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