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My Neighbor Totoro

My Neighbor Totoro

Okay, well that’s a little more like it. After some real animated turkeys, leave it to Hayao Miyazaki to finally give me something decent.

Let me just say up front that I don’t much care for anime. Most of it is overwrought nonsense aimed right square (near as I can figure) at your average angsty teen. Miyazaki’s in a category all his own, however. If Akira Kurosawa and Walt Disney could somehow produce an offspring, Miyazaki would be it. His Spirited Away won the Best Animated Feature Oscar a few years ago and he’s virtually worshiped by the guys at Pixar. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, get off your ass and start watching some DVDs pronto.

My Neighbor Totoro is a fine entry in the esteemed Japanese director’s body of work. It’s aimed at a younger audience than Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, but it’s a treat all the way through. Not only is it charming, it’s also one of the strangest, most unique kids films I’ve seen in quite a while.

I figure my sudden animation kick will continue for some time, but I don’t expect to see many better movies than “Totoro”.

Corpse Bride

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (Widescreen Edition)

Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton’s earlier stop-motion film, has something of a cult following. I am not a part of that cult. I remember being bored by it in the theater — most especially by Danny Elfman’s lackluster songs. On balance, Corpse Bride is quite a bit less engaging than “Nightmare”. If “Nightmare” has anything going for it, it’s its charming premise — the King of Hallloween having to sub in for Santa Claus. It’s a Rankin Bass holiday special with Burton’s particular brand of cheery gothic creepiness. “Bride” does not have a similarly engaging hook. It’s neither a good film nor a particularly bad one either — it just kind of lays there in that muddy middle region. And Elfman’s score is no better here than it was in “Nightmare”.

Corpse Bride is not anywhere near as bad as The Aristocats, but I’m about ready to see a good animated film now.

The Aristocats

The Aristocats (Special Edition)

Prior to tonight’s viewing, The Aristocats was the only Disney animated feature I’d never seen and, despite the fact that some of the studio’s finest animators worked on it, it’s hands-down the worst of the bunch. We’re talking almost zero entertainment value. Ah well, the boys were in the twilight of their careers after all. Still, I’d love to have that 76 minutes back.

Wall*E

The Movie:

Wall*E is a good movie. In fact, it’s very good, but I’m just not sure it’s 96% on rotten tomatoes good. There are several Pixar movies I like better and few I don’t like as well (The Incredibles being tops in the plus column and Cars being bottom in the minus). Maybe I was a victim of the hype going into this thing, but it didn’t fire on all cylinders for me. It’s beautiful to look at and I admire the hell out of the fact that it’s mostly told in pantomime (no mean feat to be sure), but there was just something lacking emotionally. A lot of the Pixar stuff really hits me on a gut level, but Wall*E never got there. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad film by any means, but Pixar’s just a victim of their own high standards, I guess. They can’t all be homers. This one’s more like a triple.

The Experience:

I saw Wall*E today through the good graces of ASIFA. The screening was held in the Frank G. Wells Theater on the Disney lot in Burbank. And thus was fulfilled one of my LA fantasies. If you’ve paid even casual attention to this site in the past, you know that a) I’m something of an animation nerd and b) Walt Disney is a personal hero of mine. The Disney lot isn’t typically open to the public so today’s visit was my first after eight years of living in the Los Angeles area.

I neglected to mention in my Kung Fu Panda review that that too was an ASIFA screening. They’re a fine organization and, if you’re an animation fan like myself, you should become a member.

[Pictured above is the animation building on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank. From 1940 through roughly the mid 1980s, this is where all of the Disney animated films were made.]

Update 7/1:

The only downside to the screening I attended was that it did not include Pixar’s new short “Presto”. Fortunately, iTunes posted the cartoon last night so I snagged it for 2 bucks and gave it a look-see. It’s really terrific. Fun, zippy animation and a decidedly 1940s-1950s studio cartoon vibe. One of Pixar’s best short offerings in years.

