New Hayao Miyazaki movie: Kaze Tachinu

[greg]

No word of a lie that a dozen families left during the course of the screening taking their discomforted children with them...

The assumed context is that someone lied about children being upset over such a benign movie. Who was doing the lying was not stated. The thought of somebody fabricating a story of kids being discomforted is what I thought I was agreeing with. I was unclear as to whether this is something you personally witnessed, nor am I certain why you would call this a "lie." I'm not intending to offend you or call you a liar. I completely understand why kids will get bored with the movie. Discomforted, well, maybe.

[robodaz]

Two countries separated by a common language maybe...

Well, for me the assumed context was in direct reference to the topic, which was my own observations of the event. Still, never mind eh.

[gaijinpunch]

You saw families leave a movie that is probably not aimed at kids... definitely not like his last outing. Can you say w/ conviction why they left?

[_D_]

Had to look up the name Reginald Mitchell. I recall seeing the movie based on his life as an aircraft designer. TCM runs it every couple months. Was very interesting...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034734/

[_D_]

All this controversy reminds me of The Simpsons episode with their version of Walt Disney:

"He was the most beloved man in America until he released his 1936 feature "Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors!" after which he fell into disfavour with the American public."

[llj]

Ghibli's biggest successes--starting from Princess Mononoke to Secret of Arrietty, arguably was as big a curse as it was a blessing. Because most people today were introduced to Ghibli through their fantasy films, there's an expectation that all their films should be straight fantasy. That's why films like Whisper of the Heart sort of baffle audiences and critics who weren't familiar with Ghibli prior to Mononoke. Stop me if you've heard this line before: "While Whisper of the Heart is charming enough, it doesn't have the wondrous FANTASY and COMPLEXITY that Ghibli's better films do." Review after review, you'll bump into a variation of that line. Even the late Roger Ebert had fallen into that trap in recent years. I remembered he mentioned recently that he expected to be "swept away" into an imaginative setting every time he walked into a Ghibli screening. I sometimes wonder what he would have given Only Yesterday had it come out in 2011. (He never got to actually review Only Yesterday, but he did mention the film in a very positive manner about 10 years ago)


In a certain way, the tepid critical reaction to some of the non-fantasy Ghibli films possibly says more about people's expectations of what Ghibli "should" be like rather than the quality of the films themselves.

Now, Japanese audiences should know better. They've known Miyazaki longer than people in the west have. He's made films for older audiences before. He's written or directed films that had almost no fantasy in them before. But Japanese audiences (like Americans) have notoriously short memories, so I wouldn't be surprised if their memories of Miyazaki only go back as far as Mononoke. Everything prior to that is a fog, with the exception of Nausicaa and Totoro.

[greg]

Well, Roger Ebert had some pretty poor tastes in movies, giving very generous ratings to rather terrible movies. Gene Siskel was always the more intelligent one. Ebert was easily swayed like a normaltard with some pretty dumb films.

I always thought that Whispers of the Heart was full of some rather excellent fantasy. It only existed in the imagination of Shizuku, but it was very vivid and surreal. The imagination of Jiro in The Wind Rises is similarly very vivid and surreal, to a point.

So I was there on opening day, and I didn't see any kids crying or anything. My friend's daughter fell asleep, and that's what I'd read before I saw it. It puts kids to sleep. After the first few days, I am sure the film's reputation for not being a children's movie should have kept parents of kids with hyperactive disorders (or just short attention spans) away from this movie. I can only imagine some kids being scared of the giant monsters, demon possessions, amputations, and decapitations of Mononoke Hime. This recent movie is very tame in comparison, but people should know by now (Japanese particularly) that Miyazaki makes more than just Totoro and Ponyo-style stuff from time to time. I really don't pity any parents whose children gave them grief in the theaters because of this film.

[llj]

To Ebert's credit, he was one of the first mainstream proponents of anime as an artform. He was very vocal in his praise of Akira, Wings of Honneamise, Ghost in the Shell and other early anime films that made it to the U.S. Siskel was probably closer to the "normal" person's tastes, but I feel like Ebert had a broader knowledge of film in general because he didn't necessarily look down on so-called lesser film genres. He did, after all, write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

I think he was an interesting critic in his younger years, open to new ideas and genres. However, I do think his open-mindedness began to narrow in his later years, and he began to fall for more sentimental, crowd pleasing films and was more easily "Oscar baited" by self-important "message" films. The rebellious Ebert of the 80s and 90s was pretty much gone by 2005. I don't have anything against Ebert for liking Garfield and Tomb Raider--I have a long list of "guilty" pleasures myself. I do, however, feel like in his later years he would overpraise an unsubtle Oscar-bait film like "Precious" over some more interesting films. He was more open to thinking outside of the box in his earlier days as a critic.

[greg]

You're right. My opinion on Ebert has been shaded by his latter years, and his questionable tastes in movies. Siskel, now that I think about it, was more of a snob and a perv, while Ebert appealed more to a general audience. Ebert was more of an ally, but that was a long time ago.

[llj]

I remember when they both reviewed Totoro and Ebert really sung its praises and pointed out the virtues of its gentle pace and observational quality. He hadn't seen many Miyazakis up to that point (actually, I don't think he saw any before) but he "got" exactly what it was going for. Siskel, on the other hand, gave it a thumbs down and said it was a bit slow and boring. While time has obviously vindicated Ebert's review of Totoro, I think Siskel was probably closer to what the general 90s critic and audience member would have reacted to Totoro. It was a kids' movie, but by American standards it might as well have been an arthouse kids' movie.

So yeah, I think Gene had a better disposition for representing the "general" public, but Ebert sometimes was able to see the virtues of a film that weren't always apparent.

As for perviness in Gene, well, Ebert did admit that sometimes he gave Angelina Jolie movies a higher grade because he thought she was hot. (Not in those words, but it was dancing along those lines.) The funniest is when his co-critics (both Siskel and Roeper) would call him out on it and he would say "Well, what's wrong with that?"