4 ms·

He recommends Princess Mononoke. It's that fact alone that makes me take his review into consideration. If you haven't seen Princess Mononoke, I'd highly reco

by dylanz 17y ago

He recommends Princess Mononoke. It's that fact alone that makes me take his review into consideration. If you haven't seen Princess Mononoke, I'd highly recommend it. Actually, I'd recommend all the Studio Ghibli films. My wife and I have the entire collection, and are in the middle of watching the last one we haven't watched yet, Porco Rosso (which is so far, fantastic). "These" are the kinds of animations I, personally, want to watch. - Visually stunning, without the need for CG. - Not overwhelming, ie: Not too spastic or overwhelming, commercial-esque, scene switching. - No overly annoying characters. - Original content. You can find the entire Studio Ghibli series online at your favorite Bay of Pirates, but, I'd recommend you actually buy them all, as they are simply amazing. (My Neighbor Totoro is the kid friendliest, and the others aren't necessarily). My apologies if this wasn't specific to Avatar, but I'm just about to finish all of Studio Ghibli's works, and am simply amazed at these films. Fantastic.

ardit33 17y ago
Thanks. Gonna watch it tonight: http://www.veoh.com/collection/phanviet/watch/v6364398zH9eBNdw http://www.veoh.com/collection/phanviet/watch/v6364398zH9eBN...
lionhearted 17y ago
Yeah, Princess Mononoke is really a lovely film. I thought when Spirited Away came out and became popular that people would naturally go back and check out Mononoke, but it didn't happen that much. Definitely worth a watch. As for Avatar - My two biggest complaints: 1. It paints it as black and white, good vs. evil. This is such a common source of human misery and brainwashing that I thought we'd started to move past in cinema. Every leader worth anything tries to play the underdog card. Ask yourself about every cause you sincerely respect and believe in - do any of your leaders not paint it as you vs. the world? The New York Yankees are the only organization I can think of that don't try to play the underdog external evil enemies card. All the world religions do, all political parties do, all nations do, and so on. 2. My housemate had a great quote - he said, "They completed de-humanized the humans before doing all the violence to them." It's quite right - the evil military industrial capitalist marines have no family members, loved ones, passions, or good about them. They exist to be eaten by dinosaurs, shot by arrows, crushed, beaten, and shredded. There's no marine who signed on for a security job, got a little freaked out what's happening, and died due to the complex violent decisions of the leaders. Nope, all the marines are not even human or worth sympathizing with at all - destroy the expoiters, make violence on them, and they deserve all the hells we can visit upon them. When you take "we're completely good and they're completely evil" and mix it with "our enemies aren't even human", you get a recipe for horrible atrocities. I watched a documentary of what the Imperial Japanese Army soldiers was thinking at Nanking. They regarded their cause as God's work, and their Chinese enemies as not human. Never mind the specific politics. Do we really want our epic, landmark art to assert that there is in fact pure good, pure evil, and the people with different views than us are pure evil and aren't even human? I kept trying to think of if I had a kid, how I'd talk to him or her after watching that to understand that the "clear good and evil" thinking leads to very bad places.
- patio11 17y ago
  Yeah. An alternate reading of Avatar (supported by the text) is the story of a stolid marine colonel's tragic death in support of a mission to establish humanity's last hope for escaping the dying Earth. Sending humanity back at the end of the movie, with the exception of two collaborators, is genocide of the entire human race. I know, that isn't quite the Wars For Oil Suck, Love Your Purple Bambi Earth Goddesses Or You Will Be Brutally Slain thing he was going for, but still. (Edited to add: Am I a bad person if I sympathized with the marine colonel most out of any character? "Oh blimey, traitors have just stolen a top-of-the-line helicopter gunship armed with missiles that could blow us all apart. Men, masks on! I'm about to blow the door, step unprotected into an environment filled with poisonous gas, and engage them singlehandedly. With a sidearm.")
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Ah, spoiler alert!?
  - grannyg00se 17y ago
    "a mission to establish humanity's last hope for escaping the dying Earth" is not a scenario that is reasonably interpreted by viewing of the film. In what "text" is this reading supported? In the film, the humans are there on behalf of a corporation interested in mining natural resources for profit. That position is made clear. There is no indication at all that Earth is in need of this resource for any other reason than corporate greed. As mentioned elsewhere, the story is pretty black & white that way.
- defen 17y ago
  Glad to see I wasn't the only one who felt like he was watching a Nazi propaganda movie - with the Na'vi as the pure, beautiful, harmonious Aryans, and the humans as the evil rapacious mongrel race.
  - gaius 17y ago
    I don't know if you've seen Hero but that is an amazingly beautiful film. The sets, the lighting, the costumes, the actors, everything is gorgeous. You could take almost any still from it and blow it up and put it on the wall. It is set in the Chinese equivalent of the Western mediaeval period, and has all these perfect little vignettes, like a miniature visual essay into the nature of raindrops falling on a sword. But the political message which only really sinks in afterwards is "China should stop fucking about already and just invade Taiwan" and then you think, wow, someone really wanted to get that message across to Western moviegoers...
hristov 17y ago
And let's add some things: -no popular culture references delivered by a wise cracking animal. -somehow they end up being both more emotional and less melodramatic than the usual us cartoons; and -they often have very serious themes even though they are for children. They often talk about war, death, love, etc. and manage to be perfectly fine children's movies.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