Kingdom of Heaven (Director’s Cut)

Kingdom of Heaven (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]

I liked Kingdom of Heaven. It recalls favorably such old-school epics as El Cid and Lawrence of Arabia. If I had a complaint it would be with the sullen and withdrawn quality of the hero played by Orlando Bloom. This dourness isn’t Bloom’s fault per se — the character is written that way and I’m sure the actor was directed to be low-key. Still, I would have liked him to display some genuine passion quicker than he does. He rallys at the end and gives a fine speech or two, but some of that patented Heston or O’Toole-style bombast would’ve been welcome earlier. Maybe this is a quibble, but in any case, it didn’t stop me from enjoying this beautifully-shot and well-written historical epic.

Speaking of the screenplay, I was a little surprised to see “Heaven” was written by William Monahan, the writer of The Departed. What a range this guy has, uh?

Juno

Juno (Two-Disc Special Edition with Digital Copy)

The first ten minutes of Juno feels like it belongs in a totally different movie. The dialogue is so stylized that it pops out at you — and I don’t mean that in a good way. Writer Diablo Cody seems to have had an agenda: 1) Create a hip, crazy new venacular 2) Have The Kids embrace said venacular 3) Watch as venacular spreads like wild fire and 4) Be the coolest ex-stripper turned writer in history. Well, thankfully, The Kids haven’t embraced Codyspeak (at least not that I’ve seen) and — after those overly quirky opening minutes — the writer settles down to tell a sweet, good-natured story which is free of both treacle and an overt political stance.

If you haven’t seen Juno yet, stick it out through those first ten minutes. It gets good after that, I promise.

Hill Street Blues — Season One

Hill Street Blues - Season 1

I was a little taken aback by Hill Street Blues for the first couple of episodes of this set. Although I’d watched it as a kid back in the early eighties, I don’t think I had an appreciation at that time for just how funny it was. Once I became comfortable with the rhythm of the show, the byplay between drama and humor, I was reminded of something I’m sure I knew even as a dumb thirteen-year-old watching the series in first-run: Hill Street Blues is an unusually good show.  It’s a bit of a cliche to say of a piece of art that was ground-breaking ‘Oh, it’s hard to appreciate now what it did in it’s time — we’re so used to the things which imitated it later’. I don’t think that’s true of “Hill Street”, however. I think you do  get the essence of what made the show unique even today. Maybe it’s the simple fact that a lot of the shows that have imitated it over the last twenty five or so odd years got the techniques down, but missed out on that serendipitous element — the alignment of great writing and great acting that happens so rarely in television. Hill Street Blues exudes that serendipity in almost every episode.

Hey, No Fair!

In the wake of Monkeybone and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, I thought we’d seen the last of Brendan Fraser — or at least I prayed that was the case. You’d think a long trail of box office turds would be enough to sideline this guy, but he’s rising from the grave not once but twice this summer. What gives? I figured that America (not to mention Hollywood) had finally wised-up. I mean what does Fraser actually have going for him other than fairly pedestrian good looks? He’s smarmy, overwrought and a shameless mugger. Every time I see the trailer for the new Mummy film, my right eye starts to twitch. You know the kind of little spasm I’m talking about, right? Don’t you hate that? You do, don’t you? Well, do me a solid… Boycott The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Make this joker go away once and for all.

Do it for me and my eye.

The Incredible Hulk

To sum it up quickly, I’d place The Incredible Hulk a notch or two below last month’s Iron Man. The latter film felt a little tighter and a little more complex, but what “Hulk” lacks in sophistication it makes up for in unbridled mayhem. The last twenty minutes of the film is quite literally nothing but a battle between two giant monsters in the streets of New York City. I haven’t seen a set piece like that since Superman’s fight with General Zod in the second installment of the Christopher Reeve series. Now I will say that a lot of that battle looked like a cartoon since it was nothing but CGI creatures and CGI environments, but I can’t hold it against the filmmakers too much — at least this wasn’t the angsty Ang Lee take in which there was barely any action at all. And speaking of that 2003 version, I thought Edward Norton made a much better Bruce Banner than Eric Bana. I mean Bana went on to play Hector, one of the greatest heroes of the Trojan war. It’s a lot tougher for him to pull off a scrawny scientist than it was for Norton (and I submit that you need that juxtaposition in order for the hulk-y transformations to mean anything).

All-in-all, The Incredible Hulk captured enough of the essence of the comic books to be a worthwhile journey. And I really enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.’s cameo at the end. I just hope Marvel can deliver on the promise of an Avengers film, or it’s all just a lot of slap and tickle.

