Movie Review: Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle, or Hauru no Ugoku Shiro in Japanese, is based on a book written by Diana Wynne Jones about a young girl, dissatisfied with her looks and life, is cursed by a witch after accidently bumping into a rival wizard named Howl. And yes, he does have a castle that moves. Sophie, the aforementioned girl, manages to find Howl's Moving Castle (that's catchy) and his stange assortment of assistants the apprentice Markl and the fire demon Calcifer. Unforunately for her, said wizard turns out to be a spoiled brat, and both governments want him to be on their side over a war he doesn't approve off. What's a girl to do?

Disney seems to have done a good job with distributing this Miyazaki film to the States. There are no obvious cuts, that I could tell at least, but it is a Miyazaki film which usually contains a low amount of blood and gore except for Mononoke. I've not seen the Japanese version, but I'd guess that Disney's again guilty of over-dialoguing (adding dialogue to increase exposition because Americans are stupid. Disney's words, not mine.) The only problem I have with the English version is the innane dialogue. In Japanese, this one character would probably have said "Look" or "Up there," but the English version says "There's were the bomb came from."

Surprisingly, Disney went into overkill in hiring English voiceovers, including current Batman Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall (yes, that Lauren Bacall), and Billy Crystal. Crystal was very fitting for the voice of Calcifer, much like the late Phil Hartman was for Kiki's talking cat. But I couldn't help but feel that existing voice actors could have done as good or even better in some of the roles, such as Steven Blum as Howl. Meanwhile, talented voice actors like Crispin Freeman and Will Friedle are stuck with bit parts. And what, no Patrick Stewart?

Anyways, the movie is good, though the writing's a little weaker than some of the other films. Miyazaki's talent has not wain and shows off his usual flair for detail. I always like his strange blend of reality and fiction, but I can't help but wonder if he can't do something different. I mean, all of the characters look like they're from a Miyazaki film. It seems in ways too similar to all the Miyazaki films that have come before and perhaps Miyazaki is becoming a bit set in his ways. Perhaps he should consider doing his new movie as something totally different than everything he's done before. B

TV Review: Justice League Unlimited

Tonight's episode: "Epilogue"

In the not so distant future, Terry McGillis is having troubles being the new Batman, and starts acting like he's Spider-Man's replacement: contast whinning, not marrying his childhood sweetheart, and spontaneously quit becoming Batman. It seems that he's Bruce Wayne's son (through a lot of convoluted exposition) even though Terry thought he's some kind of clone of Bruce.

The whole episode becomes a justification of Batman Beyond, which is five years too late. Yes, Terry isn't some young "clone" of Bruce Wayne and through his series, evolved into his own character and was at least more interesting than Kyle Rayner. Unforunately, this series is about the whole League, and if the writers of JLU felt the urge to write another Batman Beyond episode, they shouldn't have let the series get cancelled in the first place.

The highlight of the episode was the flashback that contained the only actual League-related content. I was expecting another example of the dark, grim Batman of today, but was surprised by witnessing a wonderful scene with the "true" Batman. Also, Dr. Light, one of my favorite Leaguers in the series with many cameos under her belt, had her first speaking part. When will she go solo?

The episode's filled, as usual, with tons of references from past DC series, but almost to an extreme. I mean, Phantasm?! Why would you hire a woman in her sixties to be your assassin? If not for the overall predictableness of the plot (Terry stays as Batman), it could have been really entertaining. B

What The ?!?!

The great icon of the 80s, The Transformers, are getting the live action movie treatment with producer Steven Spielberg and director Michael Bay. Recently, the official site was put up, www.transformerslive.com. Visiting this site, you can watch a movie of Spielberg talking about how happy he is to be working on the movie and has been buying Transformers for himself.

What The ?!?! Steven Spielberg a Transformers collector? This seems even less believable than that Tom Cruise romance thing. Notice he doesn't mention a single character's name, but manages to plug in Hasbro once or twice. I just don't see Spielberg as a crazed Transfan. Maybe it's his monotone voice that makes it less believable or the fact that he's Hollywood's most respected director not Hollywood's most gifted liar. But at least he made the effort of convicing fans that the Transformers were in good hands.

