Studio Ghibli films have a long tradition of eschewing the typical. These are not films made for endless belly-laughs. These are not films made to show off the latest in CGI technology. These are films that rely on the surreal and the fantastic to entertain. These are films where children are the main characters, but are not necessarily the target audience. Ponyo’s elegant simplicity may not make it a stand-out in the Ghibli film library, but its exuberant tale will capture the hearts of children and the adults who love them.

Ponyo is very loosely based on “The Little Mermaid,” but its story is an original creation by master animator Hayao Miyazaki. While playing on the shore of his tiny Japanese fishing village, five-year-old Sousuke (Frankie Jonas) finds a goldfish stuck in a bottle. Sousuke decides to rescue the girl-faced fish, names her Ponyo, and takes on the big responsibility of caring for her. Ponyo (Noah Lindsey Cyrus) loves Sousuke for it, but at the moment she professes her love, she is washed back into the sea, swept away by her sorcerer father.

Ponyo’s father, Fujimoto (Liam Neeson), shunned human society to become caretaker of the sea, longing for the day where the balance between sea-life and the human world will be restored. He’s not as much of a villain as he is a curmudgeon and protective father, but he is unable to restrain Ponyo. In true little-girl fashion, she defies her father and grows up into a human, through her own powers and force of will. Fujimoto is powerless to stop Ponyo, and decides to call upon her mysterious mother to help control their unfettered daughter.

Rating:

Directed and written by: Hayao Miyazaki

Staring: Noah Lindsey Cyrus, Frankie Jonas

Ponyo makes her grand return to the human world, accompanied by Joe Hirashi’s Wagner-esque riding music. The princess of the sea brings an unnatural storm with her; wild winds and rain worry the coastal town. Sousuke’s mother hurries him home while Ponyo chases them atop the swollen sea.

At first, we think the storm may be Fujimoto’s reaction to losing Ponyo, but the storm clears when Ponyo falls asleep, and we learn her true nature. Ponyo is a dervish of a girl, devouring every new experience with a joyous ferocity. She discovers light, tears, and the wonders of ham.

The adventures of Ponyo and Sousuke are the real strength of the film. We typically look to live action films for expressive faces, but in his art, Miyazaki perfectly captures a child’s bold expressions: the stuffed sleepiness of a food coma, bright eyes brimming with tears, innocence while sleeping. Ponyo’s an animated film before all else, and through its visual medium, it’s a rainbowed spectacle to behold, whether the action takes place in an undersea palace or in a retirement home.

The story is fine-tuned for children. Instead of being an adult’s faded memoir of what it means to be a child, the story is told from a very child-like perspective. There are dangers, but precious little fear or tension, even in the adults. The supernatural exists, but the human world is quick to accept it. The resolution doesn’t necessarily move quickly, or in a straight line. There are still classic lessons of love and devotion (and even a few on preparedness and respect for elders), but they’re very gently fed. The real locus of the story is how much fun Sousuke and Ponyo have together, and how natural it is for them to love one another.

Ponyo will make you remember what you love about children and what you miss about being a child. The story may be aimed at the very young, but its warmth will be felt and appreciated by all.

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A one-page story for my last writing assignment this term. This assignment called for an anecdote, well-used sentence fragments, characterizing quotes, and imagery. One-page stories are HARD. I wrote five two-page stories before I found a concept that worked in one page. I had to sever half of the imagery, but I'm satisfied. I wasn't thrilled, but Sam was.

The Innocent
"Listen close now, boy," Old Nya croaked. "Some men go their whole lives thinking the world is theirs. Thinking they know the shape of it. Us Naeglish, we know different." Nya clasped her rheumy hands around her cane and laid her sagging chin upon them. Light still danced in her eyes as she fixed them on her grandson Jack. Jack smiled and stared back at her, listening intently.

"The world's full up with spirits. Every rock, every tree. These aren't the invisible gods of those Southrons, no. They hear your prayers and see your deeds, and they favor the innocent. When I was a girl, I could see them." Old Nya leaned closer, and Jack's tight-lipped smile spread into a gap-toothed grin. "I can't see them anymore. I'm an old woman, so they hide from me, but I know they're there. We all do."

