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The Last Movie(s) You Watched... (quick one or two sentence reviews)

Ender said:
My Neighbor Totoro is exactly as I remember it: all vibes, no plot. Can't say I'm a fan of this approach. The movie never really gets an ending, it just kinda stops.
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Yes, Mr. Jameson, I am dead serious. Not a terrible movie with fundamental issues like the one you're from, but the issues here come more from what it doesn't have than what it does. It's still a pleasant time but not a good story. It starts strong but goes nowhere with it.
 
Ender said:
Yes, Mr. Jameson, I am dead serious. Not a terrible movie with fundamental issues like the one you're from, but the issues here come more from what it doesn't have than what it does. It's still a pleasant time but not a good story. It starts strong but goes nowhere with it.
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You keep using that word, story. I don't think it means what you think it means.
 
Nah, quoting The Princess Bride is all well and good. His jokes aren't quite condescending, though perhaps in the same ballpark. However you're 100% right about them not putting up any real argument as to why I'm wrong.

EDIT: I take it back. This is 100% condescending.
 
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Across the Spider Verse. Very exciting. The first had the advantage of introducing the overall comic-book-y style of Miles' world with the mix of other styles of specific characters from other worlds, but the second pumps that collage element (of mixing styles all incorporated into one style), to the max. I found substance there too, enough for me to be fully invested in the plot, anyway. A really fun time. See the first one first though if you haven't. They're very connected, not a good entry point.
 
jasonflippy said:
You know, even if you had a point you're doing a bad job of making it. You just sound condescending. Have a discussion or don't, but don't be rude.
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It would be condescending if this wasn't the second time he's disparaged a Studio Ghibli film. I could understand if it was just Nausicaa he was bothered by. Everyone runs into a well-loved movie they didn't like at some point. But now My Neighbor Totoro has no plot? Condescension has nothing to do with that.

Besides, if he believes My Neighbor Totoro doesn't have an ending, let alone a story, he missed the point. It's not about fancy creatures or cat buses. It's about two girls trying to adapt to their new environment. It didn't go nowhere with it. It's a fallacy to complain that it didn't have an ending just because it didn't resolve everything like most shallow Hollywood blockbusters do. Open ended? Sure. Nothing was resolved? Far from it.
 
Eyepainter said:
this wasn't the second time he's disparaged a Studio Ghibli film.
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I literally posted on the same page of the thread about how much I love Castle in the Sky.

My Neighbor Totoro doesn't have a plot. That is my opinion. It's just a series of vignettes that don't really go anywhere. There's no resolution because the movie never set up any sort of conflict to revolve. And believe me, I don't think the movie's unwatchable garbage, I just think this is a singular hard to overlook flaw in an otherwise solid picture.

Eyepainter said:
It's about two girls trying to adapt to their new environment.
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You say that like this is some hidden meaning I didn't get. It's not. I just don't think the film does much with either.

Eyepainter said:
It's a fallacy to complain that it didn't have an ending just because it didn't resolve everything like most shallow Hollywood blockbusters do.
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Saying I want a cliché Hollywood ending just because I asked for basic storytelling structure of conflict and resolution is either in bad faith or you genuinely don't understand my perspective. It's borderline strawmanning. And no, open-ended is not the same as not having an ending.

I'm sorry my opinion offends you. You'll just have to live with it. You are 100% being condescending here and I'd like you to stop.
 
In my opinion, the plot often isn't what Ghibli movies are about if that makes sense. Not trying to be pretentious. There is not a lot of plot in Totoro, that may be true. You are free to feel how you feel about that. But I think having a lot of plot is not always important for a story. The story is not really about the girls seeing an imaginary Totoro thing to cope with their mother being sick while they explore a new house. It's more about the innocence of childhood, and has some really good, believable portrayals of kids with their boundless imagination, much of it shown from their perspective. It's a journey of its own type. Again, you are free to feel how you feel about that, positive or negative.

Add to that, there's no big needlessly scary threat, and bam, it's the perfect movie for my kid. Perhaps if you don't see anything for you there, you'll feel differently about it eventually, if you end up at some point feeling great nostalgia for childhood, or end up becoming a parent.
 
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I actually like everything else about the movie. The characters are likeable and the setting is oh so cozy. And when I say I need conflict I don't mean we need some evil real state developer who wants to plow down Totoro's tree or anything like that (oh god, I can really see it now, total Hollywoodification), I just mean that there needs to be some sort of conflict to resolve. Otherwise everyone ends the movie exactly the same as how they started, and I start to wonder what the point of it was. We don't need a villain. The conflict can be as simple as a disagreement between characters. But no, everyone gets along flawlessly. The movie could easily have been about a rift between Mei and Satsuki, and indeed it dips its toes in that at the end, but never follows through on it.
addiesin said:
the girls seeing an imaginary Totoro thing to cope
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Let's not break out the tinfoil hats.
addiesin said:
It's more about the innocence of childhood, and has some really good, believable portrayals of kids with their boundless imagination, much of it shown from their perspective.
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Well yes, and it does that really well, but that doesn't really negate my point.
 