Expected in the live action movie are all the characters expected in a Transformers movie: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Starscream, Soundwave, Arcee, Jazz, and Tom Cruise. (Just kidding.) The movie has a 2007 release date.

CD Review: War of the Worlds

In their billionth collaboration, John Williams composed the music for Steve Spielberg's latest movie, War of the Worlds, and for better or worst, it's nothing like you've heard before from Williams.

For one thing, there is no main theme, hardly any new thematic material at all. There are no hallmark sentimental/lighthearted/heroic themes found in most of Williams' scores for Spielberg. Instead, most of the music is very abstract and atmospheric. In fact, all of the music (at least on this soundtrack) is very dissonant, mournful, and tense. Even the optimistic sounding horns in the Reunion soon succumb to the reserved and tragic sounding Epilogue. Making this one of Williams' darkest score to date.

Not to mention his most modern. Here, he has strayed from most, if not all, of his traditional formulas. Like my remarks on Episode 3, Williams takes the path less traveled with creating complex orchestra sounds to create fear and panic instead of just throwing together a theme that could create the same effect.

Williams is also very inventive with his orchestrations. Instead of using a theremin, he uses a choir ( or is it the string section?) to sustain this very high pitch sound that can be heard at the end of The Intersection Scene and the beginning of Confrontation of Ogilvy. I really enjoyed his use of brass, the somber horns at the end of Reaching the Country and Epilogue. The Ferry Scene is the stand out action piece, while Escape from the City sounds more like typical Prequel action music. There are a few tracks that have more of a traditional Williams feel to it, like Attack on the Car, and the brass build up in Return to Boston. The dissonant horns towards the end of Reaching the Country remind me of Boba Fett's Departure.

My only real problem with the soundtrack is the narration. You see, the point of buying a soundtrack is to hear the music that everyone's talking over in the movie, so having someone talk over it in the album defeats the purpose of buying it, doesn't it? Luckily, the narration is only two tracks, and the voiceover for the Prologue works well with the music, thanks to Morgan Freeman's smooth voice, but I don't like it during the Reunion, when after an hour of music, Freeman pops up again and ruins the mood, not to mention the end of the movie.

This score sounds like a mix between Minority Report and Episode 3. It's one of the best examples of Williams' "modern" style and like most of his modern works, rewards repeat listenings. At first, I'd have given this score a B tops, but every time I listen to it I find more that I like about it. B+

Favorite Tracks:
2.The Ferry Scene
3. Reaching the Country
4. Intersection Scene
10. Separation of Family
11. Confrontation with Ogilvy
12. Return to Boston
15. Epilogue

Fantastic Four saves Hollywood!

They did what the legendary Jedi Knights and the Dark Knight could not: raise Hollywood out of its box office slump! With us today are the Fantastic Four's leader Mr. Fantastic and the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing.

"Don't forget me."

Who said that?

"Me. The Invisible Woman."

There's that voice again.

"Never mind."

Here's what Mr. Fantastic had to say about the biopic depicting the fateful journey into space that turned scientist Reed Richards, pilot Ben Grimm, Sue and Johnny Storm into the superheroes they are today: "Of course, this had the highest possible potential to succeed with today's audiences. I made a few tests, and it seemed to stimulate the right potions of the brain, provoking relaxing emotions throughout the person."

"In other words," interrupted the Thing. "It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. And there's plenty of clobberin', too."

The popular biopic has already made over 50 million dollars on its opening weekend, higher than the execs at Fox expected.

"You could say we clobbered the competition," stated a smug Thing.

When asked what the Fantastic Four will do with their share of the profits, Mr. Fantastic had this to say, "As you are well aware, most of our income comes from the revenue generated from my patents. We hope to donate all the profits from the movie to our favorite charities here in New York City."

And that's what makes them truly heroic.