From that day forward, Jack made it his goal to capture a spirit for Old Nya. Every day, he planted himself on the big smooth rock by the river, fixed his eyes on the widest tree, and waited. Jack prayed and watched until his eyelids drooped and the sun set. He knew it was only a matter of time until the spirit showed itself to him.

And eventually, it did. Jack leapt from the rock, quick as a spider, and brought a jar down around the writhing spirit, its mossy fists pounding on the glass in tinkling protest.

Jack ran back to Old Nya on springs, shouting and laughing all the way. When he reached her tent, he took one last look at the jar, but the spirit was gone. Vanished. Lost.

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Originally posted to http://pixielate.com/booksmovies/?p=145

Instead of doing a traditional review of Wolverine, I thought I’d highlight my feelings for this piece of work by writing a drinking game.

TAKE 1 DRINK:
- Each time claws or swords emerge from someone’s skin in slow motion
- Each time a new mutant is introduced
- Each time an exotic locale is revealed in an an aerial shot.
- Whenever an item is shown for the sole purpose of re-enforcing something that was said in dialog just seconds before.
- Whenever an item is shown for the sole purpose of destroying it
- Whenever Wolverine accidentally destroys something or injures someone
- Each time a non-Wolverine mutant says something snarky
- Each time a character implies or discusses Wolverine being “an animal”

LADIES ONLY: TAKE 2 DRINKS
- Each time Hugh Jackman is naked or partially naked

TAKE 2 DRINKS:
- Whenever Wolverine walks away from a combat when he totally had an opportunity to kill his foe
- Whenever a mutant engages in solo combat, even though other mutants are around to help him/her
- Whenever the moon is mentioned or shown
- Whenever you see an ax

POUR DRINKS FOR EVERYONE ELSE
- When a character loses in combat, even though they had the tools/knowledge to prevent a loss
- When a character *realizes* they had the knowledge to prevent a combat loss

DRINK YOUR NEIGHBOR’S DRINK
- Whenever Wolverine switches sides (or the sides switch for him)
- Each time Wolverine shouts “NOOOOO!” “ARGHHH!” “RAWRRR!” or another one-syllable expletive

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"One day I happened upon a big book buried deep in the ground."

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The-Soloist

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More writings for school. I doubt this will go anywhere, since I know next to nothing about Latin American Catholicism. Sam really liked it, so I thought I'd share again.

When the sun began to dazzle him, Juan ended his prayers. He looked to Paloma, who was curled up on a sunlit patch of soil. "Time to hit the road, old girl," he said. Paloma perked her ears, rose, and shook the dust from her silver coat. Dutifully, Paloma padded after her master as Juan climbed into his rig and started the thundering truck.

Juan drove west, following the rising sun's path across the morning sky. He'd been a truck driver for more than twenty years, and he loved his work. Juan was a solitary man, preferred to spend his days admiring the wondrous landscape of the Americas with Paloma as his only company.

Like many in his line of work, Juan's cab was covered from floor to ceiling with photos, candles, and statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe: a moving shrine to the Mother of all. Though his devotion ran deep, few would guess at just how personal his relationship with Guadalupe was.

Five hundred years ago, Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan and asked him to serve. Juan agreed to his Lady's request, and in return, She blessed him with long life. Guadalupe warned that the quest would not be easy, and it may take him many lifetimes to find what he sought. Juan obeyed, cast aside his old life, and began the first steps of his sacred quest.

Juan took jobs in every country in the hemisphere, favoring those that demanded travel. People everywhere accepted Juan as a drifter: a man without a family or a home. It was easy, then, to quest for Guadalupe's lost artifact across the Americas, where Guadalupe promised his quest would end.
    
Today, Juan felt a familiar twinge of warmth in the back of his head. All of his tension seemed to expand and melt there, covering his skull in a pleasant, tingling sensation, as if he were bathed in sunlight.

Juan glanced at Paloma, who was staring at some unseen point to the northwest. Paloma's stance was eager and alert, her ears pointed and her legs straight. Her ancient frame seemed almost puppyish as she gazed far ahead.

