Studio Ghibli Reviews
Julien Sanchez-Levallois (2/21)

Castle In The Sky:
On Saturday I watched ‘Castle in the Sky,’ the Studio Ghibli film from 1989. It was really interesting. Miyazaki always does incredible science fiction. I like how, oftentimes, the main characters in Miyazaki’s movies are children. While the movies can be enjoyed by many, it seems that they were made around the whimsy and imagination of a child. I also like a well done platonic male and female friendship. It’s pretty refreshing when it’s done right.   

I give it an 8/10.
    
My Neighbor Totoro:
I’m continuing this a few nights later. Yesterday, I watched ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ after having not seen it for years. There’s this theory that Totoro is actually the god of death, preparing for the death of the main characters’ mother. I like that a lot. I liked the movie, but I felt like it needed something a bit more conclusive. When the movie ended, I wasn’t unsatisfied, but I was contemplating whether or not Totoro’s name should be in the title. He has, I believe, four or five scenes. And while he’s the center point of all of them, it feels like he’s just an aspect of a larger story up until he helps the main character find her little sister at the end.

I give it 4 stars out of 5.
    
Princess Mononoke, and Kiki’s Delivery Service:
Two days ago I watched ‘Princess Mononoke,’ and yesterday I watched ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service.’ I get why so many people deem ‘Princess Mononoke’ as Miyazaki’s masterpiece. The premise around the main character’s journey is really interesting, and the story itself is incredibly clean. Ashitaka is the main character, and his problem can be solved by Princess Mononoke, but the way it started is also related to Princess Mononoke. That’s really crucial because having it go both ways gives the main character a deeper connection to the larger conflict. Ashitaka doesn’t just need to find Princess Mononoke to break his curse. The demon boar that gave him the curse is related to the war between man and nature, which Princess Mononoke is deeply involved in as well. It’s packed with strong women, which I find incredibly impressive for its day. I’m getting a wave of sadness watching these movies end because of how good each one is. I get attached to everything so easily. It’s all so individually whimsical. 

I give it three out of three Julien-Stickers.

‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ was good too. It was definitely more of a simple movie than Princess Mononoke, but I found it really cute. It’s hard to even call it a ‘magic’ movie. It’s more of a movie about someone who’s new in town.

I give it 1,689,984 out of 1,809,384 Klondike Bars.

The Wind Rises:
I also watched ‘The Wind Rises’, which was an incredible departure from the usual Miyazaki thing. It’s about a Japanese plane designer named Jiro Horikoshi (who was a real person). In the film, he’s aspiring to design an airplane from his dreams. The film uses Jiro’s dreams as a vehicle for the more fantastical side of Miyazaki’s work--a world of unobtainable flying machines. As the second World War approaches, Jiro faces the fact that the only way he can see his dream realized is if he compromises his vision and turns a plane that he wanted to be fast and beautiful into a machine meant for killing (the A6M World War II fighter plane). Some criticize the movie, as it’s not directly anti-war like a lot of Miyazaki’s other work. I think the film is anti-war. It’s a tragedy explaining that beauty can’t exist in a world of tension and conflict. And if it’s to be labeled as anything, it’s a warning about the effect of war on artistic expression. Also his wife has Tuberculosis and it’s sad and stuff. : (

I give it 13 kites that are stuck in a tree and 1 kite that no one can see because someone let it go and it flew away to Texas out of 17 kites stuck in a tree.

Ponyo:
    I found Ponyo a bit average, as it didn’t stand out from the rest of Miyazaki’s filmography. It was interesting, and definitely original, but it felt incredibly short. It definitely seemed like it was from a child’s dreams. And I did get worried when the tsunami engulfed everything except the main character’s home in water, after his mom went out to the elderly home.

I give it 6 “...Bueller…”s out of 11.

The Secret World of Arrietty:
    This film wasn’t made by Hayao Miyazaki, but I watched it anyway, because he wrote the screenplay and it’s a Studio Ghibli movie. So take that! This film was a movie’s length, but it also felt as if they had to wrap everything up quickly. The stakes created in the third act, where Shawn’s aunt (or grandma, or housekeeper--I’m not really sure) kidnaps Arrietty’s mother and puts her in a jar, feels like they’re too small for the movie. It just doesn’t seem like there’s that much at risk. The antagonist (the aunt/grandma/housekeeper) got her comeuppance too easily, and then the movie was over. The animation was great, the director did a good job of portraying the mundane human areas at an impactful scale for the tiny characters. The relationship between Shawn and Arriety didn’t feel too strong, yet they seemed reluctant when parting at the end.

I give it 30 out of 50 snails.

