Ticket Stubs: Ponyo

Hayao Miyazaki is truly a director unlike any other. His ability to create his own unique magical world is a feat worth remarking on. Ponyo is his tenth feature film and it is now one of my favorite along with My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.

For in his latest cinematic beauty, he throws the audience in right away with practically no introduction to the magical surroundings. Much like WALL-E, Miyazaki has a long wondrous stretch of story without any traditional dialog. It opens with a wizard fish man (Voiced by Liam Neeson) and a large school of goldfish, the largest fish being Ponyo. Ponyo breaks away from her father/wizard and ends up close to the shore where she meets a young human named Sosuke (Voiced by Frankie Jonas, the real fourth Jonas Brothers. Sorry, eight-year-olds I’ve lied to. It’s not me.) Ponyo ends up falling in love with Sosuke and she decides she wants to be human.

Yes you read me right. A goldfish wants to become human. In all honesty, this premise shouldn’t work. It’s rather ridiculous but Miyazaki never flinches. He never inserts any cynicism or doubt even with its central characters. Sosuke lives with his mom (Voiced by Tina Fey) and she is portrayed as a rational and responsible adult. When the plot becomes completely mythical, she accepts everything in a blink of the eye. For the plot of the movie is not the most important thing. In the same vein as abstract art, Ponyo excels because of the emotions it makes you feel. Throughout the whole movie I felt a powerful sense of joy and wonder. During one sequence, Ponyo is running atop gigantic fish amidst a thunderstorm. The hand-drawn animation is refreshing and pure, thus capturing the essence of the movie.

So there are places to nitpick. Most of them trying to figure out how the wizard dude is Ponyo’s father or there is a slightly underwhelming moment in the third act or how the song over the final credits is pretty much unbearable. but the film basically becomes critic-proof as those elements are irreverent to the inevitable pleasure you’ll receive from this film. I’m convinced that no one can achieve the sense of wonder Miyazaki accomplishes with each endeavor and that is why he is easily one of the greatest working filmmakers today.

CliffNotes Version of This Review: Miyazaki is super awesome.

http://blog.movieset.com/2009/08/31/ponyo-the-ticket-stubs-review/

Book Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson really captivated the whole world with his first novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It wasn’t because Larsson had sadly died and people were curious. It was because the book really was fantastic. So good, in fact, it was nominated for three Anthony Awards. (Yes I shall plug those whenever I can. Even if the context doesn’t call for it.)

So this book had a lot of pressure on it. This is the second of three completed manuscripts Larsson turned in before dying and everyone was wondering if it was to live up to the first one. To sum it up, it did. In this entry we really dive deeper into who Salander really is. In Dragon Tattoo, Salander was a computer genius and a very anti-social woman. She teamed up with journalist named Mikael Blomkvist to solve an old crime. Now she is the major suspect in two murders at Blomkvist’s newspaper. Blomkvist is the only one who believes she’s innocent and what follows is a search for her and the truth.

The writing in this book is so articulate and powerful that it’s impossible to tell that this was translated from Swedish. Although the book could probably be trimmed a little bit, I’m such a fan of the writing I didn’t really mind. What really excels in this entry is the character study of Salander. So much so that the actual mystery pales in comparison. It didn’t seem to have the powerful themes the last book gave, but this was still a very excellent entry. I’m anticipating the final entry but it’s going to be depressing to read because I could read about these characters for many more years.

Book Review: Missing Mark

Julie Kramer was one of the fresh new authors that emerged last year. I wasn’t alone in thinking this for her first novel, Stalking Susan, was nominated for the Shamus, Barry, and (most importantly?) the Anthony. Kramer continues her new series with Missing Mark.

The series follows Riley Spartz, a TV reporter located in Minneapolis. It’s sweeps time again and Spartz is looking for a big story. She thinks she finds something interesting when she finds an ad in the paper saying “Wedding Dress For Sale: Never Worn.” It turns out the husband-to-be, Mark, vanished before the wedding and hasn’t been seen since. One would even suggest he went…missing! Spartz wants to follow up on the story for she believes that Mark didn’t just get cold feet. Yet her producers think a search for a missing fish would get higher ratings.

Once again, Kramer creates a very fun world that gives you intelligent insight into the television news world with clever twisting plots. I already see this series becoming very popular.