by dylanz 17y ago

ardit33 17y ago

Thanks. Gonna watch it tonight: http://www.veoh.com/collection/phanviet/watch/v6364398zH9eBNdw http://www.veoh.com/collection/phanviet/watch/v6364398zH9eBN...

lionhearted 17y ago

Yeah, Princess Mononoke is really a lovely film. I thought when Spirited Away came out and became popular that people would naturally go back and check out Mononoke, but it didn't happen that much. Definitely worth a watch. As for Avatar - My two biggest complaints: 1. It paints it as black and white, good vs. evil. This is such a common source of human misery and brainwashing that I thought we'd started to move past in cinema. Every leader worth anything tries to play the underdog card. Ask yourself about every cause you sincerely respect and believe in - do any of your leaders not paint it as you vs. the world? The New York Yankees are the only organization I can think of that don't try to play the underdog external evil enemies card. All the world religions do, all political parties do, all nations do, and so on. 2. My housemate had a great quote - he said, "They completed de-humanized the humans before doing all the violence to them." It's quite right - the evil military industrial capitalist marines have no family members, loved ones, passions, or good about them. They exist to be eaten by dinosaurs, shot by arrows, crushed, beaten, and shredded. There's no marine who signed on for a security job, got a little freaked out what's happening, and died due to the complex violent decisions of the leaders. Nope, all the marines are not even human or worth sympathizing with at all - destroy the expoiters, make violence on them, and they deserve all the hells we can visit upon them. When you take "we're completely good and they're completely evil" and mix it with "our enemies aren't even human", you get a recipe for horrible atrocities. I watched a documentary of what the Imperial Japanese Army soldiers was thinking at Nanking. They regarded their cause as God's work, and their Chinese enemies as not human. Never mind the specific politics. Do we really want our epic, landmark art to assert that there is in fact pure good, pure evil, and the people with different views than us are pure evil and aren't even human? I kept trying to think of if I had a kid, how I'd talk to him or her after watching that to understand that the "clear good and evil" thinking leads to very bad places.

patio11 17y ago
Yeah. An alternate reading of Avatar (supported by the text) is the story of a stolid marine colonel's tragic death in support of a mission to establish humanity's last hope for escaping the dying Earth. Sending humanity back at the end of the movie, with the exception of two collaborators, is genocide of the entire human race. I know, that isn't quite the Wars For Oil Suck, Love Your Purple Bambi Earth Goddesses Or You Will Be Brutally Slain thing he was going for, but still. (Edited to add: Am I a bad person if I sympathized with the marine colonel most out of any character? "Oh blimey, traitors have just stolen a top-of-the-line helicopter gunship armed with missiles that could blow us all apart. Men, masks on! I'm about to blow the door, step unprotected into an environment filled with poisonous gas, and engage them singlehandedly. With a sidearm.")
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Ah, spoiler alert!?
- grannyg00se 17y ago
  "a mission to establish humanity's last hope for escaping the dying Earth" is not a scenario that is reasonably interpreted by viewing of the film. In what "text" is this reading supported? In the film, the humans are there on behalf of a corporation interested in mining natural resources for profit. That position is made clear. There is no indication at all that Earth is in need of this resource for any other reason than corporate greed. As mentioned elsewhere, the story is pretty black & white that way.
defen 17y ago
Glad to see I wasn't the only one who felt like he was watching a Nazi propaganda movie - with the Na'vi as the pure, beautiful, harmonious Aryans, and the humans as the evil rapacious mongrel race.
- gaius 17y ago
  I don't know if you've seen Hero but that is an amazingly beautiful film. The sets, the lighting, the costumes, the actors, everything is gorgeous. You could take almost any still from it and blow it up and put it on the wall. It is set in the Chinese equivalent of the Western mediaeval period, and has all these perfect little vignettes, like a miniature visual essay into the nature of raindrops falling on a sword. But the political message which only really sinks in afterwards is "China should stop fucking about already and just invade Taiwan" and then you think, wow, someone really wanted to get that message across to Western moviegoers...

hristov 17y ago

And let's add some things: -no popular culture references delivered by a wise cracking animal. -somehow they end up being both more emotional and less melodramatic than the usual us cartoons; and -they often have very serious themes even though they are for children. They often talk about war, death, love, etc. and manage to be perfectly fine children's movies.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]