Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I'd love to write more about "Batman Begins," which I saw (very appropriately, I thought) on Father's Day after church and promised to say more about when I had more time to muse on how good a Batman movie can be when they have really good actors cast as the supporting cast and/or villains ( cut for very short mini-rant )

I would love to be able to do that. But right now my head is just too full of the movie I saw on my afternoon off today: the latest anime film from Hayao Miyazaki, "Howl's Moving Castle" (based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones, which I unfortunately have never read), all dubbed into English . . . and starring the voice of new Batman/Christian Bale as the wizard Howl, as a matter of fact. (Listen also for the voices of Jean Simmons, Blythe Danner, and Lauren Bacall among the cast.)

I strongly recommend that you see this film while it's on the big screen. It's the most impressive visual work that I think I've ever seen from Miyazaki, and that's saying quite a bit! The backgrounds alone are like spending an afternoon at an art gallery, full of rich colors and Old Masters, crossed with a sun-drenched day spent walking in flower-filled meadows. Gorgeous! And, as we've come to expect from Miyazaki, the story and characters are equally compelling (and, sooner or later, everybody flies, either under their own power or in the most intricate or mystical of machines).

This latest film from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli hasn't been getting undiluted rave reviews from the critics, but I have to say that I enjoyed it much more than either "Spirited Away" or "Princess Mononoke", both of which did get rave reviews from all and sundry, as I recall. I'm not knocking those films -- I'm just saying that they didn't manage to draw me in all the way; I was appreciating them, intellectually and visually, as works of art on the screen, but never felt as though they really had a place for me within their worlds. For whatever that's worth.

Anyway, although there were visual elements and plot elements in "Howl" that reminded me of both those recent Miyazaki films ( cut for the slightest possibility of spoilers )

There were also some similarities to the visual and thematic elements of "Porco Rosso," so you could say I was in "Miyazaki Hog Heaven"!

(Ouch! I'm sorry I had to go so far for that bad pun! I just couldn't resist. And it's also quite literally true.)

Anyway, this is one Miyazaki film that I want to see at least a couple more times before it leaves the big screen. And I strongly recommend it especially to any of you who are artists or painters, because you'll just lap up the beauty of it. Some parts might be a bit intense for very young children, but there's nothing in this film to make it inappropriate for the 8-years-and-up crowd. Youngsters might find it slower moving than they're used to in parts, but the fast-paced parts more than make up for it, and I thought the pacing was just right throughout. Plus, you really get your money's worth: this film must have been a solid two hours long, not counting the previews beforehand.