My Main!
I haven’t filmchatted a lot recently but since it’s Film4’s Studio Ghibli season, I figured I’d watch some quality anime and chat about that!
Unfortunately I was unable to watch Princess Mononoke last night but the night before, the season kicked off with Spirited Away, which was just as good as I remember it to be.
One thing that impressed me that I’ve never noticed before is how clean the translation was. I’ve only ever seen it in English language before but watching it subbed, I found myself recognising some of the lines because the translation had been just that accurate. Pretty good!
Of course, the animation is as beautiful as you’d expect from Ghibli. One thing I noted that I don’t think I’ve ever really payed attention to before was the way the water was animated, and how the same sort of movements were used for the movement of Haku’s dragon form. Beautiful stuff.
Film4’s Ghibli season is running until the 13th April and contains some films that have never been shown on Film4 before! The full schedule can be found here.
A couple of nights ago I re-watched Lady and the Tramp for the first time in at least 10 years. It’s still an amazing film!
The animation is something I can appreciate more now that I’m older, and I have to say, it’s so smooth and full of character, with so many little details that are easy to miss but which contribute to its overall high quality.
The plot isn’t as fun as I remember it being. For a start, I can now understand Lady’s worries of being cast aside by her owners, and I can see how Tramp may not have been the best choice of companion for her, but since it has a trademark Disney happy ending, I can’t complain too much.
Overall, still pretty dang good for an older film!
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so uh
TTGL the movie: Gurren-hen and TTGL the movie: Lagann-hen?
Sure I could watch those I guess!!!
As requested by tkallab, I gave Scott Pilgrim a watch!
To be 100% honest, I only made it 45 minutes into the film before I had to give up. The plot of the film is in itself pretty okay, but not spectacular, so it feels like it had to rely a lot on execution to stand out. However, on the other side of things, it tried a bit too hard to execute absolutely everything. The visual effects were super distracting and huge and flashy, and they appeared every five seconds, even when there really didn’t need to be an effect. I had to give up because watching for more than ten minutes at a time gave me a headache that I had to wait thirty to go away, which is why it took me so long to even get half-way through the film.
I have it on good standings that the Scott Pilgrim comic is better than the film, so maybe some day I will give that a read, but I think the film was just too much for me. I’m sad that I couldn’t make it through and give this film the filmchat it deserves, but I gave it a try. Maybe I’ll try again some time!
And so my binge of Marvel movies comes to an end with The Avengers! As with Captain America before it, I found nothing in specific to fault. The plot was incredible, having had set-up in parts in all the previous Marvel universe movies and so all the threads coming together created an exquisite tapestry of story, drama and action. A lot of this, I think, came from the feeling that there was real threat here - that there was a chance our heroes may not succeed, and that was quite worrisome to think of.
The CG was perfect and seamless, so much so that I found myself wondering if bits of what I’d seen were CG or live action, it was genuinely hard to tell. The thing that cinched it for me was seeing the detailed shot of the Avengers’ costumes at the end - that was most likely CG and the amount of detail and texturing on every single part of it showed the dedication and passion that had been put into this film.
Brilliant overall! I loved it.
Captain America! What a good film. Usually I try to find at least one thing to criticise about a movie just to round things out but honestly, I’m struggling to. Everything was just so good about this movie! Great action scenes, well-timed humour - just everything!
One thing that I’m very picky about, especially in superhero movies (you may have noticed) are female characters. So I was happy that Peggy is not only feminine as anyone with her perfect hair and lipstick, but also hardcore as hell! She didn’t take shit from anyone and that’s what made her strong, and she was also very very capable of taking care of herself. I think that’s saying something considering this is, what, 1940’s America?
I also really loved Bucky as a character, and I hope he will return soon (I know about the Winter Soldier, hehe). Overall this was a great film, I loved everything about it and I can’t wait for the sequel!
Bring on The Avengers!