Howl’s Moving Castle:
    I’m incredibly biased when it comes to this movie because I grew up with this as my main source of Miyazaki. When I was a child, it always seemed so grand and wondrous. Watching it again, it’s still absolutely those things, but I’ve recently picked up on the larger themes. The film is anti-war, yes, but it also explores ideas about beauty. All of the significant characters deal with some kind of cosmetic obstacle. At the beginning of the film, a witch turns the main character, Sophie, into an old woman, which is how she remains for the rest of the film. Howl can turn into a bird creature, but has more trouble reverting back after each transformation. On top of that, after his hair changes color, Howl has a breakdown and remarks something about there being no point to life if he’s not beautiful. Up until that point, Howl is established as a charismatic being who sweeps women off their feet. So for the story to reveal his deep insecurity adds a lot of complexity to the character. Calcifer, played by Billy Crystal, has a curse that makes him sentient fire. Turnip Head, a scarecrow that Sophie crosses paths with, turns out to be a missing prince whose absence is the catalyst for the war. Markl, the young boy, does deals masquerading in a wizard disguise. And finally, the Witch of the Waste has a spell that hides her true appearance, which she (and the audience, though nobody wants to say it) deems grotesque.

I think my ranking is:

1. Howl’s Moving Castle
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Castle in the Sky
4. Kiki’s Delivery Service
5. My Neighbor Totoro
6. The Secret World of Arrietty
7. The Wind Rises
8. Ponyo

    

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I’m Thinking of Ending Things
Film Review by Audrey Kim (3/21)

    I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a 2020 psychological drama directed by Charlie Kauffman, who was the screenwriter for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It stars Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley. I decided to watch this movie without any background knowledge about it at all and expected for it to be some sort of dark comedy, but I was very wrong, to say the least.
    The basic summary is that a young woman is going with her ‘new-ish’ boyfriend to meet his parents on a snowy day, which ends up being a very long, dangerous night for them because of a blizzard. Even though that’s the overview of the plot, this film runs much deeper than just that. 
    At the beginning of the film, we see a young woman (played by Jessie Buckley) who we perceive as the main character of the film, contemplating whether or not she should end her relationship with her boyfriend Jake. Throughout the first few moments in his car on their way to his parents’ home, she repeats the titular sentence, “I’m thinking of ending things.” She doesn’t actually say it out loud. She constantly talks to herself during their drive. The audience is left to wonder, what ‘ending’ is she talking about? Is she talking about her relationship with Jake? Suicide? Maybe she wants to change a certain aspect of her life? 
    This film is deeply complicated yet seems like such a simple situation for our two main characters. Like I mentioned above, the woman is meeting Jake’s parents while a massive snowstorm starts taking place. As the film weaves between the woman’s internal thoughts and her and Jake’s tension-filled reality, it also cuts to a random, high school janitor just doing his duty, which begs the question: what does he have to do with the young couple? How much significance does he hold? 
     Kauffman is known to make his films a bit disorienting. Whenever the couple is in the car, he makes it so we can barely see them (filming from the outside of the car, in the pitch dark, through the snow), along with the sound of the eerie, sharp wind. It makes the audience feel lost when it comes to these characters. These specific techniques act like a barrier between us as an audience and the characters as people. We can’t really relate to them. We don’t know who they are, and it doesn’t really seem like they truly know each other that well, either. We can tell that they have tension with each other and absolutely no chemistry, even though they’ve been together for seven weeks. It seems like when they converse, they’re just trying to fill the empty, silent space between them. The woman is constantly in a state of either being skeptical, annoyed, confused, or even furious at Jake. 
     The tension is continued and even intensified once they arrive at Jake’s home. We start to contemplate whether or not this is going to become a horror movie. His parents take forever to come downstairs, which makes us wonder if something is about to take a dark turn. This is stirred even more when the woman notices a heavily scratched up door with pieces of Scotch tape covering only the area near the doorknob. Kauffman pans in on this door, making it seem like something very sinister may be revealed soon. Jake’s calm, yet tense, demeanor further makes the audience question his background and family life. We want to know what’s so important behind the door that it’s taped up, and it’s obvious that the woman is wondering that as well. 
     We notice throughout the film that there are small inconsistencies from time to time, mostly about the woman. Her name changes throughout the film, being referred to as ‘Lucy’ the most. Her field of study also keeps changing, from painting, to gerontology, to physics, along with her interests; she claims to not like poetry, then suddenly passionately delivers a poem during their trip. Jake’s father and mother jump between different ages each time they leave the room, seeming young at one time, and then being close to dying another time. This shows Jake living through the many stages of his and his parents’ lives. Kauffman does a brilliant job of provoking a high sense of uncertainty in the audience. We don’t know what’s real or not real. We don’t even know what the woman’s actual name is. 
     The most consistent detail throughout this film is Jake’s increasingly bizarre behavior toward her--his bland, vague tone of voice and responses, his constant efforts to shut down her thoughts or words (there are a couple of instances where it seems like Jake can read her internal thoughts and interrupts them), and his sudden mood switches and outbursts. 
     My final thought about the film is about how Kauffman was able to completely immerse the audience into the overall mood of the film so perfectly. There are many subjects that this movie touches on--loneliness, aging, death, memory, and dwelling on your past--which are very Kauffman-esque, to say the least. I’ve never seen a movie where the whole situation felt so hopeless and bleak. It really felt more like viewing someone’s dream or inner dark thoughts than watching a film. I got a sense of dread, hopelessness, confusion, and a pit of despair while watching it. It’s definitely not the type of film to see with distractions around you. I give it a 9/10 rating, taking off one point just because of how sad it was at the end. Even though after viewing this film for the first time I didn’t feel any intense emotions or anything, it still is scary knowing how loneliness can truly take over someone’s life. This film also makes you wonder, what will you regret from your past life once you’re older?

