Movies Watched: Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2016
[Jul 31] “Everest” (2015)
Everest is an ensemble movie based on the disastrous storm that struck several climbing expeditions on Mt. Everest in 1996. It primarily focuses on two commercial climbing teams – Adventure Consultants, led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), and Mountain Madness, led by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) and some of the mountaineers that were in their parties. It’s a very well made movie; the actors who played climbers all seemed like real people, they never overdo it despite the dramatic events surrounding them. The cast is great too – other than the people I’ve already mentioned, John Hawkes, Josh Brolin, Naoko Mori, Sam Worthington, and Michael Kelly all do a great job (I never thought I’d say that about Sam Worthington, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by him in other movies.)
Most of what I took from the movie was an awe of Everest and mountaineering in general, though. There are so many ways to die – exhaustion, altitude sickness, falling, avalanches and storms – and people still choose to climb every year, and are okay with the risks of just being abandoned if disaster strikes (which makes sense given the risks, but is so alien to everyday morality.) Also, the Sherpas that actually prepare the mountain for climbing are even more amazing, since they don’t have the ropes and other equipment used by later climbers.
[Aug 1] “My Neighbors the Yamadas” (1999)
We’re still full speed ahead on our Studio Ghibli movie watch. My Neighbors the Yamadas is a very different film than previous Ghibli movies both in narrative and animation styles. It lacks a single narrative, it’s a collection of short stories about the life of the zany Yamada family, similar to a newspaper comic strip. The animation also follows the comic strip style, it’s much more “cartoon” and lacks the detailed backgrounds that most other Ghibli movies have.
It took me a while to warm up to My Neighbors the Yamadas because I was not expecting something so different from previous movies, but it’s a good movie. The five members of the Yamada family are pretty frustrating at times, but only because they have all the foibles that you associate with people you know very well. I can’t think of another movie that does slice-of-life so well.
[Aug 4] “Spirited Away” (2001)
When her parents are turned into pigs while exploring an abandoned theme park, ten year old Chihiro must overcome her fear and navigate the spirit world to find a way to rescue them.
I was looking forward to watching Spirited Away, I think it was the very first Miyazaki movie I watched, but I didn’t remember much of it. One of the things I love about Miyazaki is that each of his movies has a different tone, and I think Spirited Away manages to combine the best of many of them – the adventure from Castle in the Sky, the world-building of Princess Mononoke, the magic of Kiki’s Delivery Service. It’s also beautiful and atmospheric in its own unique way – I can play back a couple of eerie scenes in my head at will (along with the music, the soundtrack is great!), which I can’t do with most movies. Chihiro is a good protagonist, she has different things to learn than many of the (older) protagonists of other Ghibli movies, but she does grow. The other characters are memorable too, especially No Face, who was the only thing I remembered from the first watch. This is definitely one of Miyazaki’s best movies.
[Aug 5] “The Cat Returns” (2002)
High school student Haru’s life isn’t going very well – she feels like she’s picked on constantly, and she can’t summon the courage to talk to the boy she has a crush on. When she saves the life of a cat who turns out to be the prince of the Cat Kingdom, her life goes even crazier when she’s kidnapped and involuntarily engaged to the prince. Her only hope of salvation lies with the living cat statue Baron Humbert von Gikkingen and his friends Muta and Toto.
The Cat Returns is a spinoff of Whisper of the Heart (reviewed last week), sort of. It’s a totally unrelated story except for starring two minor characters from the movie – the Baron and Muta. I like to think it’s an adaption of another story that Shizuku wrote featuring the Baron. Anyway, it’s not comparable to most Ghibli movies, the character design is a lot more like traditional anime. The storyline and characters are fairly light too, there aren’t many layers to it. I think it’s more similar to a Disney animated movie, and it’s pretty fun for what it is. I especially liked seeing the Baron again.
[Aug 6] “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” (2016)
13 Hours is based on the true story of the September 11, 2012 attacks on the US diplomatic compound and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. Ambassador to Libya was killed, and six CIA security contractors (ex-soldiers) held off waves of further attacks.
I didn’t know much about the Benghazi attacks, and I enjoyed this movie from a “learning about events” perspective. From what I’ve been able to gather, the movie is actually pretty faithful to real events (although the events themselves are controversial.) However, this movie is also directed by Michael Bay, so I didn’t expect it to be very good from a human perspective, and it wasn’t. It’s much better than Pearl Harbor (his previous combat movie), but there’s gratuitous slow motion and clichéd conversations between the soldiers and their families (which had the opposite effect on me, it made me care about them less because they seemed so fake), and the dialogue is laughable at times. When it was focusing on the action, the movie was great, it really brought home the confusion of modern warfare where you don’t know who your enemy is. The cast was pretty amazing too, I especially enjoyed James Badge Dale as the intense leader of the soldiers, Tyrone “Rone” Woods.