Last week's viewings

[trekgeezer]

Taps 1981 - Teenagers defend their military academy from being torn down and turned into condos.

The most interesting thing about this movie is all the young actors. Timothy Hutton, Tom Cruise, and Sean Penn play the ringleaders. It's curious how Cruise and Penn became such big stars while Hutton's (who won a Oscar for his previous movie Ordinary People) career has kind of floundered around ever since.

Spirited Away (2002) - Hayao Miyazaki's animated masterpiece about a young girl trapped in a spirit world.

Miyazaki treats his characters like those in a live action film and really makes you care about them. Not enough can be said about the beauty of the animation in this movie, especially the extraordinary detail of  the drawings.

I watched the dubbed version on TCM although I could have stayed up until after 2 am watching the sub titled version, but  I have to get up to early for work. They also showed both versions of  Princess Mononoke the same night.


The Road Warrior (1981) - For some reason IFC was showing this Friday night and I haven't seen it uncut for a while, so what the heck.

Mel Gibson reprises Mad Max in what is close to the top of my list of best car chase movies made. This is also the movie that started an entire sub-genre of B level scifi movies, the post-apocalyptic world populated with punk hair-do leather fetishists fighting over some natural resource. As with most of these types of films, the first is always the best.


Caved In: Prehistoric Terror (2006) - Christopher Atkins plays a cave guide who gets talked into taking a group spelunking in an old salt mine. Little does he know they are actually crooks who killed the mines owner in order to get possesssion of it so they can find a deposit of giant emeralds.

Little do any of them know that the mine is infested with giant rhino beetles and they're hungry.

This is a run of the mill SciFi original, bad sets, bad CG bugs, and some less than stellar acting. Atkins is joined by Colm Meaney (I guess he didn't have an Irish indie film lined up and needed a car payment) and David Palffy (if you watch Stargate SG-1 you might recognize him as the Sokar, he also played the faceless Anubis).

[dean]

Miyazaki is incredible.  A few months ago a channel here had a Miyazaki marathon where every Thursday they'd play one of his films, and they're all good, with Mononoke my clear favourite.  Spirited Away is also really good, as are all his other flicks.  I highly reccomend all his work really.

[trekgeezer]

I posted it already, but Turner Classic is having a Miyazaki night every Thursday this month. They are showing the English dubbed and subtitled versions. Nine movies in all.

[dean]

We weren't showed the subtitled versions which was a shame.

Usually I prefer watching anime dubbed rather than subtitled, however I got a copy of Spirited Away which didn't have the english version, so I watched the subtitled one, and now for some reason I prefer that version over the English one.

Perhaps it's a matter of which one I watch first: different voices, whilst just as good, are still somewhat unsettling when you're used to a different version.  I guess that's like having a piano player play a slightly out of tune piano: the keys are the same, and the music still sounds good, but it's just different to the usual and therefore unsettling.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I too saw Spirited Away on Thursday.  My wife, myself and my daughter all loved it.  I have seen a bit of Miyazaki's work in the past, but this one had always slipped by me.

I think I'll check out some more of Studio Ghibli's work.  

[Neville]

I've seen most of Miyazaki's work, and "Spirited Away" is probably his most acomplished work, together with "Princess Mononoke". I love the way he pays so much attention to the small details that build a character or a situation, it's hard to find such things in 90% of films made, animation or live action.

If they show "Castle in the Sky", "Porco Rosso" or "Nausicaa from the Valley of the Wind", watch them, they all are top notch. Beware of the english version of Nausicaa, though, as it is cut aprox. 30 minutes, watch the Japanese cut instead.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Neville,

If I'm not mistaken, TCM will be showing Castle In The Sky and Porco Rosso in the coming weeks.

[odinn7]

Uh-oh...he mentioned Road Warrior and implied that it might not be the best of the series...deep breaths, deep breaths...god lord, I think I'm going to faint...

[trekgeezer]

Hey, I think Road Warrior is the best of the three Mad Max films. When I said the first is the best I meant Road Warrior was better than all the copy-cat crap that came out in the 80s.

[odinn7]

Ok Trek, I feel better now. I also can stop hating you...