Spirited Away

[Finnegan]

now let me preface this by saying that i'm a relative miyazaki n00b. I've now seen this, mononoke, laputa, and castle of cog. Being an animation student myself, this film is both inspiring and overwhelming in it's sheer scope and beauty.

i am amazed by this film. It's at all times beautiful (in terms of art and story), fun, creepy, odd, and flat out bizzarre... and absolutely fantastic. Creativity is bursting out of the seems of this movie. It takes turns you'd never guess... has some of the most beautiful backgrounds i've ever seen in an animated film (and i study layout in school). The character animation has such sensitivity, subtlety, and expressiveness to it that the only thing that compares to it is a disney movie in terms of performance of character. This isn't about static frames and loops like most anime... this is a work of passion and beauty. Sure, it's rather odd at times... but in the context of the world that miyazaki creates here, it's quite easy to digest said bizzare occurances... it all just works! Everything suits what preceded it, and what procedes it. The sheer amount of characters painstakingly animated in the frame on any given shot is mind boggling. The dragon... THE DRAGON... the way it whips and flails is so beautiful... THIS IS HOW A DRAGON SHOULD MOVE!

There is a scene amidst a bunch of pillows in which characters are diving, hiding, an tossing through em.... this scene nearly gave me an anurysm... there were soo many objects being animated that were interacting with every other object, the mere thought of animating this made my head want to explode (a la CSI: Miami)

i saw it tonight at a 2 screen theater in menlo park... that was oddly thx certified, and quite amazing. What suprised me the most was that this was the subtitled version with a japanese DTS-ES sound track. Kinda crazy that i saw the subbed version since disney threw down all that moolah to dub this mutha... exec produced by john lassetter nonetheless... kirk wise too i think.

anyways... if you have any reservations about seeing this film, throw them away... it's a fantastic trip into a fantastic world that miyazaki has created. Without a doubt this film will win the best animated oscar this year. Nothing even remotely compares to it. See it, enjoy it, and tell them FINN sent ya.

this film goes up to an eleven!


=FINN=

[E]

I just saw it tonight. Great movie!

[whibbage]

miyazaki is my hero, and chihiro is a beautiful movie. Get the artbook, stare at the still frames... they'll make your hand hurt just lookin' at em!!! The scene where the witch puts her office back together after ripping it apart in the beginning... every single item in that scene was individually animated! the love that was put into that film is so apparant, as is all miyazaki movies. I've seen them all but one... doh (my neighbors the yamadas). Pompoko has some really crazy animated sequences as well. Remember in laputa when the castle was crumbling and you could see every single brick dislodge itself? Yeah... that's studio ghibli for ya. I could go on forever about how much I love miyazaki... ::sigh::... ::stares at the souvenir friend gave her from the ghibli museum:: ;onei;

[JeremyW]

Is this a kids movie?, does it have songs in it?

[Paul M.]

It's coming to a theater close to my house!!!!

WORD

[FIG]

I will have to go see it.

[Akira X]

Originally posted by Masque
Is this a kids movie?, does it have songs in it?

**** no, and hell no.

[Chris Piers]

It's at a theatre less than a mile from my apartment so I will probably go see it at some point.

[Inkthinker]

Originally posted by Akira X


Is this a kids movie?, does it have songs in it?



**** no, and hell no.

Well, I dunno about the first part... Studio Ghibli made this movie for children, but certainly one that adults should check out. It's a movie about a child, and certainly far superior to anything else out there as far as material that involves children.

It's for kids, but better than most so-called "mature" fare out there. Think of some of the best novels written for children before people decided that kids should be stupid... like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or Tom Sawyer. And I mean the original texts, as opposed to the idiot versions which I shall not be purchasing for my children, ever.

And it has no songs in it. This is Ghibli, not Disney. Heck, even Disney's policy these days is "more killin', less singin'!" Did you see the body count in Atlantis? Yeesh!!!

[Ragelion]

Saw the trailer for it..I want to see it!