Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro

If there's one person on earth who knows what makes a good family film, it's Hayao Miyazaki. Take Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, for example. If I was 10, I would be watching this movie every day. Even now, long after I was 10, this is still a great time that pretty much anyone can enjoy. It's perfect for that age when you can handle a bit more action and a bit more drama, but are still looking for fun in your films. It's an animated adventure aimed squarely at anyone who loves a good animated adventure.

The story follows Lupin III, the latest in a line of master thieves, picking up the scent right after a major robbery. Alas, the robbery doesn't net much more than a big collection of counterfeit bills, leading Lupin and friends to go after the source of the counterfeit money, which is in the Castle of Cagliostro, located in a tiny country that even smaller than Luxembourg. There he sees a beautiful bride on the run from thugs, leading to an adventure with an evil count, plenty of action and a complex mystery. It ticks pretty much all of my 10 year old equivalent's buttons, and even now I appreciate the fun involved. As a kid who grew up on Inspector Gadget and Darkwing Duck, I lived for this kind of thing.

This is very early Miyazaki, so it is clearly much lower budget than many of his later and increasingly detailed works. Yet, his animation is still beautiful, and is actually reminiscent of all those cartoons kids wasted their Saturdays watching. He's still got that trademark attention to detail, with the slightly cartoonier Fiat 500 - all Fiat 500s are cartoon to an extent - that Lupin drives being a pretty much spot on replica. Everything from the elaborate gearwork in the climax to the smallest design flourish is clearly thought out.

Still, all the detail in the world wouldn't matter if the film wasn't any good, and this film is just plain fun. Yes, the sound effects are a bit wacky, but it's animated slapstick, it's appropriate. Lupin is such a likable character overall that one can't help but be drawn to him and his adventures. The villains are exaggerated and it often gets silly, but it should it's a fun movie, that the family can enjoy.

Well, the family can enjoy it provided they're not watching the Magna International dub, at least. Here's the thing Magna, this is a movie that was designed for the family. In short, young boys and girls will be watching this with their moms and dads. Know what moms and dads don't like? Swearing. So why is the dub so sweary? I mean, I have no problem with profanity in my own life, but it doesn't fit the tone, it doesn't fit the characters, and it actually distracts from the movie as a whole. To take the language even to PG-13 levels is distracting, and reeks of a company trying way too hard to be cool that they can't understand something as subtle as tone.

Still, a bad dub isn't the film's fault, and when someone figures that out and does a much needed re-dub, this will again be the perfect family picture. Miyazaki just knows what kids like, and the children of the world will be poorer off when he stops making movie. Luckily for all of us, he seems to be dragged out of retirement a lot.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Bringing Miyazaki Week to a close is Kiki's Delivery Service. When I first realized I was going to have a theme week, I thought that it would give me a platform to talk about animation, Japan, dubs vs. subs, Disney and all manner of other tangentially related topics. And I was tempted to try to shoehorn those things in there on multiple occasions. So it's a credit to these films that I decided that doing so would just be distracting from the matter at hand, the beautiful films that absolutely everyone should see.

Coming of age stories are common because the experience is universal. Everyone understands what it's like to be 13 and not quite popular, not quite mature, and yet wishing you were both. So that's probably why everyone and their dog has taken a crack at it. So, for a film to be a coming of age story and good besides, it's got to be special and different in some way.

Kiki's Delivery Service makes the story about a witch, going out on her own for the first time at 13, somewhat uncomfortable with being a witch and different, and like any young kid not completely confident in herself. So, a coming of age story then. But why is it so special?

It's Miyazaki, that's why it's so special! Well, that's simplifying things a lot, but the fact is that very few other directors could spin a pretty standard story like this into an absolutely beautiful and absorbing movie like this. So how does he do it?

