"The Secret World of Arrietty"

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• JP says:

  February 15, 2012 at 3:45 pm

  Just watched Miyazaki’s Nausicaa for the first time. What a movie!! Every time I watch a Ghibli/Miyazaki movie I am stunned by the pure joy that seeps into the material.
  What did you think of Ponyo Glenn? I did­n’t think it was among his best, per­haps a little more dir­ec­ted at kids then his pre­vi­ous fea­tures, how­ever, I think it’s among the most beau­ti­ful of his movies…Those Waves!

• Fernando says:

  February 15, 2012 at 3:54 pm

  Oh gosh, I did­n’t real­ize this was already com­ing out! Very excited. I felt like I was on the cusp of tears through­out the entirety of PONYO and had no clear idea why. That’s gotta some kind of mark of qual­ity right there.

• Oliver_C says:

  February 15, 2012 at 5:08 pm

  “If you really want to see the best cur­rent anim­a­tion, go to Japan, espe­cially to the work of Hayao Miyazaki.”
  – David Thomson, 2005

• LLJ says:

  February 15, 2012 at 6:16 pm

  I thought Ponyo was great, in fact I enjoyed it more than Miyazaki’s 3 pre­vi­ous fea­tures. Yes, it was the most child-like Miyazaki film since Totoro, but there’s a free­wheel­ing play­ful­ness to the storytelling, anim­a­tion and art­work that was infec­tious to watch.
  That said, Ghibli has a very tal­en­ted anim­a­tion staff over­all, and I hope Yonebayashi builds on this film’s success.

• Chris O. says:

  February 16, 2012 at 9:47 am

  It’s a near-crime that these films aren’t avail­able on Blu-Ray here in the states with the excep­tion of “Ponyo” – although I see the “Nausicaa” Blu is out on March 8. (They also make you wish for a Ghibli vir­tu­al real­ity hel­met so you can rev­el in those blue skies a bit more, but mabye that’s just me.) My son was bit­ten by the ima­gin­at­ive bright-eyed well-designed Ghibli bug with “Ponyo,” then sub­sequently “Totoro” and “Kiki’s,” and now wants to see them all. Watched “My Neighbors The Yamadas” over the week­end, in fact, and did­n’t anti­cip­ate how exper­i­ment­al and epis­od­ic it was going to be (in the good sense of the words).
  @JP – Here’s Glenn on “Ponyo:”
  http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2009/08/ponyo-on-court-street.html

• Thomas says:

  February 16, 2012 at 11:48 am

  The “Nausicaa” Blu-ray actu­ally came out in the US March 8^th of last year. And I’ve already watched it three times since get­ting it (it was the only Miyazaki film I had­n’t seen yet.)

• LLJ says:

  February 16, 2012 at 1:08 pm

  Chris O, if you can, do try to catch “Only Yesterday” in the Ghibli ret­ro­spect­ives tour­ing North America cur­rently. If you enjoyed “My Neighbors the Yamadas” I think you’ll find this earli­er Takahata effort just as eye open­ing. Quite frankly, it’s my favour­ite Takahata film of the Ghibli era, even over the excel­lent and much more well-known “Grave of the Fireflies.”
  It also needs to be said that “Only Yesterday” is the only Ghibli film that has nev­er been released in North America, along with “Ocean Waves.” See them both; the chance that Disney will release them at all seems quite slim.

• Josh Z says:

  February 16, 2012 at 5:27 pm

  From the review: “As is always the case with films from this stu­dio, there isn’t a Smash Mouth song with­in 100 miles of these proceedings.”
  I wish I had nev­er suffered through the English dub of Ponyo, which has an abhor­rent auto-tuned dance remix of the theme song per­formed by Miley Cyrus’s little sis­ter and one of the less­er Jonas Brothers. That’s prob­ably John Lasseter’s fault, though.

• lazarus says:

  February 16, 2012 at 11:23 pm

  FWIW, I got a region-free bootleg Ghibli boxed set a long time ago that con­tained Ocean Waves (aka I Can Hear The Sea) and Only Yesterday, as well as everything else from the stu­dio. It even had a fant­ast­ic music video Miyazaki made for some J‑Pop group. All the menus were in Japanese but each film did have English subtitles.
  Anyway, that was back around 2002/2003 (the set only went up through Mononoke), but I don’t think I paid more than $25 for it. I ima­gine there’s still some­thing sim­il­ar float­ing around.
  Also, am I the only per­son who pre­ferred Goro Miyazaki’s Tales From Earthsea to Ponyo, and now Arietty? I seem to be in a very small minor­ity of people who even liked that film. For a first fea­ture, it has a lot of great work in it.

• Chris O. says:

  February 17, 2012 at 10:08 am

  @Thomas – Completely missed it. Sorry about that. Thanks!
  @LLJ – Yeah, I really want to see it. Thanks!