(no subject)
New default icon, because I'd really had Anne much too long. And as you can tell from the icon, I have now seen Mirrormask.
I'm so terribly in love with Stephanie Leonidas it's not even funny. I felt quite guilty during the film, but then I looked her up on imdb and found that she was only four years younger than me and quite legal, so now I don't feel guilty anymore. She's such a pretty, pretty girl.
(People keep saying she looks like Helena Bonham Carter from certain angles, which she does, but from other angles she looks rather like Daniel Newman. Which made me start looking him up to try and find that TV show he guest-starred in, with the singing telephone operators. I couldn't find it, but I did find "Endgame", a thriller where, according to a review: "The camera loves Daniel Newman and we get many shots of him showering, shirtless with leather pants and sometimes with just underwear." My, my, he's certainly grown up since Robin Hood, hasn't he?)
Anyway, back to Mirrormask, and remaining on the completely shallow level of actors and their relative prettiness. Gina McKee is always fabulous and got to play three parts, which was very nice. As for Jason Barry, he was hidden behind a mask during most of the film and not quite my type even when he wasn't, but my God how I love his accent. I just adore men who say "disgoosting".
As for the film itself, it was astonishing on a purely visual level and truly an honour to McKean. And I love the Sphinxes. (Or is the plural just Sphinx?) On a story level, however, I felt it was a bit too familiar. Coming from Hollywood, I wouldn't have expected more, but truth be told I'm a little bit disappointed in Gaiman.
Not that the story was bad, mind you - the ending was too abrupt, and it probably didn't help that I had just read this Nick Lowe essay linked by ajhalluk, but that's all. (I feel Lowe rather misses the difference between archetypical literature and "bad" literature, but he still affected me.) It's a very apt telling of the story, but I couldn't help thinking that just because it's produced by the Hensons, it doesn't have to be quite so much like Labyrinth.
Seriously. Sarah wishes for her brother to be taken by goblins. Helena wishes she'd be the death of her mother. Both get their wishes. The villains blame both for the dangers that befall them in the strange lands. The people the Sarah and Helena meet are mirrored in the ordinary world. Their sidekicks betray them, then have a change of heart. (I think that was what got to me the most - knowing a second before it happened that Valentine had betrayed Helena, and then knowing a second later that he'd come back anyway.) They're both enchanted to forget about their missions. Both are helped by little red books. And so on.
And as I said, didn't like the ending - poor Anti-Helena had to return to her horrible mother, Helena returned to the circus, and the whole rebellion storyline became nothing at all. But by and large, it was a delightful film, and I'd love to see it again, show my friends even.
I was stopped on my way out of the theater and asked for a rating out of five. I rated it four, and I stand by that opinion.
I have also seen Howl's Moving Castle, which was the festival's opening film. I found that it helped a lot to think of it as Hauro no ugoku shiro or as Det levande slottet rather than as Howl's Moving Castle, because it had so little in common with the original. (It certainly made the people who complained about the changes to Lord of the Rings look like spoiled crybabies.)
In a way, it's fascinating to see the changes, because it shows such differences in how one views a story. The fairy-tale tropes had all been removed, and instead of having the clash between Ingary and Wales, Miyazaki had incorporated that clash into Ingary, making it into an early 20th century world, just full of magic. But beyond that, there were the changes to the characters, and most importantly to the love story.
Howl and Sophie are such obvious types to me, like Benedick and Beatrice Charlie Alnutt and Rose Sayer, Spike Thomson and Lynda Day, Han Solo and Leia Organa. They're the slacker and the bitch, the bantering couple (and they keep up the barbs even after they've fallen in love).
Hauro and Sophie are nothing of the sort. Sophie is an insecure girl who can't trust her own beauty, and Hauro a man who needs to be rescued from his own monstrous self - quite like Haku in Spirited Away. He may have moments of vanity and cowardice, but he's not a womanizing playboy who toys around the dark arts because he thinks he's too clever to get caught.
And while I love Howl and Sophie in a way that I'll never in a million years love Hauro and Sophie, it's interesting that Miyazaki made these choices. That his idea of a love story obviously doesn't encompass the "dislike at first sight" trope that is so common in Hollywood.
To all intents and purposes, the film is a Miyazaki story, with all the beauty and splendour of one, and with all his trademark archetypes. As such, it works very well - and I love the slapstick humour of Heen. *wheezes asthmatically*
I was supposed to see Bubba Ho-tep yesterday, but it was cancelled and will show Friday night instead. Stay tuned!
