I’m not crying…you’re crying…

Whoa, that was an experience.  Grave of the Fireflies was the next film in the list of Studio Ghibli movies, written and directed by Isao Takahata, and this one was a heart-aching tale of two young kids in Japan trying to survive the final few months of World War II.

Grave of the Fireflies tells the story of two young siblings, Seita and Setsuko, whose father was fighting the war and whose mother was killed in an enemy firebombing of their village.  This put brother and sister alone to face the struggles of life compromised by war.

We know what type of story this is going to be with the heart-wrenching opening to the film.  After that, the remainder of the movie is told in flashback, showing us how the situation arrived at what it did.

Older brother Seita took his little sister Setsuko to live with their aunt after the bombing.  The aunt was not a very empathetic individual towards the children.  In fact, there were not very many adults portrayed in this movie as being kind or helpful.  The adults could not find the time to help these children, showing that their own personal problems outweighed the needs of others.

Isao Takahata has claimed that this movie is not an “anti-war” film, but it would be difficult to argue that the themes of Grave of the Fireflies are not directly influenced from the consequences of the war and its effects on society and its point of view of the results.

The animation is haunting throughout the movie.  There were a couple of moments (Setsuko at the doctor) where I literally gasped at the images shown me.  The metaphor of the fireflies was both beautifully and painfully portrayed.

Grave of the Fireflies is unlike most animated movies you see.  It usually shows you the power of the underdog overcoming odds planted before them.  This film gives you the anguish of seeing the other side of that coin.  This is a masterpiece.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky was the first official animated film from Studio Ghibli, and it was one that I had a difficult time following, though it was not the film’s fault.

The DVD that I had had multiple glitches on it when I was watching this movie, especially about the first 20 minutes or so of the film.  That caused a real problem with understanding exactly what was happening and who these characters were.

Directed by EYG Hall of Famer Hayao Miyazaki, Castle in the Sky is a beautiful looking film, with amazing artistic animation and cool character design.

Once again, I have been watching these movies with the English dubbing done when Disney released these Studio Ghibli movies in the early 2000’s.  This film included the voice work of Mark Hamill, James van Der Beek, Anna Paquin, Cloris Leachman, Mandy Patinkin, Andy Dick, and the iconic Jim Cummings.

This tells the story of an orphan girl named Sheeta, kidnapped by government agent Muska, but rescued by young boy named Pazu.  Sheeta has a magical amulet that will lead her back to her ancestors home, a floating city of Laputa.  There is a race to find the city among a group of characters to gain the powers of the land.

Colonel Muska is a top notch villain in this film.  I love the work of Mark Hamill, who brings such a menace to his voice work.  I know that he was not the original voice, but he is such a great voice over actor that I cannot imagine that he did not make this better.

The film is beautiful to watch and has a lot of amazing action here too.  The finale is excellent and filled with drama.

It is unfortunate that the DVD did not work properly for me because this seemed to be another great animated film.

Wow.

This was simply epic.

Adapted from a manga, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is an utter masterpiece.  This film came out just prior to the actual creation of Studio Ghibli, but most consider this film to be within its list of animated fares.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a science fiction/fantasy film that takes place in an apocalyptic future where the earth had been blazed during the Seven Days of Fire, creating a poisonous forest named the Toxic Jungle, protected by giant insects and creatures called Ohm.

The remaining humans have formed into several communities around the land.  Princess Nausicaä is a beloved girl in the Valley of the Wind, who glides on the air like an eagle, and whose peaceful nature makes her a perfect communicator with animals and other creatures.

I love when a character is heroic and respects the lives of everyone.  One of the greatest thing about Spider-Man to me was how he would go out of his way to save anyone, even the villains who were coming to coming to kill him.  This is the same way I see Nausicaä.  She was putting her life on the line by trying to make everyone safe.  Early in the film, we see her give into the rage and how much of a kick ass hero she was.   Yet, from that point on, she decided that she would not lose control again. No more killing.  Killing enemies is the easy way and Nausicaä has gone to the hard way at every point.  She is a true heroic figure.

