Simon's Movie Reviews

Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki has often been referred to as the Walt Disney of Japan. I would argue in some cases he is even better than the man who created Mickey Mouse. The animation in his movies are stunning, the characters are humans who deal with real-life emotions and pains, and his stories have mostly no villains. His 1988 classic My Neighbor Totoro checks all those boxes and introduced the world to Miyazaki’s own Mickey Mouse even if this creature is limited to only saying his own name. Think of it as a Pokémon minus the annoyance.  It’s hard to keep track, but I believe the last time I was in theatres to see a movie was in early March. Since then it’s been deep dives into movies I own and everything available on streaming services. This year Netflix got its hands-on Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli movies, which gave me a chance to check My Neighbor Totoro off my watch list. It will probably be a few more weeks at least before we can all go back to theatres, so I highly reco...

Watching a lesser film by Hayao Miyazaki is like listening to the worst song by The Beatles: it’s not as good but it’s still The Beatles. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) has many of the Japanese master filmmaker’s trademarks, from the gorgeous hand-drawn animation to the magical creatures, and a strong female protagonist. Yet the story is not as enticing and one particular character comes off as underwhelming. On the plus side the titular castle looks great and it does do a lot of moving. My first experiences with Miyazaki’s films were watching some of his best work at a film club at the University of Sherbrooke. I got around to seeing this one while looking for my first job after graduating from Sheridan College in 2011. In between jobs, low on cash, and staying at home in Quebec City, I was not spending a lot of money of movies. Good news for me, my brother buys as many movies as I do and he likes Japanese animation. He was very enthusiastic about it, saying the animation of Howl...

The United-States has Pixar and Disney, but Japan has Studio Ghibli. Its founder Hayao Miyazaki has directed many of its most successful titles, including 2001’s “Spirited Away” which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and became the highest grossing film in Japan. Like many of the studio’s greatest hits, it uses hand-drawn animation to create a fantasy world filled with creatures you can only dream of and then animate. The title is appropriate, as “Spirited Away” takes you for a ride into a spirit world. I first saw this Ghibli creation in January of 2012, as my brother had received it for Christmas. That’s pretty much how it has been going during Christmastime for the past few years in my family: we buy each other movies or TV shows, watch a few in the days after December 25 and then we move on into the new year. It’s nice to take a few hours out of the busy holiday season to just sit in front of the television and watch a movie as a family, even if we do...