First step, he has a gift for making likable, believable characters. Kiki is immensely charming, making it easy to identify with her and her plight. Her wisecracking cat is amusing and a nice cynical contrast to her initial optimism. The baker she meets and who becomes like a mother, her friend the painter who coaches her through a spot of angst, her enthusiastic would-be suitor, they're all beautifully captured characters. As a result, you care about what happens to these people, and get wrapped up into the storyline. The disappointment Kiki feels when a gift she and her friends worked very hard on isn't well received is felt by the viewer as well, as you've watched them work, and genuinely like them too.

Second step, he doesn't worry about having villains and obvious conflict. A lesser man would probably try to put some sort of foe that Kiki has to best in order to overcome her problems. Here, there isn't one. There's conflict sure, and a dramatic conclusion, but there's no evil. And yet, it manages to be all the more satisfying than if it did. See, Kiki succeeds to defeat her flaws, and her own lack of confidence. So when she manages to overcome those problems, you feel better about it because it's a problem every one of us has faced, and we've grown to like her and hope for her success. It would be easier to have her beat a cackling baddie, but it wouldn't be worth as much.

Third step, he makes it pretty. Like usual, the animation is absolutely stunning, the art direction is fantastic, and the music is mostly great. But really, that could describe any film from Studio Ghibli. Actually, in the pretty department contains the few flaws. Precisely, two flaws, the opening theme and the closing theme. Very cheesy, very 80s, very bad. Luckily, those are only two songs in an overall amazing soundtrack. Well, one of the songs sounds very similar to the theme used in the shops in the first Final Fantasy, a song I've grown to hate as I played that game and heard it blasting far too loudly in NES synth, but that's not the movie's fault, is it?

As a result, we get a movie that does what every movie should, it makes you happy. Watch it, and you're glad that you're watching it, maybe even thinking about watching it again in the near future. And you can go in depth all you want, but that's all you really need in a film, isn't it?


Screen taken at 55:07

Porco Rosso.

Improbably, for a site involving movies sent at random, there's a theme week this week. It's Miyazaki week everyone! I've got two Miyazaki movies sitting here, and while I might be accused of tampering with results to get a wacky theme, that's not the case, honestly. Someone out there decided I needed a theme week, apparently, and at the very least I have a theme based on one of the best directors working in animation.

I love Hayao Miyazaki, mostly because he elevates animation to an art form. Watching one of his movies, you're often struck by the atmosphere, the detail, and the sheer beauty of the film he's made. Too often with animation, it feels cheap, or as though the production team is mostly concerned with doing something easy for the kids. With him, you know that he's making an animated movie for the love of animation and pure style he can bring to it. If someone dares suggest that cell animation is a dead art form, they just need to watch some Studio Ghibli films in order to be proven otherwise.

So from that one can assume that Porco Rosso is beautifully animated, well written, and as a whole a fantastic film that everyone should see. It was published by Disney, so it's got a lovely DVD package along with a sometimes questionable dub featuring celebrities, including half asleep Michael Keaton in the lead role. There, this is going to be the easiest week I'll ever do!

Alright, fine, I'll get more in depth. Porco Rosso is about a fantastic pilot who is also somehow a pig. He's a bounty hunter who hunts pirates, who are getting sick of being hunted down and have hired the Frenchest American ever to shoot him down. I have a feeling something was fudged in the translation, because I don't think an American would wear a french flag as part of his clothing. This whole thing is set on the backdrop of rising fascism in Italy.

The movie is something of a homage to old Hollywood, the stuff they made around the second World War. In atmosphere and style, it's a lot like movies like Casablanca. Something informed by the nearby war, but really about how people in the countries deal with the changes. Everyone smokes a lot, people hang out in classy bars and listen to french singers and the hero is surly but good and honorable at heart.

This is a love letter to movies, to Hollywood, to the great actors and directors of a bygone era. In every frame you can see the great affection Miyazaki has for film. And watching this, it become apparent that if cell animation ever dies out, it'll be the greatest loss that ever has happened in film.


Screen at 34:59