la tête de Totoro que je n’écris pas sous l’influence d’une écoute prolongée de Roch Voisine) …

Encore un tout petit courrier avant le vol (bien trop) long courrier ?

Juste histoire de communiquer mon hystérie totale mon immense joie à l’idée d’aller faire des concerts “dans ton pays loin là-bas (oua-oua)”. Soleil asiatique dans mon cœur qui mérite bien un beau homard, et rien d’autre.

Mon bureau de luxe reprend son envol demain.

Et cette fois-ci, le contrat semble d’emblée plus juteux que il y a un an, jugez plutôt:

Comme on chanterait chez Maurice: “Asie, Asie, Asie …”

Pendant qu’on fête la chute d’un mur, j’irai probablement crapahuter sur un bout d’un autre en Chine, fêter mon anniversaire à Osaka, pester que je ne peux pas rejouer la scène de “Lost In Translation” à Kyoto par manque de temps, et, entre autres japoniaiseries, visiter enfin les Studios Ghibli dans la capitale. Il y aura du thé, des bols, de la bière, des fêtes et de la musique partout. J’espère arriver à trouver le temps de vous faire partager un morceau du voyage (genre…  les ergots, dans le poulet, vu que j’aime pas trop)

D’ici là, ma valise n’étant pas faite du tout du tout (mais comme j’ai réussi à arrêter un nombre minimal de paires de chaussures et de jeans, le plus dur est donc accompli), je vais cesser de batifoler devant cet écran.

Je vous laisse avec une madeleine de saison, qui me terrorisait quand j’étais petite.

Bonne danse macabre, les petits ! Moi ce soir, le potiron, je le mange (rire satanique!)