Whatever the hell that means.

Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods

As most of you probably know, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had a long, rocky road to the screen. Over the last decade or so, several writers were brought onto the project and none of them ever came up with a script that brought a consensus amongst the Big Three (Lucas, Spielberg and Ford). That’s understandable, wouldn’t you agree? The Indiana Jones films occupy a rarified place in cinema history — at least one of them is a bonefied classic. So, we could certainly forgive the creators of that iconic character for wanting to take the time to get things just right. Except something went horribly wrong on the way to the multiplex. “Crystal Skull”’s most disappointing feature is its rather anemic and, frankly, nonsensical screenplay. Whatever the movie’s other virtues, it’s difficult to believe that Lucas and company thought that David Koepp’s script was ready for prime time.

One of those other writers who worked the Lucasfilm salt mines prior to Koepp’s version getting the green light was Frank Darabont. Darabont (who started his career on the staff of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) has written and directed such films as The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist. His version was called Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods. Word is, both Ford and Spielberg loved his take on things and were ready to proceed, but it was Lucas who put the kibosh on it for reasons which still remain murky. Anyway, “City of the Gods” was consigned to the scrap heap and the Big Three were forced to go back to the drawing board. Well, perhaps not all the way back to the drawing board. Even before “Crystal Skull” was released, Darabont was saying publicly that its striking resemblance to “City of the Gods” had him concerned. In fact, he thought that it looked close enough that he was considering going to the Writer’s Guild of America to seek screen credit. I haven’t heard whether or not he has done this, but his candor on the matter was very intriguing to me.

So, where am I going with all this? Well, as these things often do, Frank Darabont’s script for Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods leaked itself onto the internet yesterday. I’ve read it and I thought I’d throw in my two cents. First off, let me just say that Darabont could and should seek redress with the WGA. Koepp apparently lifted things from “City of the Gods” whole-cloth for “Crystal Skull”. Not just the overall structure, but whole scenes and set pieces. The truth is, I’m wondering what Koepp did at the end of the day and I’m resentful toward him for collecting what I’m sure was a handsome paycheck for borderline plagiarism and hack work. What’s different between the two stories then? Well, a lot of things, but two things which will probably be of interest to all you fans out there: 1) There’s no Mutt Williams. Dr. Jones has no son as far as Darabont’s story is concerned. 2) Karen Allen is actually given something to do in “City of the Gods” — she’s more active in the narrative and she’s more like the Marion Ravenwood you all remember from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This latter bit is a real shame to me given that I believe Marion to be, by far, the most interesting female in any of the prior three movies and it would have been nice to see her do more than stand around and mug for the camera (which, don’t get me wrong, Karen Allen does really well, but come on already). Also, the villains are different here too — while it’s still the Russians, there’s no Cate Blanchett. Now as much as I enjoy Ms. Blanchett, I did find her character in “Crystal Skull” to be a little on the cartoonish side. While he doesn’t quite make them compelling enough for my tastes, I do believe that Darabont gives us better (or at least more plausible) villains in his take on things. Really, that’s the primary thing he brings to the table versus David Koepp — his script makes sense. It’s lean, it’s tight and it’s got some snappy patter to boot.

I guess it’s pointless to ruminate over what might have been, but I’ve got to say that in almost every way, “City of the Gods” is a better Indiana Jones story than “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. One or two more polish drafts and Darabont would’ve given us an Indy IV that wouldn’t have been nearly as polarizing. I’d pose the question ‘What in the hell was Lucas thinking?’ but that’s become somewhat of a cliche in recent years, hasn’t it?

The Mist

The Mist

Frank Darabont is a talented filmmaker and The Mist is a well-made movie, but it’s so unrelentingly bleak and nihilistic that I have a hard time recommending it. The ending in particular took me to a place I had no desire to go.

If you want to hold onto your faith in human nature – or if you have kids – you might want to skip this one.

Finally.