I'm so terribly in love with Stephanie Leonidas it's not even funny. I felt quite guilty during the film, but then I looked her up on imdb and found that she was only four years younger than me and quite legal, so now I don't feel guilty anymore. She's such a pretty, pretty girl.
(People keep saying she looks like Helena Bonham Carter from certain angles, which she does, but from other angles she looks rather like Daniel Newman. Which made me start looking him up to try and find that TV show he guest-starred in, with the singing telephone operators. I couldn't find it, but I did find "Endgame", a thriller where, according to a review: "The camera loves Daniel Newman and we get many shots of him showering, shirtless with leather pants and sometimes with just underwear." My, my, he's certainly grown up since Robin Hood, hasn't he?)
Anyway, back to Mirrormask, and remaining on the completely shallow level of actors and their relative prettiness. Gina McKee is always fabulous and got to play three parts, which was very nice. As for Jason Barry, he was hidden behind a mask during most of the film and not quite my type even when he wasn't, but my God how I love his accent. I just adore men who say "disgoosting".
As for the film itself, it was astonishing on a purely visual level and truly an honour to McKean. And I love the Sphinxes. (Or is the plural just Sphinx?) On a story level, however, I felt it was a bit too familiar. Coming from Hollywood, I wouldn't have expected more, but truth be told I'm a little bit disappointed in Gaiman.
Not that the story was bad, mind you - the ending was too abrupt, and it probably didn't help that I had just read this Nick Lowe essay linked by ajhalluk, but that's all. (I feel Lowe rather misses the difference between archetypical literature and "bad" literature, but he still affected me.) It's a very apt telling of the story, but I couldn't help thinking that just because it's produced by the Hensons, it doesn't have to be quite so much like Labyrinth.
Seriously. Sarah wishes for her brother to be taken by goblins. Helena wishes she'd be the death of her mother. Both get their wishes. The villains blame both for the dangers that befall them in the strange lands. The people the Sarah and Helena meet are mirrored in the ordinary world. Their sidekicks betray them, then have a change of heart. (I think that was what got to me the most - knowing a second before it happened that Valentine had betrayed Helena, and then knowing a second later that he'd come back anyway.) They're both enchanted to forget about their missions. Both are helped by little red books. And so on.
And as I said, didn't like the ending - poor Anti-Helena had to return to her horrible mother, Helena returned to the circus, and the whole rebellion storyline became nothing at all. But by and large, it was a delightful film, and I'd love to see it again, show my friends even.
I was stopped on my way out of the theater and asked for a rating out of five. I rated it four, and I stand by that opinion.
I have also seen Howl's Moving Castle, which was the festival's opening film. I found that it helped a lot to think of it as Hauro no ugoku shiro or as Det levande slottet rather than as Howl's Moving Castle, because it had so little in common with the original. (It certainly made the people who complained about the changes to Lord of the Rings look like spoiled crybabies.)
In a way, it's fascinating to see the changes, because it shows such differences in how one views a story. The fairy-tale tropes had all been removed, and instead of having the clash between Ingary and Wales, Miyazaki had incorporated that clash into Ingary, making it into an early 20th century world, just full of magic. But beyond that, there were the changes to the characters, and most importantly to the love story.
Howl and Sophie are such obvious types to me, like Benedick and Beatrice Charlie Alnutt and Rose Sayer, Spike Thomson and Lynda Day, Han Solo and Leia Organa. They're the slacker and the bitch, the bantering couple (and they keep up the barbs even after they've fallen in love).
Hauro and Sophie are nothing of the sort. Sophie is an insecure girl who can't trust her own beauty, and Hauro a man who needs to be rescued from his own monstrous self - quite like Haku in Spirited Away. He may have moments of vanity and cowardice, but he's not a womanizing playboy who toys around the dark arts because he thinks he's too clever to get caught.
And while I love Howl and Sophie in a way that I'll never in a million years love Hauro and Sophie, it's interesting that Miyazaki made these choices. That his idea of a love story obviously doesn't encompass the "dislike at first sight" trope that is so common in Hollywood.
To all intents and purposes, the film is a Miyazaki story, with all the beauty and splendour of one, and with all his trademark archetypes. As such, it works very well - and I love the slapstick humour of Heen. *wheezes asthmatically*
I was supposed to see Bubba Ho-tep yesterday, but it was cancelled and will show Friday night instead. Stay tuned!