The Cobbler and the Thief: Recobbled Cut Mark IV (2013)

I had seen a few things posted on line about this film, but really knew nothing about it.  Apparently this film had been in production for nearly 3 decades.  While at least 3 versions of the film have been released, some with additional dialogue and even songs, this is supposed to be as close to the original vision of the director Richard Williams.

The film, epecially the animation style is very odd.  Each character has such a unique look, as if they were each done by an independant studio.  It' hard to understand if the Cobber's black and white coloring (though color is used sometimes) is intentional or just unfinished.  Some of the character are so "stylized"  that they seem unreal, while it seems only the princess looks like an actual human.  The Vizier looks like a combination of Jafar and Genie from Disney's Aladdin, so much so that you would think the producer could sue.

The film is mostly without dialogue, and strangely the villian has the majority of the dialogue and is voiced by Vincent Price.

There are also a lot of scenes that are somewhat long with character's running around in stylized rooms or being flung around and nearly and oblivisously avoiding death while chaos rains around them.

While this film is a great accomplishment, especially for Garrett Gilchrist, it lacks appeal for modern audiences. While a lot of great animation has been made in the last few years, it has been lacking variations in style a bit.  Though that does not detract from the appeal of modern animation (which really has been pretty much entirely CGI), it does show that there are a lot of other possible styles, like those used in this film.

I would like to see the two other versions of this film and compare them to Richard William's original vision.

Millennium Actress (2001)

After watching The Wind Rises, I read some material about the film, and someone made a reference to this film, Millennium Actress, which was supposed to be a great Japanese animated film.  I had never heard of it before, so I decided to check it out.

The film has a bit of an odd feel to it.  The animation was less soft or appealing that is usual with most Japanese animated films.  Still the story, and the constant changing of setting made making this film animated the only way to keep the budget low.  Except for that, there is really no reason this film needed to be an animated film.

The film had really left you lacking as the ending .  It's one of those cases where the so called "McGuffin", the item (or person) people are searching for is supposedly irrelevant.  It's the chase that makes the story.  But we are lead to beleive their is some great significant purpose for that McGuffin.  The real answer comes from the fact that both the character and the director is capable of stating that something is important, when they don't have anything to justify why give it such status.

A friend of mine felt the same way about the ark in Raider's of the Lost Ark, but I only partially recognized her point.  After all, it was one of the greatest chases ever made and you did get to see what the power of the ark was capable of, but if the ark was supposedly left to be used by the America's it would either have changed history or resulted in everyone having to keep their eyes closed for 10 minutes each time it was opened (even the enemy could do that).

風立ちぬ The Wind Rises (2013)

I had watched nearly all of Miyazaki's movies, with the exception of the latest, Howl's Moving Castle and a hand full his older films, mostly those predating Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

A co-worker had told me of this film, which was what inspired me to watch it, and her explanation about the "theme" song of the film Hikokigumo by Yuming.  Honestly, I only know Yuming from her song "Koibito ga Santa Kurozu", which a friend of mine sent to me on a mix tape, many years ago.  I do have a bit of a bone to pick with this being called a "theme" song.   The song is merely tacked on to the end credits, a place where any song will do.   This is the same problem with Batman Forever's inclusion of A Kiss from a Rose and even Time Bandits' Dream Away (a song that REALLY didn't fit the theme of the movie) 

Since Hikoigumo was written 4 decades before the film was created,  I realize that it wouldn't match the action in the film,  it's expected that the theme song would be at the beginning of the film or at lease during the film, where it captures the feel of some of the action taking place on the screen.

Anyhow, this was a pretty good film, but it lacked the feel of a Miyazaki film.  There weren't any strange creatures and a minimum of odd machines.  Those odd machines that did appear were only in dream sequences, but even then they bothered me a bit, as they often showed odd working of engines that seemed to demonstrate a lack of knowledge of how engines operate on the part of the director.

The story of the main character is certainly a worthy one, based on the real life and real accomplishments of Jiro Horikoshi.  Learning of this man was a great history lesson.

One big problem I had with the film was that tacked on love story. First, the love the characters supposedly felt never seemed authentic.  They instantaneously met and married, with out any indication of their love.  Then as their story continued, they but still have no actions that revealed they felt any love for each other.  And finally, not only was the story but it is not an actual event that took place in Jiro's life.  His actual wife never suffered tubculosis nor stayed in a santarium.  This was just a story that Miyazaki had read and decided to tack on to this film in an attempt to give the film a love story and perhaps depth (a cheap attempt to get an academy award?), but it felt like a failed attempt to pull at our heart strings.

One other odd thing was that the machine sounds all appeared to be made by people's mouths.  Perhaps this was an attempt at a unique style, but it sounded like elementary school kids making engine noises.