"Well, should we go see what it is, then?" Juan asked. Paloma thumped her tail in approval, and Juan patted her back vigorously. Juan changed gears, sped up, and made way for the radiant mountain range ahead.
 

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Creative writing is not my forte. I can count the number of creative things I've written in the last 10 years on one hand. I have little snippets and ideas: I make up little stories about people I see on the bus, or take something a friend says and turn it into a crazy children's story, and will occasionally wax poetic while under the influence.

But when I'm forced to write, I can produce, even if the results are laughable. In the case below, I'm a little proud. I wrote this story introduction for my grammar course:

Deborah cared for her ailing mother over the last ten years. She had plenty of time to prepare herself for the inevitable, but when Charlotte passed quietly in the night, it was still a shock, followed by an icy numbness. Deborah didn't have the best relationship with her mother; Charlotte would point out Deborah's deficiencies on a daily basis, leveling double-barrels of unemployment and Deborah's single status against her. In spite of all this, Deborah found some comfort and purpose in caring for Charlotte. Now that Charlotte was gone, Deborah was a woman undone, with her mother's last insults tolling in her ears.

The sound of the ocean helped Deborah escape this dull ringing, and as she walked, she looked for seashells that might echo the sounds of their origin. Deborah owned hundreds of seashells, scattered throughout the shared cabin as if they'd drifted in with the winds. She'd learned the truth about seashells and their sea-echoes when she was still a girl, but these tiny treasures never lost their appeal.

Deborah found a small shell and held it to her ear. She heard a woman's faint sobs instead of the ocean's roar. Deborah dropped the shell and looked around her, but the beach was deserted. Convinced she was just hearing things in grief, Deborah set aside her silly thoughts and picked up the shell again. The woman's sobs grew louder.

"Hello?" Deborah ventured. "Who's there? This is a private beach," she shouted with a note of growing anger.

"Hello?" a soft voice, not her own, echoed from the shell. "Can you hear me? Are you really there? Oh thank god!" the young woman cried, and started sobbing again.

"I must be going crazy," Deborah muttered to herself, inspecting the shell closely.

"No, you've got to believe me, you're not going crazy," the shell answered. Deborah blanched and was quiet, listening cautiously. "Please, help me," the woman in the shell pleaded. "Please, I'm trapped!"

"What, you're trapped inside the shell?" Deborah said, and inspected it again.

"No! I don't know how this works. I've been praying for help, and now I hear your voice, and I guess you can hear me too," the woman in the shell reasoned. "Please, will you help me?"

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Originally posted to http://pixielate.com/booksmovies/?p=123

Creating a movie from a cultural icon is tricky business. Do you please the fans, or do you create a good movie? The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s a perilous tightrope. I’m not familiar with the Watchmen comics, and coming out of the movie, I felt like someone’s guest at a work party: politely smiling and nodding at inside remarks I don’t really understand. Watchmen is beautifully marketed, the heroes look interesting and sexy, the concept of not-so-good-guys is intriguing, but this is all just a glossy cover for several stories shoddily bound together.

Watchmen takes place in the mid 80s that never was. Richard Nixon is spending his fourth term nervously fingering the big red button that will send the world into nuclear holocaust. The Watchmen are bound to stop this, but Tricky Dick legally disbanded their team when public pressure turned against the vigilante justice. The Watchmen we’re introduced to in this movie are actually the second generation of super (and not-so-super) heroes. The opening credits nicely montage the first Watchmen’s progress, demise, and retirement.

This second crop theoretically kicked some ass in the 70s, but we don’t see them really spring into action until the second half of the movie. Through the first half of the movie, we’re not even sure what their superpowers are, with the exception of the Vishnu-like Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup). The movie begins with sketchy Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) investigating the murder of the ironically named Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). There’s also a love triangle between Manhattan, Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman) and Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson). With all these subplots and seven characters worth of backstory, the movie is slowly muddled over three hours.