If you’ve paid any attention to this site over the years, you probably know that I like to rag on DreamWorks Animation. Their movies are generally soulless — bogged down with obnoxious behavior and pop culture references which serve no other purpose than popping you out of the story. Well, I’m about to say something I never thought I would say: Kung Fu Panda is good enough that Pixar could have made it. That’s a left-handed compliment to be sure, but Pixar set the bar that everyone else doing this type of film has to clear. And “Panda” directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson manage to clear it. The movie has appealing characters, its sentiment is well-earned, the action is fantastic, and it’s quite possibly the best looking CGI movie to date. In fact, I think Kung Fu Panda is probably the best animated movie since Brad Bird’s The Incredibles.

For once I’m giving a DreamWorks movie an unreserved recommendation. Cue the apocalypse.

The Elric Saga

Dipping into the world of Robert E. Howard’s Conan as much as I have of late made me curious about another major figure of heroic fantasy, Elric of Melnibone. I still own the Daw paperbacks of this six volume saga — the ones I bought back in the mid-to-late 1970s (yes, I am old). Good thing too since the only version you can get nowadays is author Michael Moorcock’s “Special Edition” volume. It seems that, like our old friend George Lucas, Moorcock can’t resist revisiting and revising his most famous creation.

Since it had been roughly thirty years since I read these books, I was very curious how they’d stand up against Howard’s tales of the Hyborian Age. As it turns out, they stand up quite well. Elric is a genius creation, really. He’s an albino, weak of constitution, who gets his power from his sword, a sentient weapon that drinks the souls of its victims and funnels that vitality into Elric. There’s just something immediately compelling about that. And I guess you can surmise just from that description that this isn’t a story full of sunflowers and puppy dogs. No, Elric’s world is not a happy one and things do not end altogether well.

But, how does Moorcock’s creation fare in a head-to-head comparison with Howard’s Conan? Again, pretty well — bearing in mind that the two men are very different. Howard is better at plotting and there’s an immediate, visceral quality to his writing. While Moorcock sometimes seems to be making it up as he goes along, his prose is very elegant and his imagination is extremely visual. I would almost qualify these two works (probably the two most famous in the Swords and Sorcery genre) as different sides of the same coin. In fact, Moorcock has said that Elric was born because an editor said to him “give me something like Conan”. The writer followed this instruction more or less, but he brought his own particular sensibility to the work — and the genre was better for it.

After a thirty year gap, I was certainly pleased with what I read.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I blame David Koepp for most of the problems with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — and, believe me, the film has more than its fair share of problems. With movies like Mission Impossible (a flick which, I swear to God, should come with Cliffs Notes) and Jurassic Park: The Lost World as part of his resume, Koepp strikes me as a very workman-like screenwriter. His stuff lacks pizazz and, often, simple logic. The latter is certainly true of “Crystal Skull”. Despite the characters giving the appearance of knowing what they’re talking about, I defy anyone (most particularly Koepp himself) to explain to me the plot of this movie. It can’t be done. To put it simply, not all of the details of this little romp interconnect. Raiders of the Lost Ark, by way of contrast, is simple, lean and it makes perfect sense. Frankly, I’m a little shocked that Lucas, Spielberg and Ford would go forward with a shooting script this sloppily put together. After a nineteen year absence from the screen, you’d think they’d want to take a few more months to make sure their story was a little more air-tight.

That all sounds like a “pan”, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t entirely. For all of its shortcomings, “Crystal Skull” does still have a lot to recommend it. At least two of the action scenes are top-notch, the actors all acquit themselves well, and there are moments of pure nostalgic joy. Indiana Jones deserved a more auspicious return to cinema screens, but his latest adventure is still worth at least one trip to the multiplex this summer. You out there: you know you’re going to see it regardless of the reviews and the good news is you’ll have a fine time despite occasionally pausing to scratch your head in baffled disappointment.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The fact that I saw this movie roughly 24 hours ago and forgot to write a review should be a fair indicator of what I thought. It’s a sad state of affairs when the most compelling character in a flick is a sword-wielding mouse — even when that mouse is voiced by the always entertaining Eddie Izzard. “Caspian” isn’t a total wash — it’s got two or three really solid sequences — but mostly what it is is boring.

Take this review with just a pinch of salt if you like… You see,I never saw The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe so I suppose it’s possible this new movie might have paid-off more handsomely if I’d been better grounded in the lore. I doubt it though.


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