Categotry Archives: Movie Reviews

Spirited Away is an incredible masterpiece of a movie. The art, direction, cinematography, and animation quality were intensely good. Even the dubbing was fantastic, and I very seldom like dubbing.

It begins in a car. And we all know what happens then. Well ok. most of us know what happens then.

“excuse me….i think maybe you’ve forgotten me back here. could i have some water? it’s very cramped. I can’t see or feel my toes. Have you seen them? maybe could we move some of these boxes? i think i’m allergic to flowers. is anybody up there? excuse me?…..”

Chihiro is a very whiny child. Just like the one in the actual car on the actual I-5 so long ago. And she’s bratty. But over the course of the movie she starts to grow up and take responsibility for herself and to save her parents. Even there are some semi-frightening scenes in this movie, it is still one whose target audience is actually children. Miyazaki said in an interview about SA that he wanted children to learn through watching one little girl who is left alone in a scary place and how she counters her own fear and makes new friends. And even finds love with a gorgeous fun water dragon. (laughs. Ah Michele and her incessant and improbable love of anime boys.)

There are so many really good parts to this movie and I don’t really want to give away any more than I have because I think everybody should see this movie.

THIS MEANS YOU, UNCLE SAM.

It’s even better than Princess Mononoke. It’s like a cross between the scary/mystical of PM and the cutesy of My Neighbor Totoro. But most of all it’s just a wonderful, wonderful movie. And it’s currently playing in the Dome. So go, go, GO!

French Site

US Site

IMDB Site

Amazon box set for sale

man, i always want to have more time to write these things and i never actually do. sucks ass. let me just say for now that this movie was, i thought, really good. and not just because jake gyllanhaal was in it, although that was definately a plus. i thought some of the camera work was interesting. particularly this was evident in the packing scene when all of a sudden they switched to a hand held camcorder to film jennifer aniston’s hasty packing and unsettled state of mind. parts of the end i felt were wholly unecessary. and jennifer aniston’s complete corruption of a texan accent and frequent slippage away from even faking it was kind of awful. but on the whole i really thought this movie was a good job. it’s portrayal of small time life and the overbearing sameness of it was presented really well. some of the writing was exceptional–the ironic twist of phrase and occasional quick flinging of the come back or the softly muttered expressions of dismay and disgust with life. or even jake’s constant outbursts about people not getting him. while at work he is surrounded by powder puff girl iconography.

my fave rave part of the movie:

in the car when jake has just seen jennifer sleeping with bobo (hwee he was so good!) and she tells him to calm down:

“i can’t calm down! maybe if i was a slut like you and could calm down all over town, but i’m not!”

baby, you can calm down all over me anytime. shit, he’s sex-bomb.

p.s. that’s his sister maggie

whose movie secretary will soon be out. hoo boy. wanna see that.

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for your reading pleasure/amusement i give you the noir script i wrote for my film class. it is bad. what can you do? i still got an A, so i think you can imagine how little i care. you can even read the teacher’s comments at the bottom.

read it

marina–if you ever find your way to this site and actually read this–here’s looking at you, kid. hwee.

surf lingo! hee hee hee! who are they kidding? this movie was awful. it was so awful. i can’t even describe how awful it was. if only i could get my hands on a copy of the script….well all thier talk of ‘killer waves,’ ‘awesome pipes,’ and ‘bliggity blob flog bob’ aside. the plot! holy shit. let me paraphrase a scene for you of the budding romance between the surfer chick and the football jock from the mainland.

her: tell me what i should do!’

him: you know what you need to do.

her: no! no i don’t. that’s why i’m asking you. i need you to tell me what to do.

him: be the girl on the beach.

her: what?

him: the girl i met on the beach.

her: what would she do?

him: she would never ask some guy to tell her what to do.

her: (thoughtful face)

scene end.

BWAHAHAHAHA!! it is even more priceless when you consider the fact that they’ve known each other less than a week. and she already is dumping all of our emotional bullshit on him instead of talking to her best friends.

anyway this movie was horrid. you say you heard good reviews? ignore them. trust me on this. whatever you do, do not spent 8.75 on this movie. you could maybe rent it. or watch it when someone else rents it. (a la dustin and titanic). which is not to say that i am not glad that i saw it. cause i did really want to see it. but i think i had more fun laughing at it then actually enjoying it. mmmm but the bikinis were nice…..

i love you jack black!

this movie is actually really really good. the discussions of famous literature during english class (“what does it look like i’m speaking? french?”) are so brilliant. you’ll laugh your ass off. no really i swear. and jack black dood. the coolest of the cools. argh i love him so much.

i seriously though this movie was going to be so boring. but it was so incredibly good. the origination of “deep focus” the camera angles, lighting, acting, directing, it was all just unbelievably awesome. 2 hours later orson welles became my new hero.

soooo not as good as the original. they took pretty much the whole movie setting up the plot and then had to finish everything in like 10 minutes. it was kind of dumb. and the whole tommy lee jones got down and funky with an alien and this girl in the sequel is his kid and now will smith wants to make love to her till the break of dawn…trite trite trite. furthermore, what the hell happened with that woman tommy lee jones was so in love with and who he went back to live with at the end of the last one? totally kicked him out? what the fuck? anyway, dumb is my point. some good lines, mainly joshing on the original. feh.