June 3 movie: Spirited Away. After The Wizard of Oz, TCM showed Spirited Away. This movie is simply delightful from beginning to end. Miyazaki has such a talent for portraying different ages of childhood, creating a whole world that behaves the way it appears to a child.
TCM showed the movie dubbed, luckily we have the DVD. So we popped it in and watched it with subtitles. I'm not as violently opposed dubbing with animated movies as I am with live action. Dubbing isn't as disruptive with animation, because the voices and faces aren't nearly as mismatched. And the dubbing Disney did for the Ghibli movies is pretty good. Still, if I have the choice I'll choose subtitles.
I think this is my favourite of his movies: I have Howl's Moving Castle as well, which is brilliant too but a bit weird, story-wise, if you know the book.
Princess Mononoke is good too, but drags a bit towards the end I think (or maybe I just need to watch it again when I'm more focused).
I have Spirited away as well, with the options of either the Japanese version, or the one dubbed in Dutch; the voices are ok, but I would have preferred the English version.
I don't mind dubbing so much with animations either, and it means I can watch it while knitting, which is impossible in the original Japanse (I can read *some* subtitles in between stitches, but I also rely on periferal hearing then, as it were).
I'm planning to show Spirited Away to the kiddies this summer holiday, I think they'll like it.
I really like how, in all his movies, the bad guys aren't all bad, or not bad all the time. It's all full of grey areas, which I love.
I have the same problem with subtitles -- I like to either knit or do stuff on my computer while watching movies, and it's difficult to do that while reading subtitles.
"I really like how, in all his movies, the bad guys aren't all bad, or not bad all the time. It's all full of grey areas, which I love."
Me too! I commented in my write-up of Princess Mononoke that Ashitaki is the hero because he's the only character with empathy for all sides. The others are positive characters within their own communities, but appear as villains to outsiders.