Ender said:
Let's not break out the tinfoil hats.
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What do you mean by this? You think my plot summary is insubstantial?

Ender said:
Well yes, and it does that really well, but that doesn't really negate my point.
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Negating your point is not my goal in this conversation where we say how we feel about a movie. I just don't think what you want is necessary, because I think the film has enough conflict, nothing wrong w that. I disagree.
 
^I can totally see someone either loving My Neighbor Totoro or totally not getting why people talk it up so much. For sure, there are things in a ton of anime that are just speaking to people with a certain set of cultural understandings and history and vibing with it in a different way than maybe a general audience would. Miyazaki's films tend to find a widely-accepting international audience just based on their whimsy and characters alone, and then if someone connects with more than that, it's just a bonus. The other Studio Ghibli directors have had much less success connecting internationally, and I think it's because you really need to understand more of the subtleties of Japanese life and the mentality that they are addressing. I get a lot out of films like Ocean Waves or Only Yesterday for example, but they're very "inside baseball". I've never lived in Poland or Italy on the other hand, and there are some movies from there that I'm sure I'm just not connecting with whatever they're trying to communicate.

To me, knowing that Hayao Miyazaki's own mother nearly died from tuberculosis and had to live in a summer home like in Totoro helps to clarify the "conflict" of the film. The girls are too young to truly grapple with what's happening, and Japanese people tend to not really deal with conflict directly anyway. The "plot" of the film is about them trying to retain a sense of childhood while their parents are trying to hide that they're dealing with the most horrible thing you can imagine: a mother potentially leaving her two small children. Miyazaki, for the record, has debunked the fan theory that the girls' adventures are all in their head, and he views Totoro as a forest god who connects with the innocent spirit of the girls. In contrast to Miyazaki's later work, which is aimed more at teens and adults, Totoro is a warm hug of a movie. It's telling kids "Don't worry, even when your parents are struggling, the world is a kind place and you can find goodness in it." It's perhaps a simplistic, rosier theme than many adults can connect with, but Miyazaki in '88 wasn't making the adult Ghibli film. That was what Takahata was doing with Grave of the Fireflies.
 
I'm actually only going through the Miyazaki films. Nothing against the others, I just wanted a manageable load.

I'd like to think I have a good grasp on Japanese culture by this point but obviously I'm not Japanese and have never been there, so I'm obviously not gonna get everything. I don't think that's the case here, however.

A warm hug is honestly the best way to describe My Neighbor Totoro.

addiesin said:
What do you mean by this?
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mnkykungfu said:
Miyazaki, for the record, has debunked the fan theory that the girls' adventures are all in their head
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In what way does that quote explain the tin foil hats comment? It's a common and valid interpretation of the plot. The little tidbit Miyazaki allegedly said in that quote is not explicitly stated in the film. You think the magic was real? That's a valid take too. The truth is, it's left open to interpretation. Neither is a crazy conspiracy theory you need a tin foil hat to believe.
 
So.... continuing my monthlong Japanese marathon, here's a movie I didn't vibe with:

Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning (2021)
I've hit up a film from each of Japan's most famous samurai characters this month, and Kenshin has had a popular live-action series that I hadn't seen. I generally find live-action adaptations of anime to be abysmal, but I gave this one a shot since the original OVA (Rurouni Kenshin - Trust & Betrayal) is one of my all-time favorites. This film does not even approach the level of pathos, beauty, and coolness that the early anime has, and I really struggled to finish it.

Macross Frontier (2008)
I appreciate an anime series that can tell its story in only 25 episodes (looking at you, One Piece!) so I was happy to give this popular reiteration of Macross a shot when I saw the whole thing is up on Youtube. Sadly, "reiteration" is the key word, since so much of this (including almost the whole ending) is rehashed from the original Macross series. I think I'm expressing a common sentiment when I say I was really rooting for the two pop star girls in the love triangle to just run off with each other.

Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case (2023)
In some ways, this fits squarely among other Netflix true crime docs, but it is extremely Japanese in the interviews and the slow, deliberate unveiling of what turns out to be an insane case involving over 400 women. This story was near and dear to my heart from my time living in Japan, and the doc does a basic but effective job of presenting it. I'd highly recommend reading any of the books on the case instead though.
 
mnkykungfu said:
Rurouni Kenshin: The Beginning (2021)
I've hit up a film from each of Japan's most famous samurai characters this month, and Kenshin has had a popular live-action series that I hadn't seen. I generally find live-action adaptations of anime to be abysmal, but I gave this one a shot since the original OVA (Rurouni Kenshin - Trust & Betrayal) is one of my all-time favorites. This film does not even approach the level of pathos, beauty, and coolness that the early anime has, and I really struggled to finish it.
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I'm a big Kenshin fan. I haven't seen either of the Netflix movies from a couple years ago, but I do highly reccommend the first live action film. It really streamlines the earlier parts of the story that are more episodic and childish in the anime. I don't care for the second or third movies though, because they retell the Kyoto arc which is already perfect in the anime.
 
Deadpool (2016)

Got to rewatch the duology with my new roommate. It's crazy to think that this film is now 7 years old. With that said, this film has held up surprisingly well given what kind of film it is. I love the simple, straightforward storyline amidst the insanity on the screen. Ryan Reynolds proves that he was perfectly cast for this role, and the satirical tone the film takes towards superhero movies is even more relevant now. Highly recommended.

Deadpool 2 (2018)

This one is sadly not as good. One too many subplots, and a disappointing lack of political incorrectness keep this one from being as memorable as the previous outing. But with that said, it's good enough that I'd still recommend it. I saw the Super Duper Cut this time around, and between the two versions, that's my personal preference. The theatrical did a terrible job of clarifying what the main plot was, and the Super Duper fixes that issue, even though I do agree it's not as humorous as the theatrical.
 
^I remember when DP2 came out, people were fanning all over it, saying it was "even better than the first one!" It's amazing to me how people just don't get what a film is doing until they do it again, and the 2nd time is where everyone sees the mechanics for what they are, for better or worse. Case in point: the Phase 1 MCU movies were far better than people gave them credit for as Phase 2 and 3 were rolling out. After Phase 4, people are finally starting to go back and realize that a lot of their complaints about the Phase 1 films were petty, and the average later ones have far more to complain about. And Deadpool 2 falls right in line with that.
 
mnkykungfu said:
^I remember when DP2 came out, people were fanning all over it, saying it was "even better than the first one!" It's amazing to me how people just don't get what a film is doing until they do it again, and the 2nd time is where everyone sees the mechanics for what they are, for better or worse. Case in point: the Phase 1 MCU movies were far better than people gave them credit for as Phase 2 and 3 were rolling out. After Phase 4, people are finally starting to go back and realize that a lot of their complaints about the Phase 1 films were petty, and the average later ones have far more to complain about. And Deadpool 2 falls right in line with that.
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I'm not sure I agree with your thoughts on phase 1, but I'll agree with everything else. And it seems to be getting only worse these days. I swear every movie that gets hyped up automatically gets the "best movie ever" response now. I still remember how angry people were with me when I hated on The Super Mario Bros. Movie this year, and now that the dust has settled, and people have rewatched it, I'm starting to get some respect now. A decade ago, I would only see a movie if the critics loved it, and/or the public was blown away by it (such as with something like The Lego Movie, for example). Now, I'm at that point where every movie ticket is a gamble.
 
Eyepainter said:
I'm not sure I agree with your thoughts on phase 1, but I'll agree with everything else. And it seems to be getting only worse these days. I swear every movie that gets hyped up automatically gets the "best movie ever" response now. I still remember how angry people were with me when I hated on The Super Mario Bros. Movie this year, and now that the dust has settled, and people have rewatched it, I'm starting to get some respect now. A decade ago, I would only see a movie if the critics loved it, and/or the public was blown away by it (such as with something like The Lego Movie, for example). Now, I'm at that point where every movie ticket is a gamble.
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I've always been rather anti-critic, as I find that the people who have to watch movies nearly every day tend to start looking for things out of films that a general public just does not connect with. Critics almost uniformly hate or dismiss the movies that do the biggest box office numbers, usually complaining they're formulaic and boring. Meanwhile, most people who just go to the cinema once a month (or less for people with busy jobs and families) totally do not want some foreign film with a culture they don't understand, language that translates unnaturally, and "subverts expectations" by having a ten-minute shot of someone eating pie as the climactic scene.

While the industry has increasingly grown to just do huge numbers through carpet-bomb marketing strategies and name recognition to cut through the noise, I think criticism has also gotten a lot weaker and more subjective. So many "professional" critics are now just writing whether they liked a film or not, rather than trying to find what the film accomplished on its own merits. Roger Ebert remains one of the most beloved critics of all time because, generally speaking, he was fine giving a film 3 stars out of 4 but writing that it wasn't for him. He wasn't out there trying to find a hot take or just parroting "film canon". Critics now might have more to justify their box office complaints, but they sure as hell have a lot less original to say about it themselves.
 
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