Rating:

Directed by:

Written by:

Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson

The visuals are great, though sadly, most of the stunners were revealed in trailers. True to great comic movies before it, Watchmen features lots of dark or high-contrast lighting and sharp camera angles. The use of slow-motion is a little overused, but helps to frame the action in the same way a graphic novel or comic does. The movie accomplishes the rare coupling of both frequent and relevant CGI. I do think someone should get Dr. Manhattan a thong so we don’t see his dongle waggling back and forth as he strides through important dramatic scenes. (Maybe it’s just my dirty, easily distracted mind.)

That’s not the only distracting feature of Watchmen. Women are frequently brutalized through the film, and some of the violent themes are a little difficult to stomach. A vivid sexual assault and a child’s death are particularly gruesome if not graphic.

Though the art direction is generally very good, if not a little open-handed, the music is often painful. Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” meets the tone and has a great lyric match as two heroes stride up to a villian’s fortress. Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” is incongruous with a violent murder, and I understand that artistic dichotomy. Nena’s “99 Luftballoons” serves only to remind us it’s the 80s as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre meet for a sensual dinner: not appropriate. But Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” took the cake and ground it into the dirt by ruining what would’ve otherwise been a perfectly steamy sex scene. So much for my dirty, easily distracted mind.

Apart from having a slow start and two main characters that never get developed, Watchmen does have some interesting story and dialog. Rorschach’s contempt for the scum of the earth, The Comedian’s fatalism, and Manhattan’s neutrality are all built with internal dialog that occasionally reads false, but is generally engaging. There are even a few great coup de grâce lines, but these vie for attention with all the movie’s bad one liners. I loved the bittersweet ending, but many of the subplots wrapped up in cliched reveals.

I’m not sure what place Watchmen has in comic movie history yet. You can’t watch the three hour movie with earplugs in and enjoy the eye candy; it’s just not that kinetic. You can’t hail this as message-heavy Cinema either, as the attention paid to deeper social issues is rather slipshod and rushed in the reveal. I have a strong suspicion that if these themes are interesting to you, you’re better off reading the comics.

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"The International" is the latest entry in a long list of action movies with bad writing. Unlike many of the films on this list, "The International" isn't saved by it's great cast, cinematic action scenes, or lavish locations. It's not even saved by the timely ire of bank-hating U.S. taxpayers. It's simply schizophrenic in its composure, trundling between truly orgiastic destruction and some of the worst dialog issued to A-list actors in recent years.

The International

Clive Owen and Naomi Watts co-star as Louis Salinger, an Interpol agent, and Eleanor Whitman, Manhattan assistant district attorney. They're working to crack the case of the I.B.B.C., an international bank foraying into weapons dealing to third-world nations. The unlikely pair romp around the world trying to find weak links in I.B.B.C.'s chain and fighting the bureaucratic red-tape their own organizations install along the way.

For action movies, we can usually ignore the story as improbable or scanty and focus on the bounding action. For "The International", so much time is devoted to story development that we're forced to consider the writing at great and excruciating lengths. I don't know why director Tom Tykwer decided to go with an unknown writer for this film when he's had relative success with his own writing ("Paris, J'Taime", "Run Lola Run"). Whatever the reason, nearly three quarters of the film is dedicated to exposition that sounds like it's read straight from B-rate novels you pick up from the checkout aisle at the grocery store.

Not only is the premise ridiculous, the dialog is ghastly. Congenial Clive Owen barely manages to choke lines down with a semblance of intensity. Naomi Watts fails completely, being cursed with both cliched dialog and a role that renders her insignificant to the story's progression; she's reduced to Indignant Female Co-Star Type A, and accomplishes nothing in her quest to bring down the I.B.B.C.

The film has a few high points. The sound design is detailed and disturbing, often signaling plot points that may have otherwise been opaque. The locations are also incredible, and plenty of photography is dedicated to showing off architectural treasures around the world. The action offers mostly minor thrills, but there is one amazing action scene at the Guggenheim. Owen completely destroys the interior of the clean and modern New York museum: waterfalls of glass and bullets, spiraling down to hell, against a backdrop of art films with blooming red roses and virulent disease.

This single scene is action at its best, but sadly, it's alone in the sea of "The International"'s mediocrity.

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