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Miyazaki's Spirited Away U.S. Release
soupforare writes "Spirited Away is slated for a US limited theatre release in on Sep. 27th
nausicaa.net has a theatre listing and some more info. It looks like some theatres are even going to be showing the subtitled version." No showings near me, but hopefully those prints will make it around. Been wanting to see this one for a long time.
It's a very limited release, and it's something that I'm looking forward to. Hell, I'd like to see more foreign releases in American theatres, and less of the tripe that's currently in circulation (Pluto Nash anyone??). Seeing Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on the big screen in full DTS sound WITH SUBTITLES was one of the best movie-going experiences I've had in a long time. Wish I could have seen Mononoke Hime in a theatre.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Watch Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. (There is, of course, a page for it on nausicaa.net ... but for obvious reasons, you're not going to be able to visit it for a few hours now.) It's only available as a fansub, but it's well worth it -- IMO, it's the best anime I've ever seen. (And many of the themes explored in it were carried directly over into Princess Mononoke.) Spirited Away was also an amazing movie, and I hope that it's showed in my area at some point ... but Nausicaa was Miyazaki's best work.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
It's a fine movie if you like Miyazaki's work, although its somewhat less "normal" than his other projects. It's targeted at younger folks than Mononoke Hime was, and lacks the violent action. In fact it turns out to be quite similar to his previous Kiki's Delivery Service (a pre-teen girl looks for a job around the intersection of magic and the real world). This one is a bit more disney-like though, with some more overt antagonism than Kiki faced.
Like Mononoke, you can occasionally see places where the animation budget was preserved, but it detracts not at all.
The dub is just as good as Mononoke Hime's was- that is to say not perfect, there are moments of awkardness when they were obliged to be additionally verbose to help out us slow Americans. But there's nothing as painfully bad as the Gillian Anderson-techno-reverb wolf voice the end of Mononoke suffered from.
The movie really isn't anything like Mononoke Hime. It's much more kid-oriented, and mostly feels like a really good, creative Disney movie. Very little violence or action (though there's quite a bit of blood at times). I personally liked it, but a lot of my friends didn't. Just be cautioned: this movie isn't for anyone.
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
I know that many movie "experts" consider dubbing as a terrible thing: breaking the director's original vision, etc. For certain foreign movies, I agree. However, for visually rich films like this one is supposed to be, I much prefer dubbing; even bad dubbing. I hate missing what's happening on the rest of the screen while staring at the words on the bottom.
Fine then.
Don't buy it.
Don't see it.
But don't buy a bootleg and give them ammunition for their copy control laws.
I'll add the disclaimer that I *hate* dubs, generally. I usually can't stomach the arguments of people who say, "reading subtitles disturbs the continuity and distracts the eyes from the rest of the screen." This movie, however, is an exception.
I've watched this movie three times subtitled, and once dubbed now. Even after three viewings of the subtitled version, there were a lot of subtle, but really cool things that I missed, that I noticed at Tuesday's showing at the Guild 45th. And it wasn't like they were "deep" things, either -- everyone in the entire theater noticed them. The fact that our eyes were on the screen, rather than the subtitles, allowed us to see them.
With movies that have a lot of things happening on-screen, reading subtitles makes you miss things. Your argument that you read the subtitles subconsciously only means that you're looking at the bottom of the screen (away from the picture) subconsciously. You become zoned out from the visual content, and you miss the throwaway visuals.
That said, there were many things about this dub that I did not like. Such as the voice for Haku. How many inflection patterns does that guy know how to make? I counted two. Even when he was supposed to be supportive and consoling, he still used the "grim" voice. The only deviation from the "grim" voice was when he asked a question, which was really only three lines in the entire frickin' movie. I swear they pulled this guy from a TV commercial. And if he happens to be some famous actor that I just don't know about, then he couldn't possibly be famous for any sort of real talent.
Chihiro was similar, but for some reason she grated on me much less. I guess her acting, while mostly invariant, sounded more like what I'd expect her character to sound like.
And just so that you don't think I'm an impossible-to-please dub hater (close, but not quite), the voice for Lin was *awesome*. The emotions, the "I'm a bitch, just kidding" vocal transitions, the matching of attitude to facial expressions... this girl has some serious range.
Final verdict: A hellaciously fun movie, an adequate (though not spectacular) dub, in a format that allows the eyes to wander over the screen and catch all the little things.