Film Review - The Secret World of Arrietty (2012)

The Secret World of Arrietty (2012; Studio Ghibli,
Buena Vista Entertainment)

Mary Norton's the Borrowers was published in 1952. Since then, there have been countless retellings of the story in many forms. Some are less-than-spectacular, others are inspired and clever. One of the best imaginings of this story is Studio Ghibli's the Secret World of Arrietty; a calm, charming little feature that is arguably the best 2D animated feature since Spirited Away.

Like in the original story, the Borrowers, as they call themselves here, have taken up residence under the floors and between the walls of a house occupied by a family. In this case, Arrietty lives with her parents and is coming of age to become a Borrower herself. As she treks off unto her first Borrowing, accompanied by her dad, she lies about her inexperience as she has become somewhat of an adventurer on her own. At this point we see her navigate an intricate series of passageways via driven nails and a clever counter-weight pulley system. Everything seems to be going smoothly until the unthinkable happens: Arrietty is spotted by a boy named Sean (Shō in the Japanese version). After this occurs, Sean, a sickly boy, becomes obsessed with seeing her again and though he means her no harm, it is not meant to be and so her father resolves to move. The remainder of the film follows another resident of the house, a woman who captures one of the Borrows and intends to prove her family is not crazy after their history of supposedly seeing the little people before, but never having sufficient proof, has left them with a sort of stigma. Meanwhile, we begin the venture to find a new home for the Borrowers as the story comes to a close and we see a final few interactions between Sean and Arrietty, who become friends and also work together to assure the small family's safe exodus.

Most of the reviews for Arrietty to to this point have been positive, but some only apprehensively so. While some have called it a movie for “kids” or a “fun little romp” I find a little more in the film than just a quick fix for film-going families. Amidst a genre saturated with uninspired slapstick or noisy animated spectacles, Arrietty is a calm, intelligent, story-driven feature with characters and a nice beginning, middle and end (open as it may be). There is no need for bombast, and no purpose for a lame comic relief character in the form of a jive-talking animal or a chubby sidekick. This is a gentle, peaceful story, and while it has some predictable plot points, it is a story told to us, not thrown at us. In an era where Hollywood assumes all family films should be hyperactive and energetic, this subdued and relaxed tale is a breath of fresh air.

Now, as no film is truly perfect (except for a few that is), Arrietty has a couple problems. First, the character of Sean is never fully realized, and though he is not the main focus of the story, he is Arrietty's connection to the other, larger world. I kept asking questions to myself about this character and almost none of them were truly answered. Another minor complaint is the use of some really cheesy lines at certain points in the film. These predictable lines of dialogue were obviously inserted by the translators as they seem to miss the emotional context of the scene as they really did not know what to say at that point. This happens from time to time in foreign translations though, so it can easily be forgiven. I also have an issue with the Westernization of the film, but that is a personal complaint and I get why they do it, I just do not feel it is necessary in this day and age.

Now, for the positives. The first thing I noticed about this movie, and kept admiring throughout, was the art. The matte paintings for the backgrounds in Arrietty are beautiful representations of remnants of a lost art. In an area of over-produced animated crap, it is so rare to find a 2D animated film that is just a delight to look at. A gallery of hundreds and hundreds of lovely little paintings give this movie a colorful, quaint charm. The characters look good as well, blending into their environment with skillful lighting effects and shadows. Visually, this is a gem.

The soundtrack is also quite good. An Oscar-worthy score fills the atmosphere with soft Celtic melodies. I cannot confirm if this is the original score from the Japanese version or not as I have not yet seen the film in its original form, but as it stands it is perfect. It is inspiring, creating an air of adventurousness and whimsy that fits the tone of the film perfectly.

Though it is not as captivating and unique as Spirited Away, or as epic and entangling as Princess Mononoke, the Secret World of Arrietty is a delightful, fun and inspired film that stands out in its genre. I fear that this film's calm and soft nature may make it sort of a turn-off for our hyperactive and action-seeking youth, but if you are of a family that loves great stories and ones that you can enjoy for years to come, I believe this may be the film for you.