I watched Thor! I think it was pretty damn good but there were parts where I don’t think I was supposed to be laughing even though I was (like Loki’s overly-dramatic descent to Earth and when Thor just put Mjolnir on his chest like wow I was laughing so hard there). The effects weren’t quite as polished as Iron Man - I could tell when they were there, but it wasn’t jarring or off-putting, it just helped me notice that there was shit-loads of effects with all the ice giants and the guardian and basically all of Asgard, which looked amazing.
I think Thor himself and his band of warriorfriends were great characters and really funny, but the girl who was supposed to be the love interest (Jane I think her name was?) seemed kind of.. unimportant? Like, yeah she was a scientist and stuff but it seemed like she was only there to be the love interest and that was kind of disappointing because I think they could have given Thor more of a reason to return to Earth than just “there’s a mortal chick I fell in love with”.
Overall, pretty cool stuff. I liked the little Hawkeye cameo and a lot of Thor’s lines were hilarious (“Son of Coul” made me chuckle) so yeah, I really enjoyed it!
If you can’t tell yet, I’m watching my way through every single Marvel movie from the last couple of years.
After watching Iron Man the other day, I decided to check out the sequel! I can’t say I was a big Marvel fan before (I was more on the DC side of things, but that went downhill with the reboot…) but these films are making me more and more of a fan.
Iron Man 2 is better than Iron Man, I think! It felt a little slow at the beginning but it was necessary to set everything up, because when the plot really started moving, boy, did it start moving, and everything that felt slow before was suddenly huge and relevant and very exciting! One thing in particular that I love is that the “strong female characters” are just “strong characters” really and that’s so cool and refreshing in something that’s usually considered a male-dominated genre. In fact, the only scene I can think of when Pepper needed saving was when the droids were about to blow, and really ANYONE who was in that situation would need saving, so it’s kind of moot. I also liked when they stormed the Hammer building and that guy took ages to beat one dude while Natasha took down like 8, haha.
I’m definitely going to watch the other Marvel movies because wow they’re good! (except The Incredible Hulk… I tried but it seemed kind of ehhh…) I believe it’s Thor next, so that’ll be the next filmchat!
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I haven’t actually seen Scott Pilgrim, though it does look pretty damn good. It’s definitely on my to-watch list!
Last night I watched Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. I really enjoyed it! It has been quite hyped up for me with Tumblr showing me the trailers quite early on last year but it was definitely for good reason. The animation was really beautiful, especially on bits with the running wolves in the snow and through the forest. The CGI bits were a bit jarring and noticeable at times but it could be forgiven because of the great plot and characterisation. I loved how the children sort of switched personalities as they grew up: it started with Yuki being wolfish and Ame being more sombre, but then Yuki tried to be more human and Ame became more wolf and it sort of said a lot to me about choosing your own path in life. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who likes anime or just animation in general!
I watched Iron Man yesterday and it was pretty good! I didn’t really know what to expect because I’m not much of a Marvel fan but I was pleasantly surprised by Tony Stark’s character, he was a lot dryer and wittier than I thought he would be and also a lot more likeable than he should have been, really?! Also Pepper Potts was a great character just for not being the ‘designated female in a superhero movie’, she was willing to kick ass and take names and she didn’t take any of Tony’s shit so I was happy about that! The visual effects were pretty stunning, I mean, I wouldn’t have known the suit was CG in pretty much every scene if I hadn’t seen a Tumblr post about it. Seriously, I was sure there was at least a real replica suit for most of it but no, it was like 90% CGI and that’s damn impressive! I think I’m definitely going to pick up the sequel because hot dang what a good movie.
Welcome to Film Chat! This is my blog for talking about movies because I watch a lot of movies and here’s where I can talk about them! I’ll usually post about the latest film I’ve watched but if you go to my ask box I will talk about pretty much any film with you and if I haven’t seen the film you’re asking about, I’ll put it on my to-watch list immediately! Let’s watch some films, friends!
