Howl's moving Castle

Howls moving castle is an animated movie released in 2005 and is part of the Studio Ghibli collection. Directed and scripted by Hayao Miyazaki. It is a wonderful tale of magic, adventure, humour, and ultimately love.

The story goes like this, 

Sophie

Sophie is a 18 year old hard working hat maker on her way to see her sister, (yes I am aware this sounds very red riddinghoodish) where she is attacked by solders and is save by Howl (who is voiced by Christian Bale which I was surprised by because I don’t really like him as an actor). Howl is a very powerful magician who is caught in the middle of a war. The mysterious stranger who comes to her aid, who takes her for a magical walk above the crowded streets of Market Chipping to deliver her safely at the bakery where her sister works.

Howl

Because of this chance encounter the Witch of the Waste (yes I know Wizard of Oz)  puts a curse on Sophie and turns her into a 90 year old woman .We follow Sophie’s story ,along where she meets Turnip Head voiced by Crispin Freeman, who shows her the way to Howls moving castle.  It is powered and held together by a fire named Calcirfer voiced by Billy Crystal.

Turnip-Head

Through the whole movie there is a connection between Howl and Sophie which turns to love , it’s a war time love story  ,where you are just swept away by the art work in this film , it is just simply amazing.

DVD features:

There are not many features on the DVD. just the usually play ,select scenes and a theatrical trailer for the movie and a list of the Studio Ghibli collection , but other than that not much else , I know thrilling right , but what it lacks in this department it makes up for it on the art work on the front cover , there are a few covers out there depending on where you live and if you buy the English version (which this review  is about) of the Japanese version which was released first , but as I don’t know any Japanese I can’t review it .

This is my favorite movie in the vast Studio Ghibli collection, Because of the spectacularly beautiful art work and well-known actors that just sweeps you along threw the highs and lows of the whole magical love story. I recommend this to EVERYONE !

- Sora

Jus Some Idle Speculation

So the hot news at the moment is that Despicable Me 2 is going to earn roughly about $130 million dollars on its debut while Lone Ranger is only going to earn $50 million and cost Disney a fair bit of money. 

Ok, so maybe that isn't quite hot news (at least not to us. It probably is to the people behind these films), but it is still very interesting. 

Interesting to me, at least. 

I mean, besides Lone Ranger being a big budget movie, Disney hasn't exactly spared any expense in spruiking it either. Ads for it are everywhere and everyone is talking about it on their TV programs. It's all about the Lone Ranger. I'm sure Universal has spent their fare share on advertising for Despicable Me 2, but the media isn't as saturated with Despicable Me 2 as it is with the Lone Ranger. 

The Lone Ranger is supposed to be the movie to go and see. It's the bees knees. 

Except that (as I've already said) it's probably going to cost Disney a large amount of money due to poor performance. 

But why is that?

It's not like they skimped with advertising. Disney is a known and trusted (ok, maybe not so trusted. We're still scared about what they'll do with wonderful franchises like Star Wars. But they're still well known) company. And with Johnny Depp and one of Hollywood's rising stars Armie Hammer leading the cast there shouldn't be any problems drawing people in with the cast. Plus if there was, Gore Verbinski is directing. It pretty much should have the same magic as The Pirates of the Caribbean had (and didn't that do well!). It is a combination that has proven to be extremely successful in the past. 

Not that any of that should matter, really. It's the Lone Ranger, after all! Everyone is familiar with the Lone Ranger. People should be flocking to the cinemas based on that alone. I don't know about you, but I was ready to do just that when I first heard that they were making a Lone Ranger movie. 

But then I heard who was starring in it, and I had some doubts. Still I waved them away. I could overlook Johnny Depp being the Lone Ranger. He might even bring some of that Captain Jack Sparrow magic to the role. 

Only he's not the Lone Ranger. 

And that's what has turned me off from going to see the Lone Ranger. The role of Tonto is just Johnny Depp in another funny hat. Don't get me wrong, I live Depp in some of these funny hat roles. He's what made Pirates of the Caribbean, and I can't imagine another Sweeny Todd (I need to see the play). But, besides voice acting, that's pretty much all we've seen Depp do lately: funny hat roles. 

Maybe Depp can bring the same Captain Jack Sparrow magic to Tonto. Maybe he can't. It's not something many people will be able to tell you for awhile, because they're in no hurry to see the Lone Ranger. 

Then there's the whole Depp is playing an Indian character. That really upset the hidden politically correct person inside of me. There's something about that that I just don't like, and I'm sure it's offensive in some way. Even if Depp has been adopted as a son of the Comanche, I'm still sure it's not PC (and I do apologise for this whole PC thing, it's not something I usually do). 

I think with this, Disney has tried too hard to recreate the magic of previous successes and reused the same formula when they clearly should've tried something different. Maybe even something a little more original than using the same leading star, director and producer. They've tried to recapture something that can't be caught, and it's going to cost them. Where as, Universal has done something differently, even if it's with a sequel. They've done something to win the trust of film goers enough to part with their hard earned. 

Just a thought. 

Peace out!

Fox

Where I Wonder About Beauty & the Beast

Ok, so Beauty and the Beast hit our
airwaves last week and it's probably getting decent viewing ratings because it's on after Offspring and there's not too much else to watch at 9:30 Tuesday nights. Plus the title will also be helping to get people's interest: it's a story we all grew up with and people would be curious to see a modern, non Disney take on Beauty and the Beast. 

The problem is, I can already tell what the story arc is: it's just your run of the mill quest story;

The protagonist, Catherine Chandler, learns that a parent, in this case Chandler's mother, was murdered due to some dark secret she was keeping. Naturally, Chandler wants to learn more about this dark secret and does all in her power to do so. Luckily she's a cop (they're always cops, too), so she has the resources to help with this. She very quickly enlists the help of a dark and mysterious stranger, Vincent Keller, who just happens to have supernatural abilities (they almost always have supernatural abilities, and they almost always have encountered one another years earlier), who can help her find the information she needs when conventional methods fail. 

Of course, there's going to be trust issues with this partnership, but they'll quickly learn that they can't operate as well without the other helping out, and become firm friends. 

During their quest to find out what happens to Chandler's mother, Chandler and Keller will come up against evil forces (presumably some kind of government agency if not the government itself, and will might even have people with supernatural abilities of their own), save countless of innocent lives by thwarting said evil forces, and learn a lot about themselves and each other along the way. 

And when they do uncover the truth about Chandler's mother, there will undoubtedly be questions that will lead to next season's story arc.

Sounds familiar, right? 

But hopefully, the writer's will be able to hide this and still draw audience's in week after week, because let's face it, we need more scripted TV on our airwaves instead of all this "reality" shiz that we're currently stuck with