The version I watched was dubbed into English and featured voice work from Patrick Stewart, who plays Lord Yupa, another one of the most original and epic fantasy characters I have ever seen (and one of the most epic mustaches in animation history).  There is Shia LeBeouf, Frank Welker, Uma Thurman, Chris Sarandon, Edward James Olmos, Alison Lohman and Mark Hamill.

The animation of the film is beautiful.  There are times when I was just staring at the screen with my mouth open at the beauty of the images.  There may have been some choppy animation a few times, but the choppiness was easy to ignore when it was such a gorgeous artistic masterpiece.

Miyazaki does an unbelievably wonderful job creating the universe this story takes place within.  He reportedly wrote the manga it was based on too, but I had not read that, and I was able to follow the story without knowing it.

I was pulled into this story early.  Nausicaä is an amazing hero that was so easy to cheer for and her inspirational ideas make her a role model.  Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is suddenly one of my favorite animated movies of all time.

If you have not seen this before… find it.  It is worth the effort.

Okay, I’ve figured out what is going on here.

After some further research, I realized that there are three movies included on this collection of Studio Ghibli films that actually preceded the start of Studio Ghibli.  There was the film Panda, Go Panda, which was where the two Studio Ghibli founders, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, met.  And then there was this film, which was Miyazaki’s directorial debut.  Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro

This seemed to be one adventure in the life of master thief, Arsene Lupin III, called Wolf in the English dubbed version.

After a casino robbery, Lupin and his partner, Jigen Daisuke, discover that the money they had stolen was counterfeit.  So they resolved to find the counterfeit ring and take it over for themselves.  They discover that the culprit behind the fake money was Count Lazare de Cagliostro, who is preparing to marry the princess.

However, Lupin found himself in a place of familiarity and was determined to save the princess from the clutches of the evil Count Cagliostro.

After watching the Panda, Go Panda film, I had hoped that the list of movies that I was going to be watching was not going to be targeted to the really young.  That film felt like it was meant for 5-6 year olds, give or take.  It was not too long into the Castle of Cagliostro that I realized that my concerns would not be a problem.  The story was immediately a more mature type and there were a few moments in the animated film that I was shocked at what they showed. That was a relief.

The film was very funny, and full of excitement and charm.  All of these characters are warm and enjoyable.  Lupin was a captivating rogue and you really get to like the protagonist despite his criminal enterprises.   You knew there was a deeper reason for his desire to rescue the princess, but the film does a great job of keeping that tidbit for awhile.

Cagliostro was a menacing villain and seemed to be on the verge of success the entire time.  Everything this jerk does makes you want to see him get his at the end all the more.

From what I researched, apparently you can see a lot of Miyazaki’s style in this film.  Again, this was his directorial debut and it helped him move toward the Studio Ghibli collaboration.   There was so much goodness in this film that it has helped set up my excitement for what is coming next.

I have decided to start on my next summer watch, and that will be the Studio Ghibli films from Japan.  I had gone looking for a way to watch the films, which was harder than I thought.  I had planned on HBO Max, but there was trouble with that.  I did find a collection of DVDs on Amazon so I ordered them.

When they arrived, I took the first disc and started with the first film.  It was actually not on my first list of Studio Ghibli films.

According to Wikipedia, Panda Kopanda, which is the Japanese title, is translated officially into Panda, Baby Panda, but is known in North America as Panda, Go Panda.

This was a couple of short films featuring a young girl, Mimiko, whose Grandma left her, but she found a baby panda named Panny and his father Papa.  The three of them lived together in Mimiko’s house and hijinks ensued.

Doing some research, this was written by EYG Hall of Famer Hayao Miyazaki, who directed most of the Studio Ghibli films.  This was where he teamed up with Isao Takahata, and they would found Studio Ghibli.

Having watched this first collaboration, I will say that it is cute and sweet.  It would be very much for children.  I was not expecting this because it felt very much targeted at a very young child.  I had anticipated the animated Studio Ghibli films to be more mature in a sense and I certainly hope that this is not the path of the rest of these movies.

To be fair, I am sure that the target audience of this would love it, but for me, it was too childish.

However, there is a ridiculously catchy theme song- Panda Go Panda Go Panda….

