My Neighbor Totoro and Ebert

peter_gzowski writes "Well known film critic and closet otaku, Roger Ebert, has a bi-weekly segment on his website where he reminisces about the greatest films of all time (in his opinion, anyway). The most recent installment covers My Neighbor Totoro. This is the second anime to make the list, joining Grave of the Fireflies. For those unfamiliar, Totoro is a film by anime master Hayao Miyazaki, the man behind Princess Mononoke, amoung many other great films (Castle of Cagliostro being my favorite)." Always pleased to see anime get more mainsream cred. And Miyazaki always deserves it.

Comments

Re:On Ebert's opinions

[LarsWestergren]

I often agree with him, and even when I disagree I can usually respect his opinions. Being a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fan I bought his "I hated, hated, HATED this movie".

Most of it was laugh out loud stuff, but really didn't agree with his slagging of
a) Clive Barker's Hellraiser. Ebert listed lots of "plotholes" that were actually misunderstandings of the movie from his side. He also seemed very upset with the S/M and anti-religious themes and mocked those who call the film a classic. Well, it IS a classic damnit! :)
b) Priest. Again he seemed very prudish. His main objection is that joining the priesthood and taking a vow of celibacy is a voluntary choice, so claiming that you are opressed later for that or because you are gay is just PC whining. Maybe - but giving such a well written, acted and well shot film such a low score just because of that? One suspects he is subconsciously offended by the topic of the movie and the way it portrayed the Catholic church.

On the other hand, I really liked how he butchered these two films, so I guess it evens out:
a) Armageddon. "The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out."
b) Starship Troopers. "The action sequences are heavily laden with special effects, but curiously joyless. We get the idea right away: Bugs will jump up, troopers will spray counless rounds at them, the Bugs will impale troopers with their spiny giant legs, and finally dissolve in a spray of goo. Later there are refinements, like fire-breathing beetles, flying insects, and giant Bugs that erupt from the earth. All very elaborate, but not interesting in the way, say, that the villains in the Alien pictures were. Even their planet is boring; Bugs live on ugly rock worlds with no other species, raising the question of what they eat."

And he also made me aware of some weak spots in films I really liked and made me re-evaluate them, for instance Blue Velvet, Doom Generation, Dead Poets Society, Caligula.

Well, getting back to Totoro I must say it sounds interesting. I wish I had read this review before Christmas, it would have been a good present for my brother's kids, and then I would have had an excuse to see it too.
:)