What Ever Happened to the Wonderful World of Animation?

This post is really just a rant.  I saw a movie this weekend that I really wanted to write a review for but I felt the review would require some context.  This intention of this bitchy little post is to shed some light on what I feel is the creative deficit in animation today.  It is not a review or even really all that much of an opinion (some is).  It really is meant to be an argument for where animation is and what happened to it over the last few decades.  This is the medium that is to shape the imaginations of the youth.  Will there not be any one film to inspire them?  Or are animated films these days nothing more than really, really expensive pacifiers?

I am not a huge fan of most animation these days. I grew up in the era of the late-80's and early-90's and on the films of Walt Disney. The animation from those years were more often than not lush, vivid and colorful works that were captivating and expressive. Then, in the 90's, something happened. The advent of fast, thrown-together works for television made weak art an acceptable element of animation. After this point even Disney got lazy, with movies like Lilo and Stitch that lacks the artistic spark that was so prevalent thirty or more years before its release. Traditional animation seems to have taken a backseat to 3D computer-animated movies from the mostly less-than-stellar works of Dreamworks animation to the occasionally-stunning imagination of Pixar.

The last bastion of truly high-quality traditional animation seems to be the strange and often spectacular world of Japanese animation, known affectionately as “anime”. I am sure that I'm preaching to the choir here, but to make a long story short, anime has been a regular source for inspired and creative storytelling and vivid artwork, and while I am not exactly an anime “fan”, there are many that I enjoy and among those are the works of Hayao Miyazaki. His past works include the Oscar-winning film Spirited Away and the beloved epic Princess Mononoke. Both of these films would rank among my picks for the greatest movies ever made. Period.

That said, ever since the early 2000's, there has been a growing disparity between quality animation designed to inspire awe and the quickly thrown-together crap that is made for kids that “just do not know any better”. Lazy animation companies are using Flash and sloppy art to make a quick buck at the expense of the genre. These low-rent hack cartoons have lowered the standard for animated movies everywhere and are unforgivably responsible for the declining quality of Western animated films. If American companies are not churning out crap for a quick buck, they are jumping on the anime bandwagon by making faux-Japanese animation, copying their stylizations while missing the spirit of the genre entirely, they are merely cashing in on the popularity of the medium.

More and more I see weaker quality in the animation and stories that are dumbed-down, quick fixes for cheap humor and stupid, pointless violence. I can trace this turning point back to the early 90's and the advent of Nicktoons, Nickelodeon's foray into the lucrative world of original animated programing. The art in most of these programs was pretty... well... bad. The character designs in Doug were lazy and sort of strange-looking, and Rugrats was just hideous. Ren & Stimpy did have good art, however and as such it was definitely the odd-one-out among its peers. While some of the work of the animators from this time was obviously meant to resemble a more traditional comic strip style, the art is still lackluster. Other programs like the Simpsons and much later the Family Guy also suffered from this deficit though the characters on the Family Guy are hardly as hideous as those on much of the early Nicktoons stuff.

I guess what I am saying is that the way animation looks matters. When one produces a cartoon, the writing and art both have an impact. One can matter more than the other, sure, but when only one (or neither) works, there is a big problem. Truthfully, most kids do not mind if the stuff they are watching looks like crap. This is an acceptable excuse made by less talented animators and studios to generate mediocre or utterly pathetic material for mass consumption.

The moral of the story is simple: Demand better. You vote with your wallets, and your money determines what the studios continue to produce. If you go to see crap, they will continue to make crap. If you take your kids to the multiplex to see a piece of garbage because it is the only thing out, then you are contributing to the steady decline in the quality of cinematic animation as a whole. If you absolutely have to sit your kids in front of a movie, stay at home, pop some popcorn, and watch the Lion King. Watch Toy Story. Watch one of the dozens of truly great pieces of animation that are both inspiring and artistically stunning. Chances are you have, or know someone who has, any one of these movies and the one you chose is likely much, much better than what you are planning on seeing at the theater and it is a lot cheaper than going to the movies.