As I continued to fill up my eventual Top 10 Jack Nicholson films, I watched About Schmidt, one of the top 5 films in the combined list of Matt and John on the Top 10 Show.

I had thought I had seen this one, but it was not too long into it that I realized that I had not.

After 42 years of marriage, recently retired Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) lost his wife Helen (June Squibb) very suddenly.  Warren was already struggling with his life, his marriage and his purpose, and this loss sent him into a downward spiral.    With his daughter Jeannie (Hope Davis) preparing to get married to a man Randall (Dermot Mulroney) whom Warren does not like.  Warren takes off on the road in his RV to go see his daughter.

Jack Nicholson gave a Oscar-nominated performance as the grief-stricken, lonely and sad man.  You can see the layers of pain and anguish hidden in the eyes of Nicholson.  He has an early film rant about his deep feeling about his wife that gives you an idea about Schmidt.  Warren Schmidt could be such a negative character, but Nicholson imbues him with such life and emotion that you cannot help but connect with him.

There are some great supporting performances in this movie as well.  Kathy Bates played Roberta, Randall’s mother and dominates every scene that she is in.  Howard Hessman played Larry, Randall’s father.  I love June Squibb in just about every movie she is in and, though she had little scene time, she makes a lasting impression in About Schmidt.

There is a lot of humor in director Alexander Payne’s film.  He combines the natural humor of the situation with the emotion of the moment in a beautiful and poignant manner.  They spend some wonderful moments with Warren on his travels to his former childhood home, to his college and a RV park.  The film is more of a character piece than a plot driven story.  We see how everything affects Warren and develops that character even more.

About Schmidt was a really wonderful movie that I enjoyed tremendously.  I am glad I got a chance to see this because of the Top 10 list because this is most likely a film that I may not have had a desire to go back and see.

I was watching the Top 10 Show this week and they were doing the Top 10 Jack Nicholson films.  I try to do a list of my own for each week’s topic, but, when investigating, I was surprised that I could not come up with ten films from Nicholson that I liked.

However, I had not seen several and so I thought I might get a couple of more movies in his oeuvre watched so I could complete the list.  I decided to start with the highest film on John and Matt’s list that I had not seen, which also checks off one of those boxes of an iconic film that I had never seen before.

Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson as Jake “J.J.”Gittes, a private investigator who gets hired by a woman claiming to be the wife of chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) to prove that he was cheating on her.  When Mulwray is killed, Gittes discovers that the woman who hired him was a fake and that the real wife Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) had secrets.  Gittes began investigating the murder, which was connected to disputes in Los Angeles over water.

The story is complex and really develops over the course of the movie.  It is absolutely a movie where you need to give your complete attention if you want to understand what is happening.

Directed by Roman Polanski, Chinatown is a neo-noir crime film with a very complex mystery at its heart.  However, there is more than just the murder in this mystery with the film taking a couple of difficult turns along the way.

Jack Nicholson is the top of his game here and his presence truly drives the film along.  Faye Dunaway has great chemistry with Nicholson and stands out.  John Huston only has a few scenes in the movie, but you gain a deep hatred of him right away.  The performances as a whole are every bit as complex as the story that the movie is telling.

I am unsure how I feel about the ending.  SPOILER (if you haven’t seen the film after all these years) As Faye Dunaway is attempting to escape from John Huston, the police shoot and kill her, making the ending tragic as can be.  Apparently, Polanski wanted this ending and had conflict over one of the writers who had wanted a less tragic ending.  I am not confident how I liked that.  It did leave me feeling unsatisfied, if not emotional.

Chinatown is a certainly a classic film and I was pleased that I finally checked off this box.  It will certainly make my own list of Top 10 Nicholson movies.

Today’s big news that Warner Brothers has begun talks with Michael Keaton to resume his role of Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Flash film brought a great deal of excitement and anticipation to the DC movies.  It made me watch the film that started it all.

In 1989, Tim Burton directed Batman, starring Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jack Nicholson as The Joker/Jack Napier.  This film took the character of Batman in a different direction than he had been.  In the comics, Batman had begun to become darker, especially within the Dark Knight Returns mini series from Frank Miller.  The Joker had started to be portrayed as a more psychotic killer in the comics, The Killing Joke, which came out in 1988, a good example.

