There was a point while I was watching this that my heart briefly began to sink like a lot of the hardcore fans of Hayao Miyazaki, who have found this production lacking the invention and unique techniques of his other work, but I quickly pulled myself together and reminded myself I had the same feeling when I first watched Spirited Away. As with Spirited, it’ll take a few viewings of this to be able to write more than a paragraph. I’m ashamed to admit that I watched the English language dub first time round here, but as with the other Miyazaki dubs, it’s the absolute best there is … I was particularly surprised by Billy Crystal’s voice work, his character taking a surprisingly deep turn late in the movie and he handles it better than I would’ve imagined. I liked all the “Wizard of Oz” parallels – the scarecrow, flying building, little dog, water thrown on the ‘witch of the waste‘ – I just couldn’t figure out what it all meant, lol. I’ve been reading some other people’s reviews, though, it’s becoming clearer. I can’t wait to see it again. On DVD. In Japanese. I promise. In the meantime, can I just go dreamy-eyed, sigh and say it was wonderful when you mention it, if you promise you won’t ask why?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2006 at 11:39 pm and is filed under 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.