Now, after that long-winded rant about the endless decline in the quality of animated cinema, I present the light at the end of the tunnel. Earlier in the article I referenced animation master Hayao Miyazaki and a few of his movies. His films seem to be the last bastions of true quality traditional animation in theaters today and his latest film, the Secret World of Arrietty is among the most entertaining and beautiful animated films of the last twenty years and I will give you my full review in the next post.

My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 49 - Father's Day (1997)

Father's Day (1997; Warner
Bros. Pictures)

Following one “I Didn’t Know I Was a Dad” movie with another, Father’s day is a slow, mean-spirited movie that has no laughs and even less heart.  The film follows two men who were both former flames of a woman many years ago and are conned into helping her find her runaway son when they are both told they are the boy’s father.  The men are a brooding, one-liner spewing attorney (played by Billy Crystal) and a nails-on-a-chalkboard writer (Robin Wiliams) and they team up, despite contention, to find the missing teen.

Father’s Day is one of those movies that just slaps the audience in the face over and over again.  The premise is based on a lie and the ending is surprise-free because the film tells us she’s lying to them men early on.  When you give away the fact that the whole premise is a con too early on, there really is nothing to hold the film together after the hour mark.

The son, Scott, when he arrives in the film is a negative, mean little brat who is detestable from the start.  I think he was the inspiration for the son in ANOTHER absolutely dreadful Robin Williams movie from just a few years back called World’s Greatest Dad (a film I reviewed on this blog and hated... a lot).  Billy Crystal, who can be funny, is just a whiny bore here and Robin William’s antics grow really old, really fast.  This is a bad movie, but it’s more than that, it’s a spiteful one.  It’s spiteful to the characters, and to anyone watching it.  It insults your intelligence and your sensibilities.  

My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 50 - Jungle 2 Jungle (1997)

Jungle 2 Jungle (1997; Walt
Disney Pictures)

We are in the middle of an era (thanks mainly to the success of The Office) of American remakes of foreign films and television.  Still, this is a trend that’s been going on for some time and one of the worst example of this trends is the 1997 mess Jungle 2 Jungle.  A fish-out-of water film that is only slightly better than the French film that was its inspiration, entitled Little Indian, Big City (Remember that title, you’ll be seeing it again).

The film centers on a stock broker played by a desperate Tim Allen who flies from New York to the Amazon to finalize his divorce with his anthropologist wife only to find he has a teenage son he never knew about.  For the purposes of plot contrivance, he takes the kid back to New York with him and zaniness ensues.  We get lots of jokes about how dumb people who aren’t from America are.  You know?  Like, hunting house cats for food, peeing on potted plants, climbing on buildings and other things for no reason, and carrying a bow and quiver around.  How delightfully xenophobic!

Little arguments of irrational intolerance and ignorance aside, Jungle 2 Jungle is a laugh-free, boring film with lots of little unnecessary subplots and a very, very annoying performance by Martin Short.  There’s stuff about a scary Russian gangster and something about selling some stocks at a certain price but it is all just padding.  This is a bad concept from the start and the fact that Disney thought the original justified an American remake is telling of how desperate they were for ideas in the 90’s (And this was BEFORE they started turning their theme park rides into movies).

This little mess was directed by John Pasquin, who's career is comprised mostly of behind-the-camera work on failed television shows from the 80's and 90's. He was the director of Home Improvement, a charming little piece of sitcom mediocrity as well as The Santa Clause, a successful family comedy from 1994 also starring Tim Allen. His last two major theatrical film releases were the incredibly dull and forgettable Joe Somebody (yet ANOTHER Tim Allen vehicle) and Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, arguably one of the dumbest sequels of the aughts.

