yet another

I love Miyazaki films but probably not as much as I should. Except for the scene at the end when Haku and Sen are falling from the sky, I hated Spirited Away. And Howl’s Moving Castle is really terrible. I rewatched it this morning to see if maybe I could like it this time around, but nope.

I love Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro, but not 100%. I’ll skip scenes in Mononoke, fast-forward through Totoro. Miyazaki is appealing visually, and his worlds are whimsical and charming, but these aren’t reasons why I watch movies. His storytelling sucks, and it’s difficult to connect with characters and their motives.

How and why did the Witch of the Waste become an accepted grandma-type character to the crew? And what about the dog Heen, whom Sophie suspected was a spy but allowed him hearthroom anyway? And at the end, with the scarecrow and the end of the war, tell me that’s not a freaking deus ex machina. I DARE YOU. Actually, what was the whole freaking war about, anyway? Nothing was explained. And as is typical with all Miyazaki films, the ending just kind of drifts off into nothing. So Sophie abandons her hat shop? What about her sister(s) and mother? What’s going to happen to Calcifer now that he can die? What the hell was up with that sequence when Sophie went through the door and saw Howl’s past? How is the castle even moving, much less flying, now that Calcifer is free? Does Madam Suliman give up on trying to catch Howl, and if so, why?

I know movie critics and anime fans will pounce on all this and shriek, “BUT IT’S SO MUCH BETTER THAN AMERICAN FILMS BECAUSE IT DOESN’T PATRONIZE AND OVEREXPLAIN THINGS! PLUS, IT ALLOWS US TO TAP DIRECTLY INTO MIYAZAKI’S CHILDLIKE IMAGINATION, WHICH IS JUST STELLAR!” His movies are pure nonsense, but since it’s delightful nonsense, people lap it up anyway. I guess I like my movies to be a little more… tangible.

Anyway, summer is here, which means I’m off to mope in the background about how friggin’ hot it is.