An Anti-Love Story
Review by Audrey Kim (3/21)

     500 Days of Summer is an (anti) love story film, directed by Marc Webb and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, alongside Zooey Deschanel. The reason why I say ‘anti’ is because it’s marketed as a romantic-comedy, but in reality, once you watch it, you realize that it’s not the typical, cliche love story at all. 
     ​First of all, let me tell you the basic summary. A young man named Tom Hansen works as a writer at a greeting card company, when all of a sudden his life changes once he meets a young woman named Summer Finn, who is his boss’s new assistant. He immediately falls in love with her and eventually they begin a sort of ‘relationship.’ The most important thing about their relationship is that Summer tells him that she isn’t looking for anything serious right from the start. We also learn earlier in the film that she doesn’t believe in the concept of love, and that she’s happy being single, which was another sign that their relationship wasn’t going to work. 
     While Tom tells her he understands, he still sees their relationship as something blissful and serious since he’s head over heels for her. The film is presented in a nonlinear storyline which jumps between different days during the 500-day span of their relationship. Of course, Summer ends up breaking up with Tom and he immediately sinks into a deep depression, yet he still has a glimmer of hope that he can somehow eventually win her back. 
     At the end of the film, he spots an engagement ring on her finger and is completely devastated. He decides to turn his life around and follow his passions, and eventually has a conversation with Summer at a park after she has already gotten married. She tells him that she now believes in love, and that she was certain about her feelings with her husband when they met, something she wasn’t when she was with Tom. Even though he is still melancholy, he moves on and is glad that she’s happy. 
     I absolutely adore this film because it’s about love, but a different, more complicated aspect of it. We view this film through Tom’s eyes, and we can see how muddled his view of Summer is because he is so deep in it. When you’re in love, you skip past the flaws that the person has and view them as perfect and ‘the one.’ It seems like a lot of people experience this, especially at a young age.           ​Another thing about this film is that people can relate to either Tom and/or Summer, but it’s important to not view either of them as a villain or a hero. Why? It’s because like I mentioned earlier, this movie is from Tom’s perspective. He feels heartbroken and emotional, and the film makes it seem like the audience should be feeling bad for only him, which shouldn’t really be the case. Again, why, you might ask? It’s because Summer straightforwardly told him from the start of their relationship that she wasn’t looking for anything serious. Also, she specifically said at the beginning of the film that she was very happy being single and that love wasn’t something she believed in. 
     ​The way Tom projected certain things onto Summer throughout their relationship was unhealthy and unfair. An example is when they’re in the middle of a heated argument and Summer says, “I like you Tom. I just don’t want a relationship.” He then goes on to say that she isn’t the only one who gets a say in their relationship, that he gets to have an opinion too, and then he angrily claims that ‘they’re a couple’ before rushing out of the room. This is just one example of how he projects his emotions onto her when she clearly doesn’t feel the same. He acted as if one person can determine and define what a relationship is. 
     ​I’m not saying that he’s being the only ‘unfair’ one. Let me get this straight; I think that neither Tom nor Summer is the ‘villain;’ they’re just, simply put, flawed humans. And that’s what’s so great about this film. It’s raw and real, and shows a side of relationships and complicated romance in a way that not a lot of films do. Even though Summer clearly stated she didn’t want a relationship, her actions said otherwise. The pair had intimate conversations, saw each other very frequently, were affectionate and held hands in public (such as Ikea), had sex, and dated for nearly a year, which is a pretty long time to just be ‘casual’ with someone. Because of her affection and actions (despite what she said about not wanting to be serious) Tom thought that he could possibly change her mind to view him as serious eventually, especially because of the way she was ‘leading him on.’
     So, once again, they’re both in the wrong, with Tom being slightly more wrong than Summer, because at least Summer was vocal about her true feelings from the start. They were simply young adults that hurt each other in different ways. In the end, you can't blame Summer for Tom believing in a lie that he made himself believe. 
     I could say that I relate to Summer in this film, because I have had similar experiences where guys would feel very strongly for me romantically, but I didn’t feel the same for them. I feel like there are many men and women who could relate with the same exact thing. Overall, this film really takes a piece out of you in a good way. It’s touching, insightful, and beautifully complicated. Overall, I give it a 10/10 rating.     
    

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