Burton’s Batman took the two Batman versions, the campy version from the 60’s TV show and the darker comic book version and combined them into a great movie compilation.

Keaton and Nicholson are magnificent in their roles.  Keaton was really considered poor casting at first, but he truly knocked it out of the park.  Nicholson was comedic and over-the-top, giving the Joker a ton of personality.  Of course, he was just playing Jack Nicholson with the volume turned way up.

Gotham City was as much of a character as any of the main actors in the film.  The city was dark and filled with crime.  The look of the film was pure Tim Burton design and lead to many movies following this one providing important details to Gotham.

Kim Basinger is fine in the film, but honestly, I think the Bruce Wayne-Vicki Vale romance is easily the weakest part of the film.  I did not buy these two falling for each other after one basic night.  And when Alfred (Michael Gough) takes her into the Batcave, well, that just was done to movie the plot along.  I liked her use here, but I would have liked for their relationship to have developed more than what it was.

Watching this again for the first time in a lot of years, I was impressed with how much it held up.  With the exception of the Vicki Vale relationship, I really enjoyed the movie.  In comparison to the more recent Batman flicks, Batman ’89 feels more campy than it did at the time of the release, but it does catch a nice balance between the two styles of the Bat.

The ending of the film is fabulous, taking place at Gotham’s 200th anniversary and ending up in the belfry of a church.  The final battle with Joker is just amazing and Nicholson steals every minute of it.

I personally see this as not as influential a movie as some other people do.  The third and fourth Batman movies following this slid into nearly total camp and almost destroyed the comic book movie.  I credit the Sam Raimi Spider-Man and the original X-Men movies as the true inspiration of the current comic book movie world.  However, that does not make Batman any less entertaining.

I recently watched the Neverending Story, a film from the 1980’s that featured a scene (the death of Artax the horse) that traumatized a generation.  However, there may have been one other scene that was more scarring to the youth of the 80’s than Artax’s death and it appeared in Transformers: The Movie.

That scene is, of course, the scene where the Autobots’ leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is killed in a battle with Megatron (Frank Welker).  There are countless children whose first concept of death came from this animated movie.

I remember where I was when I was watching this movie for the first time.  Prime dies int he first act of the film and it took the whole air out of the rest of the movie.  I disliked the film at the time because they were trying hard to introduce a bunch of new characters into the cannon, most of which were oddly colored and non distinguishable from the others.

Hot Rod (Judd Nelson) led the new characters, all voiced by well known actors, and he was the most distinct of the new Autobots.  Megatron was transformed as well into new bad guy Galvatron (Leonard Nemoy) and they introduced the epic villain Unicron (Orson Welles).

Most of the music is just horrible, but the song called “The Touch” is a perfect song for the moment and, of course, Dare to Be Stupid by Weird Al Yankovic was a great surprise.

Watching this again, the story is weak and the film never really builds on the emotion of the death of Optimus Prime.  The animation was not much better than the animated series from the 1980’s.

I just cannot understand the choice to basically toss aside all of the characters that was well known and loved from the TV show to introduce a bunch of new characters that would not last for long.  It would not be too long before Optimus Prime was brought back to life and the characters from this film are discarded.

I was a fan of the animated series, but this film not nothing to continue this.

This was the second time that I watched this movie.  My memory was of the first time figuring out what was going on.  On this second viewing, I liked it even more because I could notice set up that I did not see before.

It is 1954 and federal marshal Leonardo DiCaprio arrived on Shutter Island, an insane asylum, to investigate the escape of a prisoner/patient who had been committed because she murdered her children.  As he investigated, DiCaprio discovered that there was much more going on at this facility than was obvious.

I will protect the ending in this review so if you are someone who has not yet seen the Martin Scorsese film, you can still approach it with a blind eye.

This is well crafted and constructed.  The story works well and unfurls at a good pace.  There are several distinct, almost horror-like aspects here too and they all work in detailing the narrative of what is going on here.

Along with DiCaprio, the film features strong performances from Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, and Michelle Williams.  The acting is stellar here, especially since the performers are acting in a way that is meant to be interpreted differently later.

