Lorna wrote: ↑December 31st, 2023, 9:41 amGod Bless you, Mr. International,CinemaInternational wrote: ↑December 30th, 2023, 6:24 pmI see what you in re: HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE . I liked it (wonderful vocal performances, great animation and musical score), but the story is very odd, often extremely so, and it didn't let up on that front until the last few minutes....Lorna wrote: ↑December 29th, 2023, 7:33 am I also tried watching HOWLS MOVING CASTLE, but checked out 45 minutes in.
The animation was gorgeous, and it was wonderful to hear Jean Simmons and Lauren Bacall voice their characters in what were probably two of their last roles, but holy s*** this movie was WWWWWeeeEeeIiiiIiiirrrrrrrd.
In the 11 months I was away, I maybe watched 5 or 6 movies because I COULDN'T BEAR not having anyone to talk about them with- and a subset of that is when you see something that is HIGHLY PRAISED (#158 IN IMDB'S TOP 200?) and you're just like "seriously, what the **** was that about, Alfie?"
ONE so NEEDS to have ALFIE chime in and offer that although he liked it, [WHEN IT CAME TO THE PLOT] frankly, he has no ****ing clue either...
and you feel a little better about the world.
IT IS BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK AT, and I think there might be something of a youth skew in terms of how people react to it (I can see younger people liking it more, while the over 40 crowd shouts at clouds about it)
seriously though, this movie made me really mad though. EVEN MORE SO after i read on WIKIPEDIA that it was meant primarily to be a criticism OF THE THEN-RAGING INVASION OF IRAQ in 2003...now, DON'T GET ME WRONG, I am not now or nor have I ever been a fan of that decision, but that's not why I'm mad. i'm mad because i have no ****ing clue exactly what part of this Victoria Era/steampunk/STAR WARS/dimension traveling through a wall-mounted SIMON GAME bullshit- i'm sorry, I meant to watch my language, but I can't because I'M STILL MAD- sorry- what part of this bull**** was supposed to be about the IRAQ INVASION!!!!!
If you told me with a straight face that FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL! KILL! is actually advocating for ESPERANTO to be adopted as the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE I could not be any more GOBSMACKED.
it is truly a powerful movie that can continue confusing you long after you checked out.
Few notes on this....
A) Didn't know that it was supposed to be a retort to the Iraq War and I am not exactly sure if there is anything in the film that directly points that way, unless its maybe the two witches who try to cancel each other out (the one voiced by Lauren Bacall later has a run-in with one voiced by Blythe Danner, that makes the former powerless and looking like a cross between a Jell-o mold and a human cousin of Jabba the Hutt). I know the animation director on this refused to go to the 2003 Oscars over the war issue, so maybe that's where all this started from. The bizarre story originated though from a British book.
B) I know you don't like Roger Ebert at all, but I think it says something that he rated this film as a near miss, a thumbs down, noting the beauty of the animation, but he thought the story was not up to par. And he usually adored this director's work, and I think this was the only bad review that Ebert ever handed the director.
C) I'm sorry that being cut off from the people here caused you to retreat from films. It seems such a pity to me, and I wish that the site had been more agreeable so you could have joined us earlier....( I hit the films and TV shows so hard this year that I might have watched enough for the two of us. I am currently gunning to finish up the series LA Law. I have 24 episodes left....)
D) Sigh, the IMDb top 250. It skews too modern, and part of the time I don't see what people see in some of the films. I know you said in the past that you retreated from new films after a crushing experience in 2007.... Well after a bad experience online, outside of doing Oscar duty every year, I rarely go beyond the late 90s. But there is too much flash, too little substance in the IMDb list. So many modern films are empty.... And I wish people on IMDb and Letterboxd would recognize that.