My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - The Half-Way Point

It's been a while since I've started this list and had some bumps along the way that kept me from finishing it before the end of 2011. I have been, for the last two days, posting updates rapidly.  I thank everyone who has been reading my articles and hopefully you will find enjoyment in this bottom 50.  It took me some time to get the bottom 50 organized.  It's easy to find 100 bad movies, it's hard to decide which ones are worse than the others and why.  Note, as I said at the start of this list, these choices are my opinion and I did try to avoid made-for-TV movies and straight-to-video fare.  A majority of the films on this list were major releases that saw a wide release in their respective years, one or two are smaller movies that vanished as fast as they came to theaters.

I left out a lot of sequels too, as they are kind of easy to pick on most of the time.  If there's a sequel on this list it is because it was especially bad, not just mediocre or disappointing.  I hope everyone keeps reading as I progress through the depths of the worst of the 90's from Hollywood and I really would like your feedback.  If you don't agree with my assessments of these films, please say so.  If you hate any of these films as much as I do, I'd love to be reassured that I'm not alone.  I would love to hear from all of you.

Thank you.

My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 51 - Striptease (1996)

Demi Moore was one of the biggest stars in the 80's and 90’s.  Though much of her film repertoire has been less-than-reputable, one of her worst films to date was the failed adaptation Striptease.  The film is based on a satirical novel about a woman who turns to exotic dancing to earn money to fight for custody of her daughter.  Her character was a fighter, but she was also funny.  The movie took the premise and flipped it on its head.

The film version of the lead, Erin Grant, is mistakenly taken in a very different direction.  For some reason it’s decided (I’m not sure by who) that she should be portrayed as the “strong woman” character.  This turned out to be a mistake as every single character in the story was in a comedy except Erin.  She was trying to play the loving mother, moving and challenging while fighting strong against what is considered to be societal norms.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The film also lost a lot of the novel’s laughs due to the overly-sincere screenplay.  And while there was some honesty in the book, this movie is so heavy-handed and filled with blatant feminism that it is borderline offensive.  The stripping scenes (that are about as erotic as a Victoria’s Secret ad featuring Rosie O’Donnell) are mournful, as if we’re meant to feel her desperation, forgetting, once again, that THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A FREAKING COMEDY!!!!

Striptease was a critical failure, and a flop overall with moviegoers. It became national news that this supposedly pro-women movie did so poorly. Some actually blamed the poster, calling it pornographic, and some blamed the power of word-of-mouth. The film was recognized for its badness, however. It won six Razzies including Worst Picture and Worst Actress (Demi Moore).

My 100 Worst Movies of the 90's - 52 - Joe's Apartment (1996)

Joe's Apartment (1996; Warner Bros.
Pictures)

Joe’s Apartment started as a bumper used for the MTV network during commercial breaks.  Apparently somebody thought this one could be a big hit as a movie because they made a full-length feature out of what basically amounted to a commercial.  So how bad can a commercial stretched out to eighty minutes be?  Well, this one has singing cockroaches.

Jerry O’Connell plays Joe, a young guy who arrives in New York City with no plans and no prospects, he just decides to go there.  After getting some help from a punk artist, he finds a rent-controlled apartment.  When he discovers it is populated by hoards of talking cockroaches, the fact that he is unfazed brings the roaches to trust him, so the insects introduce themselves.  The movie actually focuses mainly on these computer-animated cockroaches as they actually break out into song and dance.  Unlike “GOOD” musicals like Singin’ In the Rain, where the songs kind of play off of what is happening on screen, the musical numbers in Joe’s Apartment are pretty much just random toilet humor, and it is all pretty disgusting.

There’s a plot about some slumlord and his goons trying to get Joe to leave so he can demolish that building and put up some big condominiums, and one about a love interest and her garden, but it’s all just filler to stretch the singing cockroach movie out to feature-length.  This is one of those movies where you know there had to have been contention for its production until one person with deep pockets came along and saved it.  Fortunately, it was a lesson because it was a massive flop, and proof that sometimes you need more than just a concept to make a movie work.  This film barely made back one-third of it’s $13 million budget and is proof that singing cockroaches are just too much for American audiences.