The film has some fantastic scenery and some beautiful shots, except for one point when DiCaprio and Ted Levine were in a jeep.  That was a painfully noticeable green screen.  Other than that, the film was beautifully rendered.

The mystery of the film is gripping and does a great job of moving you through the story.  It may be a touch too long, but that is a minor complaint.  You do have to pay attention for maximum enjoyment, which should not be a negative either.  I enjoyed Shutter Island quite a bit.

I consider myself a fan of Kevin Smith.  However, I have never been a huge fan of many of his movies (outside of Dogma which I love).  Most of the movies that he makes, I find okay at best.  I really love listening to Kevin Smith tell stories.  I am a fan of his podcast and his verbal skills.  He also seems to be a truly fine person.

Red State feels like a totally different film than most, if not all, of Smith’s oeuvre, and I enjoyed the switch up.

Three horny teenage boys head out in their community after finding an older woman on the internet that was willing to have sex with them.  Turns out, the woman was a member of the Five Points Trinity, the local cult lead by fundamentalist preacher, Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) and she drugged the boys and took them to the Cooper compound to be used in their religious ceremony.

ATF Agent Joseph Keenan (John Goodman) was also on the trail of Cooper, but for different reasons.  When all of the forces came together, all hell broke loose.

This movie kept me off guard the entire time because you never knew what was going to happen.  Every time it felt as if we were following a certain main character, that character winds up dying.  Nobody involved in the story felt like our hero.  They all felt like rotten people, whether conflicted or not.

John Goodman is the closest we have to a heroic presence in the film but he seemed to be concerned more with self issues than doing the right thing.  Admittedly, he was the most conflicted in the cast and Goodman gave a stellar performance.

Michael Parks is great as the charismatic cult leader.  It gives you a real idea of how these kinds of men are able to get, apparently, normal people to follow and commit atrocities in their name.  I feel that this character is all the more relevant in the world today as I can see pieces of certain leaders in his role.

The film is very violent and filled with gun play.  The seemingly randomness of the deaths during the shoot out speaks to the chaotic nature of guns and how they can be damaging depending on who are using them.  However, the government forces are not shown as the hero here either as their overall goal in the situation is anything but moral.

The ending is controversial, but I found it very funny and ironic.  The ending is absolutely an example of a deus ex machina, a literary technique where “an unexpected power or event saves a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device.”  Many times this technique can be seen as a negative, but, when used properly, it can be a wondrous event.  This ending may feel to some anticlimactic, but I found it to be a perfect end to this film.  It turned out to be as random as the rest of the film had been.

Red State does not follow your expectations of how this type of movie should be and that is part of its charm.  The film has solid performances and keeps the audience confused and uncertain about how this is to be resolved.

Checked off another box this afternoon.

For the first time, I watched what is undoubtedly a masterpiece from the classic director Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai.

This movie has inspired multitude of films over the years from The Magnificent Seven to the Avengers.  You could literally see the development of what would eventually become tropes in action movies worldwide begin in Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai.

A village of farmers in 16th century Japan are being threatened by a group of bandits, who are preparing to pillage the village.  To protect themselves, the village decided to hire a group of samurais to protect them.  The samurai warriors were assembled and fought the bandits.

Toshirô Mifune played the rapscallion rogue Kikuchiyo.  Takashi Shimura played Kambei Shimada, the older and respected leader of the samurai.  Isao Kimura played the young and untested son of a wealthy family, Katsushirō Okamoto, who talks Shimada into taking him on as an apprentice.  

All of the samurais received a certain spotlight in the movie, and not just one from the action.  Each character had important pieces to their story that really brought each man to life.  You did care for each one, so when they were in jeopardy, you felt it.

There were other characters among the farmers that received character bits as well.  Keiko Tsushima played Shino, a daughter of one of the farmers who wants her to be a son.  She has a relationship with Katsushiro that leads into struggles for both characters.

This is a spiraling epic of a movie, lasting over 3 and a half hours (including an intermission breaking the film into parts).

The battle scenes in this are absolutely beautifully shot and masterfully planned out.  Each moment is important to, not only, the story, but to each character’s development as well.

There is no doubt this is one of the great movies of all time.