Movie Review: Fantastic Four

I was very excited when I heard that they were finally making a Fantastic Four movie, almost as excited as when I learned that they were making an X-Men movie. Like X-Men, this is an origin story. The four explorers (with Victor Von Doom for a twist) go into space and get zapped by strange cosmic rays that forever change them...

But unlike the X-Men and most of Marvel's superheroes, the Fantastic Four are welcomed by the people they protect. They are celebrities. The series is also more lighthearted in tone than that of X-Men, Blade, and Daredevil. This translates pretty well into the actual film, especially the characters' various relationships, except for the Reed-Sue-Doom love triangle that never was. Unfortunately, the humor goes too far sometimes (like the pigeon thing, the dog covering its eye, etc) and could possibly hurt the viewing experiences.

The cast overall was pretty solid. I liked Ioan Gruffudd as Richards (my favorite character) though his gray streaks as a result of the cosmic rays seemed a bit silly. Chris Evans and Michals Chiklis were born for their roles, and can only make the usual rocky relationship between Ben and Johnny all the more amusing. While Jessica Alba wouldn't have been my choice for Sue, she held up better than I thought, leaving Julian McMahon as the weakest link.

But that might not be all his fault. His character, Von Doom, is an unfortunate clone of Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborne: After having business troubles and exposed to strange matter, Doom just decides to go crazy and start killing people. And the final battle between the FF and Doom seemed all too short. (That whole "First lession in chemistry.." started to get a little cheesy too.)

The movie's a commendable effort to bring Marvel's First Family onto the big screen. It's better than X-Men and Daredevil, but just doesn't hit the heights of X2, Spidey, and Batman Begins. Still, it was one of the most enjoyable introductary-exposition movie since Hellboy. B

CD Review: Batman Begins

Okay, I've read enough reviews for this score to know what to do. First, I blantly gush about how good this movie. (Seriously, it is really good.) Then, I mention Messrs. Elfman and Goldenthal, and that this score is nothing like their work and that Elfman's theme will always be associated with Batman, and while Goldenthal's scores were more over the top they too kicked butt. (I also should be mentioning all the fan boys sad that there's no more Elfman theme, but that's too silly.)

Anyway, onto the review: First of all, it isn't a question of if the score is good. I've seen the movie. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard wrote a score that fits this movie like a glove. It's dark, moody, scary, heroic, and a touch romantic all when it needs to be.

But I'm not reviewing the movie (yet). I'm reviewing the soundtrack which is a different story all together. All the tracks are named after different species of bats, which Zimmer and Howard must have thought was clever clever. Unfortunately, when you're listening to six plus minutes of quiet, ambient cues with no real thematic tug, a real title might help the listener picture what scene the cues supposed to be from.

But it's rather hard to do that, even after seeing the movie, because all the cues are cut up and placed together in a general mish mash. Only a few cues, like Myotis and Molossus, sound like they're intact. Zimmer and Howard created a few good themes for this movie including the Batman theme (heard at the end of Vespertilio and mostly through Molossus), the Wayne theme heard at the beginning of Macrotus, and Ducard has his own Eastern motif that snuck onto the end of Artibeus.

These themes are all rather cool to hear, but the soundtrack disappoints in the most vital way that every superhero soundtrack must deliver: a dashing, heroic version of the hero's theme. In the movie, it's everywhere. On the soundtrack, it's almost nonexistent. It's present in such tracks like Myotis and of course Molossus, but it should also be on a lot of other tracks too. The beginning of Artibeus is the cue for batman's first appearance but the music is cut off before it comes to the grand protrayal of the Batman theme. The same could be said for Antrozous.

In summary, it's the sad case of a good score getting a bad presentation on the soundtrack, much like The Last Crusade and X2, or at least having a vengeful editor.

Favorite Tracks:
1. Vespertilio
3. Myotis
10. Molossus
11. Corynorhinus

Music in the movie: A- Music on the CD: C

Fantastic Four Score Preview 2

Go to composer John Ottman's web page (www.johnottman.com) to hear clips from the Fantastic Four score, and see pictures from the recording sessions.